Crafting Binge: Day Two. Experimenting with canvas and my beloved Daniel Torrente stamps.

Inspired by the beautiful Dina Wakley's OUT OF THE JOURNAL 2012, I did a couple of canvases.  Doesn't that sound classy?  "I did a couple of canvases."

It just doesn't as civilized if you phrase it as:  "I wandered through the aisles of the Dollar Tree, wondering if I could paint or emboss or otherwise de-cheapen their plastic chess pieces, then went home and got drunk and painted and glued stuff to a canvas I found in someone's trash can on the next street over..."  

So, yeah,  "I did a couple canvases, this evening."

Do you follow Miss Dina's blog?  It's as purty and classy as she is- so, you should.  She's doing this thing-  wow, I hate the sound of that, 'doing this thing.'  That sounds demeaning, to me.  "She's currently running this promotion," doesn't sound right-  how can I say this?  Oh well, you get what I mean.  It's "OUT OF THE JOURNAL 2012" time at Ms. Dina's blog of beauty!

But, Kory, what IS it?!

Her royal inkiness describes it as:

The idea is to stretch yourself out of your journal by working on canvas and exercise your creative muscle.

I don't have a journal.  Unless you count the insanely large stack of Post-It-Notes-To-Self that I write to myself every stinking day as a journal.  But it definitely isn't the art journal that I religiously keep in my daydreams.

But I love canvas.  It has a beautiful texture.  Like a brand new blank notebook- one of my number one all time addictions- a blank, brand new canvas feels like pure possibility.  Hell, I think they're beautiful just left white.

And did y'all know that, once, I wanted to be a 'real-life' artist?  I did.  I even had (and sold, believe it or not!) paintings in an art gallery.  The hit of that opening night was a gigantic mixed-media piece entitled, "Hard Copy Makes Me Hard."  It sold.

And:  Just like I mentioned above-  I recently found a brand-new, crisply white canvas in someone's trash- so why not give it a go?!

(Yes, it is true that I cannot drive past a pile of trash without pulling over to dig for buried treasure.)

Not only was I inspired by Ms. Dina's work, and even more so by her class, that I recently took- I used stamps.  Ink, stamps, paint, paper, collage- I had a great time!  Thank you, Dina!

This was done on a nicely sized 16X24 canvas.  Acrylic paints, mostly applied with my fingers and a corner of t-shirt.  Part of an old dictionary page.  A Picket Fence Distress Marker.  Anything within reach seemed to make its way to the canvas.  I worked fast and furious and felt great.  I loved making this...

The stamp is one of my favorites by Daniel Torrente.  I love these little critters.  I like the creepy factor, but what I love most is the sweet innocence the little creatures have-  remember how I said I'm still inspired by Dina's Encaustic Tag Book class?  No, there's not encausticality going on here- but I did stamp the little critter on tissue paper- one of the techniques I learned.  I ModPodge'd him on and the tissue paper just faded away.

This wasn't my first canvas, today, though-

Early in the morning, I spotted a little stack of tiny 4X4 canvases that I picked up at Micheals, on clearance for 25 cents each.  They weren't primed or anything- so I did coat it with some gesso, first.

While I waited for the gesso to dry, I stamped and cut out another of my favorite Torrente critters.  I colored him with Distress Inks.  I touched up his teeth with my Picket Fence Distress Marker and did his shoes with the Tea Dye marker- but the rest of him was colored with regular Distress Inks.

I sprayed the tiny canvas with my other favorite 'discovery' from Ms. Dina's class-  DYLUSIONS Ink Spray.  Really?  How great is this ink spray?!  I used the colors of, 'London Blue' and 'Postbox Red.'  This is also when I learned something:  let the first color of spray dry before spraying the next color, otherwise, it just doesn't look as pretty.  That's why it's so dark up there in a few spots.  Luckily, I liked it- so, nothing to cry about.  I did touch up/blend a few spots with Barn Door and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks.  I picked a word at random from Mr. Holtz's ChitChat stickers, glued on the Torrente critter, and stamped some random letters with a white pigment ink.  The word seemed to kinda float there of its own accord.  It didn't look right.  So I drew a 'cord' to it with a silver metallic marker and drew a circle around it with the Picket Fence Distress Marker.  Not happy with how that turned out- but I do like it more than a random floating word.

So that's it for my inspired pieces for Dina Wakley's OUT OF THE JOURNAL.  Look at me, I sprang right out from a journal that I wasn't even in!  But, art journalling is the number two thing I want to do next.  What's number one?  I'm a gentleman.  I don't name names.

-kory