I threw the kitchen sink at this project. I started by photocopying an enlarged image of a horse I found in an old calendar, I cut it out and used it as a template and drew the outline on a canvas. I then painted Liquid Frisket over the whole image, let it dry. The next step was fun as I painted a background color of School Bus yellow and then went wild with bold streaks of bright colors with my paintbrush loaded with acrylic paint. I use the inexpensive craft type acrylics. Wait until everything is dry then you take an eraser and "erase" by peeling off the rubberized frisket which has now left a white image of the horse. I painted in the horse image with black acrylic.
I thought the painting was lost as it just wasn't as free flowing and interesting as I was expecting so I had nothing more to lose so I pulled myself together and reminded myself that my hobby is journal art so do that — just start treating the canvas as if it was a page in my journal. The image could have been finished there but it just felt like it fell flat so I pulled out a bottle of All Night Media Liquid Embossing to add a dimensional glass to the horse. Then it stood out too much so I went to town and pulled out all the stops — looked around my craft room and started grabbing stuff.
I used a stippling brush to darken the corners of the painting with stamping ink. Then I added some embossing ink on a piece of bubble wrap and dabbed that down around the edges of the painting. Added some clear embossing powder and used a heatgun to heat and raise the bubble wrap dots. I also added swipes of acrylic paints on a fairly dry brush around the edges of the painting to add visual interest.
I try not to think too much at this stage –put on some fun music, just look at stuff around your art workspace, feel it will work, and try it — it frees up the creativity.
Next came the sticky fingers fun — gluing stuff down — scraps of decorative paper, dollar bin ribbon, big bold buttons layered with smaller buttons glued on top, coffee stir sticks that I glued a bunch of beads on with Golden's Acrylic Gel medium – the heavy version (you have to let it dry before gluing it to your canvas — and it takes several sessions to fill in the blank spots with more beads and then adhere it with Aleene's Jewel-It glue), a pipe cleaner that I had wound two types of yarn around — one had a bunch of little wispy pieces that stick out all over, the other was fluffy and full so it hid the pipe cleaner once wrapped, glass marbles, broken glass pieces, and bottle caps that I had rusted and then glued a button down inside of. I added swipes of paint across the ribbon to make it more interesting. I dabbed paint on the bright buttons with my fingertips to tone them down. Voila — it's done.