Beeswax Canvas

Hi Everyone! It’s Angela here again, with an altered art project. Today I want to show you a canvas that I made using beeswax, stamps, crayons and Tim Holtz distress inks. To start I took a blank canvas board and rubbed various distress inks over it. I then took a piece of cut and dry foam, damped it with some water and rubbed this over the inks to blend them together. I then stamped a large Stamper’s Anonymous Vogue stamp onto white tissue paper. I tore around this roughly. For the beeswax I used a melting pot and some beeswax pellets. I brushed the whole canvas with beeswax and then adhered the tissue paper, and then covered this with more beeswax. Be careful when using beeswax as it is very hot. Once it is applied to the canvas it will cool and harden quite quickly, so you will need to know where you want to put each embellishment before applying the wax. The wax can be melted again on the canvas using a heat gun if you need to. I then stamped some french postmarks onto tissue paper and adhered them in the same manner, along with a strip of scrapbook paper (measuring tape). The handbag and shoe was also stamped onto tissue. I then melted a red crayola crayon in the meltpot, and used a brush to put it on the edge of the canvas, and heated this with the heat gun to help it blend in a bit better with the rest of the content. The manequin was from a collage sheet, again it was adhered using beeswax, and the various embellishments were set into warm wax. Finally I did a packing tape transfer from a dictionary – definition of “fashion”. Packing Tape Transfers are the most simple way of doing an image transfer. Simply use clear tape or contact film/clear sticky-backed plastic if it is a large image, put this over the image or text you want to transfer, rub with a bone folder to make sure that the tape is well stuck down. Then wet the paper and begin to rub the paper off until you can see the image/text. You can then stick it down on your prepared surface. Remember not to place a beeswax collage near a heat source, or the elements may fall off! Hope this inspires you to try something different! ~angela~ ****************** We now have the winner from Yesterday's Heat Gun giveaway, which was kindly donated by Forgetmenot Papercrafts. SuzyB :) Can you contact us please so that we can get your lovely pink heat gun sent off to you :) Congratulations!!! 

Canvases and Backgrounds

Hello :) It's Angela here again, thanks again to the IACW girls for inviting me back as a Guest Designer. Today I want to show you a couple of canvases that I have been working on over the last few weeks.

This work is inspired by Maggie Grey. Supplies: 12x12 canvases PVA glue String White tissue paper Ribbon Lace ribbon Gesso Foam stamps Adirondack Paint daubers in various shades Daler Rowney's Interference Mediums Metallic Rub On waxes Brilliance Ink Script Rubber Stamp Golden Gel Medium Photocopied Image For the first canvas, I covered the entire surface with PVA glue I then got two pieces of thick string and tied knots in them. This was then stuck to the canvas again with PVA, and a piece of textured ribbon was adhered along the bottom. This was then covered with a layer of whitetissue paper, then added more PVA glue and then another layer of white tissue. This was left to dry. I then painted over this using Ranger's Paint daubers in denim and stream colours, dabbed randomly and then mixed on the canvas using my fingers, and sponge paint brushes. Once this was dry I highlighted the string and ribbon covered areas with some more stream coloured paint. Once this was dry, I used Daler-Rowney's blue interference medium over the top. Once this was dry, I rubbed over the raised areas with blue metallic rub-on wax to pick out the detail. The finished canvas looks like this: For the second canvas I used gesso (gesso is a substance used to prime surfaces for painting - it is like a thick acrylic paint). I applied the gesso using a palette knife, making sure that the edges were covered in a heavier layer of gesso. I stamped into the edges using foam stamps. It is important that you wash your stamps through thoroughly immediately so that it doesn't dry on your stamp and damage it.

I then cut two thin strips of lace and adhered them to the top and bottom of the canvas by setting them into the gesso, I then covered this with gesso using my fingers, dabbing it into the holes in the lace to make sure that it is properly stuck down. Leave this to dry overnight. Again this was painted with Ranger Paint daubers in Cranberry, butterscotch and a tiny bit of stream. This was worked into the canvas, into the ridges left by the gesso and into the lace. Once this was dry it was highlighted with red and gold interference medium by Daler-Rowney. The stamped areas were then highlighted with metallic rub ons in green, gold and red. This is the main technique for the backgrounds. I was happy with the first as it was, it didn't need anything else added to it. The second canvas had a large area in the middle that needed something, so I did an image transfer using golden gel medium and a photocopy of an image of my son and stamped with a script stamp using brilliance ink onto the side of the canvas. These techniques are really simple and easy to do and give great effects, they would even work on book covers and many other surfaces. ~angela~