Beauty Girls - Mixed Media Gifts :)

Hello Mixed Media Mavens and Generally Awesome Friends :)

Today I want to share with you three mixed media canvas boards I just finished for a friend. This friend of mine really REALLY loves to give gifts. I mean she LIVES for the feeling of giving the perfect gift to anyone she cares about! It is a pretty awesome way to live I think :) So, my friend's long time hair dresser opened a new shop and it has bare grey walls. My friend decided the perfect gift would be to have me make some art for the shop. And of course..my friend paid me with a gift :) Awesomeness in a box...the boxed set of 48 Pitt artist pens I have been drooling over!!! So if you followed all of that...I made a gift for a friend of a friend...and got paid with a gift from a friend. How amazing is that!


My idea was to make 3 canvases that were similar but not the same..so they could hang together on a wall. I decided to do all three at the same time. The benefit of this would be continuity of design...and less dry time since I could work on one while another layer was drying. I had three canvas boards that were from an acrylic painting kit my Mom gave me. They had light grey printed images on them so you could paint them in without drawing. I put of layer of white gesso over them, but it didn't completely make the lines go away. I knew I was going to add many layers so I didn't worry about the faint grey lines..but just went ahead an made sketches on each canvas with my graphite pencil. 


I wanted to make each canvas have have a color theme. I decided on Pink, Orange, and Turquoise. I figured these colors would be nice on grey walls. So my sketches became a  Caucasian girl for the pink, because light skin often has a pink tone. An African American girl for the orange because that skin tone looks lovely in Autumn colors. And a Asian girl for the turquoise because I always see (in my head) Asian girls wearing traditional turquoise silk kimono as the ultimate in fashion. Each of my sketches got a acrylic skin tone base.


My next layer was collage. I used some printed napkins and scraps of gelli printed papers and tissue papers I had around (mostly on the floor). I tried to stay with my color theme for each canvas. I used liquid matte medium to attach the papers. 


Next I choose 2 or 3 colors of my Neocolor II water soluble crayons to fill in the background white spaces. Again sticking with my color themes. I used some water thinned white acrylic paint to blend out my crayon colors.


Then I did some stamping on my backgrounds. I used acrhival ink or acrylic paint.


Next to add some texture I used stencils and Molding Paste from Prima. I applied the paste by scraping it on with a palette knife. This brand of paste has now become my favorite after using several types. It is from their art basics line. I like the consistency..the lack of stickyness..and the dry time.


Once my canvases had some time to dry, I decided to make the backgrounds less busy so that the girls would stand out. I did this my first brayering some watered down white gesso over them...then using spray ink over that. It had the added effect of making the raised areas of the texture stand out more too.


Then I decided on some dripping...I LOVE the look of dripping right now. It is a new obsession :) I used Liquitex acrylic inks and dripped from the top. I used a spray bottle with water to make them run better. I had to use a baby wipe in some cases to clear off my girls faces of drips.


Now it was time to make my girls come out from behind the backgrounds! I used a combination of acrylic paints and Neocolor II crayons to color in my sketches. The base colors of the skin tones are done using the crayons blended with watered down white acrylic. I really get in the zen mode when I do this process. It takes several layers of colors...going lighter to darker to even darker. I really enjoy it.


To finish up, I added some details using my new Pitt brush pens and of course my trusty Posca pens.


And then finally splatters...you can't do without splatters!


I hope you enjoyed my Beauty Girls and I hope the friend of a friend likes them well enough to hang in her beauty shop :) 




I would love to see your comments! <3 Shel

Comments

  1. Wow, those are beautiful!!!! I love them!

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  2. Really, Shell. These are so beautiful. I would love to see them on the shop wall all set together. Thanks a ton for sharing some of your process. I was gonna ask "How did you do them?" And then came over to your actual blog to see that you already described how you do them.

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    1. Thank you Dana :) Yes, I do the step by step thingy here pretty much every time. These were fun to do and I really really hope the shop lady loves them.

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  3. Awesome! Loved reading this post. Faces are my obsession right now.

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    1. Thanks so much Claret Belle :) I think faces are very popluar in mixed media right now. They are so fun to do and you don't have to be perfect since no face ever really is :)

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  4. They're all marvellous, Shel! What an awesome way of getting paid with art supplies!

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  5. Beautifully done, Shel! Love all three of them and I am sure they will work wonders for the gray wall :)

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    1. Thanks so much Pam :) I do hope she likes them and hangs them up!

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  6. I heart your art!!! each gal is so strikingly gorgeous, Shel. These will be eye candy for sure hanging on the walls!!

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  7. I heart your art!!! each gal is so strikingly gorgeous, Shel. These will be eye candy for sure hanging on the walls!!

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