Joy In The Ordinary

Hello everyone!

It's time to reach into your special little boxes and drawers and make use of all your favorite collections!
Everything might come in handy: pretty vintage buttons, feathers picked up on a walk, seashells brought home from holidays - anything that makes your heart sing - Juliya has just a perfect inspiration to turn these treasures into beautiful mixed media art! Enjoy!

PS. I hope you didn't miss the news about my brand new products! Make sure you keep an eye on this place and Prima blog for more of my new "art babies" to come! :)

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Hello friends! I'm here today to share my latest artwork. I made a very special canvas inspired by little joys that we can find on the seashore or by a river.
I love collecting all kinds of nature's treasures like twigs or seashells and I'm sure many of you will know the feeling of great joy when you find just the perfect piece for you! :)
Some people might call it trash but for others these little found objects can be a source of happiness and inspiration to make art.

I hope I'll tempt you with this project of mine to use your collections and create some great mixed media pieces!

First, on my canvas base I glued a piece of fabric using opaque matte Modeling Paste. It was very easy to arrange all the folds while the paste was still wet.

Then I added a shell that is my focal point here and all the pretty embellishments like Mechanicals, little pieces of wood, buttons and other pretty little trinkets.

Heavy Body Gel is an ideal tool for this job - glueing heavier elements is super easy with this thick gel that holds everything in place very firmly and becomes transparent when dry.

When I was happy with my composition of embellishments, I decided to make it even more interesting and wrapped the whole canvas with some white string. You will see how I did it in my video tutorial below.

Then I took a palette knife and added Art Extravagance Black Sand Texture Paste. It created a gorgeous texture imitating sand and foam.

I wanted to achieve an illusion of water running over the objects thrown ashore, an impression of foam and bubbles, the ebb and flow...

When the Black Sand Paste was dry, I whitewashed all the decorations and the paste with Heavy White Gesso and then added some White Crackle Paste.

When the Paste is dried and cracked, you can start adding delicious colors. I reached for Summer Sky Mica Powder - my favorite tone among all the Finnabair's Mica Powders that create such gorgeous sparkle and shine!

You know what happens when water plays with things for a long time? Objects lose their gloss and get covered with rust, right? Well, we do have just perfect products to create a super easy and very believable rust effect! :)

I painted the 'star' of my project - the beautiful shell with Cobalt Impasto paint and Deep Waters Metallique one. Then I decorated it with sparkly Art Ingredients Glass Glitter and Micro Beads. 

Then I added Red and Yellow Rust Pastes, tinted with Metallique and Sparks acrylic paints (see all the links below).

Finally, some accents with drybrushed White Gesso, the sentiments, a little bit of freehand stamping and my canvas was ready!

I love how everything beautifully glitters and shimmers and I'm happy with this illusion of flowing water and all the organic effects.

And now, please enjoy my step by step video!



 

I really like this reminder from my canvas:
Find joy in the ordinary and be curious.
 

After all, sometimes, for complete happiness, you just need to find this special little thing that other people might consider rubbish, but for you it's a real treasure.

A simple little joy hidden in ordinary objects...

xx
Juliya







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