The Keeper of Inspirations

Hello Friends!

This Friday we meet with our wonderful talented Juliya who invited a certain Steampunk Gentleman to her brand new mixed media canvas... You'll fall head over heels for this one! :)

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Hello there, lovely creative friends!

Today I'd like to share with you my new inspiration - a mixed media canvas.

Recently, I've been creating a series of fantasy themed canvases and here's one of them.
This time I used the reverse side of a canvas and created a special imaginary character I called the Keeper of Inspirations. I hope you'll find this gentleman inspiring... :)

I had this thought that al my inspirations must live in an amazing world and such place certainly needs its Keeper. :)

My canvas is filled with all sorts of my favorite elements - nature and mechanics intertwined.

My first step was to wrap the canvas with crumpled kraft paper. And to fix all the lovely folds, I used Soft Gloss Gel.

Then I covered everything with Heavy Black Gesso. In general, I use this gesso in different stages of my projects. I cover all the subsequent layers as it's more convenient for me to create layers and add colors in stages. But of course you can do it differently and after creating yourr composition, cover it with gesso just once and then play with adding the colors.

To add some gorgeous textured layers, I used one of my favorite tricks: 

I mixed different sizes of beads with Modeling Paste. I applied this mixture on my canvas, combining it with natural sisal fibres.

While it's all still wet, you can keep adding more beads or other embellishments you fancy. And when everything dries, you can cover it with gesso to get your surface ready for color media and paints.

When it came to choosing the colors, I used my favorite combination of Art Alchemy acrylic paints. You will find all the links in the product list below.

Spraying parts of the canvas with a little bit of water, I also added beautiful shimmering Mica Powders. They are just perfect to emphasize the texture, add delicate shine and soften the color transitions..

The final touches with Art Ingredients Micro Beads, Glass Glitter and Art Alchemy Vintage Gold Wax and my work was ready!

Please enjoy my video tutorial!

And where do your inspirations live...? :)

It's so interesting to come up with different fantasy projects, weave different materials and styles.

I feel that within me there lives a little girl who loves to invent fairy tales... :)

I hope that I inspired you to create your own mixed media fairy tale and share it with us!
xx Juliya






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