Hello Winter Mixed Media Canvas

I am absolutely not a winter person but I live in Canada and winter is pretty serious business here with snow days and snow clothes and other winter stuff.  *ugh* Of course, my boys think winter is fabulous. We can't say words like "outside" or "out" unless we mean it. So, I'm not going "out",  I'm "running errands". And when the dog wants out, we say things like, "Can you please let the dog...?" We literally don't say the word "out" if we can help it.

So, you might wonder why I made this canvas?



Well, mainly to use my Luminarte Silks. I bought them at my LSS, The Paperie, and they're wonderful. The Silks are an acrylic glaze so you can paint them on anything and they're translucent when dry.  They dry pretty quickly and come in an amazing rainbow of colors. I only have a few bottles but a very long wishlist.

To start this canvas, I painted some Ice through the Dylusions Starry Starry Night 5x8 stencil. Ice is a creamy color that dries white/clear with a lovely shimmer. On a white background, like my canvas, it looks very much like the Versamark watermark effect because Silks act as a resist when dry. I used Cobalt Blue for my sky.

Here's a closeup...



It is so easy to get this subtle effect that I just fell in love with Silks. After I finished staring at the background, I hot glued the tree to the canvas. The tree was something I had made last year when I had found this Old Book Christmas Tree tutorial by Kissy over at Cocoa Daisy. It was really easy though a little time consuming to make. The perfect project when you're watching tv or a movie.

I love how red and blue look together so I colored 4 Studio Calico wood veneer birds (one for each of us) with red paint and then covered them with Distress Stickles and glued them on.



And then I finished it off with some glittery letters.



This is not a jaunty, "Hello, Winter! Do come in?" It's a sardonic and sarcastic, "Oh, hello. It's you." So, while I'm happy to have a little bit of art that I made myself, I'm actually planning my "Hello Spring" piece because I really want winter to be over.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cathie