Imagination Crafts: 2017-04-16

Tuesday 18 April 2017

Tuesday Tutorial - Butterfly Canvas by Martina Tidball

Good morning, crafty readers, Martina here with a breakdown of how I created one of the canvasses for the Imagination Crafts' show from Ally Pally. All the items sold out so quickly that I don’t think more than a handful of samples ever had the chance to be shown!

Taking one of the larger canvasses, I coated the whole thing in Baltic Blue MDF paint.

I had an idea that I wanted some butterflies to be ‘bursting’ out from a book or page, so needed to create something to show this. Once the MDF paint was dry, I started ripping up card and boxes to see what I could make (it did get a bit messy!)

Once I decided on a rough position for my ‘torn’ section, I was able to start building up my canvas and forming the picture. Taking script Art Stamp, I used Dark Orchid Starlight Wax directly onto the stamp and dotted it randomly around the whole area.

Taking the Large Detail Butterfly Stencil, I sectioned off a trail of the stars and spots and then used Island Blue Starlight Paint and a Domed Stencil Brush to add sections of these over the canvas.

Knowing that my butterflies were going to ‘escape’ from the bottom left corner, I took the

Light Purple Mixed Media Ink Spray and spritzed from that corner diagonally up the canvas.

Turning back to my Detail Butterfly Stencil, I used some Dark Orchid and White Gold Starlight Wax to stencil different butterflies over the whole canvas.

Whilst that was all drying, I wanted to create some flying butterflies for the canvas. This time I applied Blackcurrant and Lavender Sparkle Medium through the stencil onto strong acetate.

At this point I turned back to my torn corner. I used some strong mount board, tore it in the middle and folded the edges back to look as if they were peeling away. To keep the edges in place, I secured the card with strong glue. To make it all look more like an old box or fabric, I applied liberal amounts of Blanc Rusty Patina all over it. The texture of the Patina is amazing and gives such a rugged effect! As I had used so much product on this section, I put it all aside and left to dry for several hours.

I wanted to add a sentiment to my canvas, but I didn’t have anything in my stash that was the right size and feel. In the end, I decided to use my old trick of typing a sentiment in a word processor, changing the font and position to suit and then printing onto thin tissue paper (the best way to do this is to tape some tissue onto some copy paper before running through your printer). I tore around the sentiment and then placed into position on my canvas before applying a generous coat of

Magi-Bond Decoupage Glue all over.

Turning back to my corner section, I painted the whole thing with White Gold Starlight Paint. Once dry, I used my finger to apply Dark Orchid Wax over the whole area and reveal all that lovely texture! I glued the corner into place and then to tie it all in I used White Gold and Dark Orchid Wax all around the edges of the canvas.

With my butterflies cut out and applied, my canvas was all complete!