Saturday Spotlight #2

The second installment in my Saturday Spotlight series is something I've been holding onto for a while, waiting for the right type of post.  These Saturday posts are just the right venue to showcase my projects without taking away from the rest of the blog.

I've finished another art project.   This one took me a few weeks, mainly due to acquiring materials and then drying time.   I have a great friend who is artsy-fartsy like me and we have been getting together every now and then to make things.   It's been wonderful not only to spend time with her, but also to  put my energy into making something meaningful.

The first session together, I texturized a square canvas.   I wasn't really sure how I wanted to do it because I really had no idea what I was creating at that time.  I just glopped on the Fredrix gel all over the canvas, making twirls and swirls and jagged lines with the white goop.   It was super fun!  Eventually, I settled into a pattern I liked.  After drying it with a hairdryer - and short circuiting the lighting to her studio a few times - it was ready for paint.   I used a watered down golden glaze and with some mahogany colored streaks of acrylic paint.   So, then, my canvas looked like the section of a tree.  Well, a gold tree.

I really had no idea where I was going from there.  I have found that artists do one of two things - either create their vision or envision their creation.  I'm the latter type.   Mostly because if I actually have a vision to begin with, it is almost always something else entirely when it is finished.  I take it as it comes.   So, for about two weeks, this "tree" canvas sat in my house while I figured out what I was going to do with it.

Then, I knew.  I scanned a picture of Kenley's feet and "antiqued" it in a photoshop type application.   I printed a 5 x 7 photo and cut the feet out carefully.   I also had a black and white photo of Mike and I walking on the Cocoa Village pier, so I carefully cut us out of that picture.   For years, I had ideas to use tissue paper to create a mosaic of sorts on my kitchen table with modge podge.   That never came to fruition, but as a result of that intention, I have collected copious amounts of tissue paper.  I layered the tissue paper along the bottom of the canvas to create a "ground" for Mike and I to walk on.  In the air, I created a pink tissue paper balloon.  I placed Kenley's feet inside the balloon and then connected it to us with a loop of twine.  At our wedding, we used antiqued keys as seat assignments, so I strung one of those keys through the twine as a symbol of our bond together as it connects to Kenley.   Although I didn't know where I was going with any of this project, I am still pretty pleased with how it turned out.   It's hanging in my living room.

  

Obviously, there is also an owl there!