The Mixed Media Challenge #39!!

Time for another Challenge!!!  Are you ready!!??  This time, our challenge is to create something inspired by the photo in our Challenge #39 badge! And I just LOVE challenges like this because you get to see what everyone else is inspired by in the photo!!  I thought it was going to the weathered wood siding for me, but then the window boxes and the flowers really called to me!

So Come on ... join us at The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge!!

And of course, we have an amazing sponsor ... Indigo Blu!  I mean really - one of my favorite stamp companies - SO awesome!! And one random winner will be chosen from our Challengers to win a fantastic prize!!  

So here is my take on this Inspiration Photo this month ....

I had so much fun with the layers of this project. The project is created on a new Architextures Artboard (they are thick pressed wood covered with textured white paper.)  So on top of that I started with a dictionary and copied a page of it onto tissue paper to give my background a 'thin' start! After the tissue paper was dry, I added scraps of paper to break up the black and white wording. I also used Indigo Blu stamps to create texture and layers in the background

When the background was dry, I started playing with the wonderful butterfly stamps that came with the Victorian Garden set.  I had a scrap of Canvas Corp Plain canvas laying around. I coated it with a thin layer of gesso, the stamp images were crisp and wonderful.  Using different glimmer mists, I water-colored them with pinks, yellow, blues and purples!

So the butterflies needed somewhere to go and I wanted to create some green-ery for them to be flying around!  I took a piece of fabric and sprayed it with Glimmer Mist and frayed the edges.  It really looked like grass!!  There were also a couple of paper scraps with green, using matte medium I glued them all down to the bottom of the canvas.  

When the glue was dry, I took another stamp from the Victorian Garden set and added some more visual interest to the background.

So when I put the butterflies down on the busy background, they just looked kind of lost to me.  I really wanted a more solid color, but wanted to keep the effect of the layers behind.  By mixing acrylic glazing and Plain Jane Matte Mist Watercolor - the two kind of let you see through the color and the paper underneath!  It did take forever to dry though!

This was the first layer and then I sprayed more color directly on top, along with some droplets of blue and white!

When the butterflies went back down on the board, there was much more pop from the butterflies.  The blue color really kept them from fighting with the patterns in the background. So from here, I stamped a couple of butterflies right onto the board.  I added a couple of doodle details and picked my quote.

So there were two quotes I was wrestling with ... one is "May you always be brave enough to fly" and the then the "Follow you Butterflies." And right now, I am trying to get a Health and Wellness business of the ground and it is making me so nervous, I felt like Follow Your Butterflies spoke directly at me! 

And then I was done!  This was a really fun piece to make - but the sentiment meant so much to me.  I am going to hang this on my wall and remember to follow my butterflies.  So if you have something that is giving you butterflies just thinking about .... this one is for you too!

Come play with us, butterflies and all!!  

The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge