Radiate Joy Mixed Media Canvas

Hello everyone.... coming up from a couple days of playing with this mixed media canvas. Turned out darker than I wanted, but I’m pretty pleased with the overall feel of it! I basically used 3 stamps from Unity’s May 2020 SMAK kit, Radiate Joy, a border stamp from their Wildflower and Wings 4/14 SMAK kit, and a sentiment from their  Helluva Start 12/15 SMAK KIT. (The advantage of being a membership subscriber is you can pick up past kits heavily discounted!) I also used 3 stencils and bubble wrap for texture.

I ended up using a hodgepodge of products: acrylics (metallic, shiny and flat), Gansai Tambi watercolors (flat and metallic), clear embossing powder, pastel chalk, Gelli Plate, roller and spatulas,  and Archival and Stazon inks.

I started with a blank 8x10 canvas, rolling on orange paint and then started layering on stencil images. I let that dry a bit and stamped my vase image and painted it. I then went back to the canvas and started adding the teal color... with a combo of roller and stencils. I used the flower burst pattern where I was going to have flowers. And I added the darker teal at the bottom and randomly all over, using roller and stencils, to darken the area around the base of the vase and edges. I then decided to add a second contrasting paper and pulled out my gel plate. I proceeded to use the same stencils with the lightened versions of the colors by adding white, again adding teal at the bottom. I ended up inking around the edges of that paper and adding an embossed border along the side. I stamped a background border stamp along the bottom of that paper and extended it out onto the canvas on both sides.

I fussy cut out the vase and added foam tape to the middle of the back of the vase. I glued it and the edges and flowers to the paper. So, now there is a slightly raised rounded look to the vase. To create the border and sentiment strips, I first watercolored the paper in matching colors and dried them. Then, I stamped and embossed over the strips. For the top sentiment, I first white stamped and embossed and then added orange ink and clear embossed over it... to get a light colored sentiment. I inked up the sides of the canvas and adhered all the pieces. I used pastel chalk to blacken around the edges of everything.

Hope you like this one... I do! I love southwest colors and thought them a perfect complement for the vase. I also wanted a fairly positive message on this one. Unity’s SMAK kits are perfect for mixed media projects, with all the textures and backgrounds you could possibly need. Well, I now have a mess to clean up after getting fairly inky and paint spattered. So, I’ll sign off now... hope you enjoy the holiday weekend, soak up some sun and perhaps, get inky yourself! Enjoy!