The Caged Bird

The Caged Bird title describes how I've felt this week perfectly. I have been longing to put aside the orderly (and OK yes I admit - cutesy - lol) card making stash and make a mess with paints and inks!

This project has been spinning round in my head for 4 days and today I finally finished it. I have, on several occasions, been really frustrated with myself as it never seemed to be about to 'come together'. I'm not sure it ticks all the boxes as far as cohesion is concerned but I confess that it was good to get back to the satisfaction that mixed media chaos brings to me after being more concerned that what I was making had to satisfy other people's tastes and not my own!

This canvas measures 12" x 10". I painted the background with a mixture of acrylics, watercolours and distress inks in shades of green, brown and white. Whilst the paint was still wet I put some plasterers jointing tape over it and brushed over some thinned down paint then quickly removed the tape to leave a small chequerboard appearance. Once dry I stuck on the script background (by Artylicious and printed onto glossy paper), used some alcohol inks first then painted it with gesso and then stamped the edges of the canvas. I used black Stazon for the crackle stamp and white Versamagic for the flourishes.

The large images on the right were cut from a Graphic 45 sheet that I have had for EONS -(I steeled myself before cutting into it- lol) and the one on the top left is an image from an old book with some gold paint, gold mesh and 3 small metal pieces added.

I used some Paperartsy and Elusive Images stamps for the foliage and the large bird was stamped onto a piece of acetate. The butterfly was a present from a fellow crafter and I used some Glossy accents on the wings and some tiny black gems. The caged bird is also acetate attached with clear glue.

Please click on the pic to enlarge.

The theme at 'So Artful' is 'Shy Beauty' - and I believe that the women's faces are beautiful (shy I'm not sure???) 'Lots To Do' has challenged us to use Alcohol Inks, Gingersnap Creations (GCSP3) has their Blue Moon challenge theme of 'Take on a Tutorial' and I chose the tutorial on 'Creating a Background With Acrylics' , the Sunday Stamper's theme is 'Free (as a bird)'. Sunday Stampers is also having a blog candy give away to mark their 100 weeks! Click on the link in my sidebar! and last but not least Mixed Media Monday's theme is 'Look what I've found'....and as I 'found' the courage to use the paper, I've submitted my canvas!