Painting On Raw Canvas - Experimentations

Raw canvas was on sale at my local art store recently for $0.75/foot.  I was able to get two 3'x5' piece for only $7.50!!  Wow.  I've always wanted to paint on a larger size of canvas but was daunted by the price of big stretched canvases.

Raw  or 'unprimed' canvas hasn't been painted/primed with gesso so it will soak up paint like mad.  This makes it not as inexpensive as it may seem because you will spend a lot in paint when you use it.

I did some experimenting to find ways around this and am sharing the results, so far, with you here.  This is an incomplete work in progress.  I intend to leave this unstretched and use it as a wall-hanging when complete.

1. I washed the canvas in hot water with laundry soap and baking soda. I didn't wash anything else with these because I didn't want them to get bunched up and crease badly.  I did not to use fabric softener.

2. Cut away shredded bits that had frayed at the cut ends.  Then I dried the canvas in the dryer (once again NO fabric softener - it can prevent paint from adhering).

3. Removed from dryer right away and ironed.  This would have been hard on an ironing board so I used the kitchen table.  Because I had 2 pieces of canvas, I doubled them over so there were 4 layers of canvas between the table and ironing board at once, then flipped, rotated as needed to iron all of the canvas.  I used a spray bottle to dampen the canvas and high heat.

What I was left with: the washing, drying and ironing shrank the canvas a bit and made the weave tighter.  Exactly what I was hoping for.

My plan was to use watered down super cheap paint to cover the canvas so that I could paint on it later with less cheap paint.  However, I think I am liking the look of this so much, that it will become the actual painting - not just a background.  I used the Michael's store brand 2oz bottles that cost $0.69/bottle.  I've covered tons of the canvas so far and used less than 5 bottles!  Assuming I use 6 by the time I am done that will be $4 of paint.  Far more affordable than gessoing the canvas.

I planned to make a big mess so I took this project out onto the deck with an old sheet under it (and books to weigh down corners due to wind).

I did some weeding:

 detail of weeds which will serve as a 'resist', leaving areas unpainted under them:

Acrylic paint mixed with water (a bit more than half water) and sprayed using the Tulip Fabric Paint Cannon:

 Spraying a layer of pink:

 Adding a few objects and then spraying yellow:

 Spraying white, then removing all objects:

 detail of weed resist area:

By this time I had a blister on the finger that had been spraying so I put away the sprayer. I put paint and water into empty paint bottles and shook them up to make very watery paint (about half and half paint:water).
I waited for the top layer to dry - very fast since it was a sweltering hot, sunny day.
Then I flipped the canvas over and and began applying the paint to the back with a big brush, adding water as needed with the brush.  This side looks very primary but I will paint over it later and this canvas will become double-sided - I can rotate it on a whim :)

 I chose where I put the big washes of colour on the back because I wanted it to bleed through in specific places on the front.  For example I wanted the weeds to be greenish.

 With this technique, what happens is that the paint on the front blocks colour from bleeding through from the back.  The paint from the back only will bleed through onto any remaining parts of canvas that are still raw.  It ended up having a far cooler effect than I had expected and I'm really excited about it :-)

One of the parts of this piece that I love most is the way the colour gradation shows through in the three diagonal lines in the corner:

 I put my second piece of canvas under the piece I was painting part way through - as soon as I saw what cool effects were bleeding through onto the old sheet.  I wanted them on the blank canvas instead!

Would I do anything differently if I did this again?
Yes - first of all I would use more than one finger for holding down the spray nozzle!  :-)
I also would leave more areas raw, with only sparse splatter on them, because of how much I love the bleeding through effect.

Art Journal Bits 1

I felt like sharing a few bits from an art journal I'm working in lately - and loving.
I have so much fun making the backgrounds! It's been totally addictive for me and feels very therapeutic. I get into a meditative state while doing it that far surpasses anything I've gotten from traditional meditation. I'm so totally 'in the moment' that I'm unaware of time passing - sometimes hours.

juicy acrylic backgrounds scraped on with an old credit card

A huge amount of appreciation is beaming around the world from me to Hanna, whose great posts on altering books inspired me to get a great, spiral-bound Tai Chi manual for a few dollars second hand. Note that because my book is spiral-bound, I skipped the step of removing alternate pages.

another background using scraped acrylic, glued in napkins, marker

These backgrounds are so fast and easy - I love using the scraped-on paint method. Pencil crayon goes beautifully over top of acrylic paint.
The nice, thick pages that hold up well to acrylic paint and fun words to leave peeking through paint:



Thanks for the inspiration Hanna!

In Love With Texture - Sculpture Painting

Now that I am starting to be able to use acrylic paints and glue again as my chemical sensitivities are improving, I am starting to get excited about returning to my first artistic love: TEXTURE building.
I am completely in love with building interesting texture and painting over it.
I use various things to build the texture, gluing on whatever calls to me in the moment.
Tissue paper, fabric, brown paper bags, found objects and dried organic objects like leaves, feathers and seed pods... the possibilities are endless when you have glue and can use it!

Here is a sculpture painting from many years ago that I had a lot of fun making:


And another angle with less glare:


A number of years ago I lived in Montreal which has an amazing system of alleys - awesome places for finding strange little bits of this and that simply crying out to be glued onto something and enjoyed :-)
Most of my 'strange stuff stash' has been packed away, awaiting the day I could use glue again. I think it's time to get it out!


Is there anything you've been saving to use 'one day' that you could dig into right now!?

Add Character To Envelopes

I love decorating envelopes before mailing them to people.
I try to keep the decorations simple and quick to do so that if they get damaged in the mail, it's no big deal :-)

Here's an example of one I made recently before sending to a friend who likes blues, turquoises and spirals:

On a piece of paper, I used stamping ink pads for the coloured background, silver pen for the spirals and silver star stickers leftover from my holiday sticker garland project.  Then I glued the piece of paper to the envelope with a gluestick, trimmed the edges, taped the envelope closed and addressed the other side.   All set to go!
It was quick, easy and fun and I hope that it will brighten some postal worker's day.



I try to re-use and re-purpose as much as possible.  The piece of paper was scrap from the recycling bin and the envelope was re-used (hence my needing to tape it closed :)
☺

Creatively Processing 'Darker' Emotions

I am a person with tendencies towards deep depression at times and have found creativity to be one of the few things that can help get me through those times.
Sometimes the 'darker' emotions are strong enough that I feel stuck creatively.
Those are times when I pull out magazines and go through them to find material for collages or art 'journal' pages (a bit of a misnomer since there is often very little journalling... but I'm not sure what else to call them).


Often, the images I will be drawn to cut out reflect my emotional state.
By the time I have cut out images for a while, I've been brought more into the present moment and reconnected with my creative juice - and am then able to collage or art journal.
Sometimes, this process actually lifts me out of the difficult emotions.  It feels healthy and healing - like the emotions are actually being processed, not ignored or shoved inside to hurt me.

Here are a few pages I did a while ago - adding to them each time I was in a dark place.  Sometimes these pages get journalled on later.

I give  myself permission to be messy :-)
In the above page, the background was done, in part, using this technique I came up with to create a  random/chaotic look on thin papers that would warp with wet mediums.

In the above piece, I wanted a messy stamp and didn't have one so I carved one from an eraser (stamp carving is another thing that can totally absorb me and bring me into the moment).

Are there certain creative things that can help you when you feel sad, angry or down?

Tutorial: Making Colourful Backgrounds That Won't Warp Thin Papers

I finally created a photo tutorial for the art journal backgrounds I've been talking about.

The technique can also be used in card and tag making, bookmarks, collage, ATC's, handmade wrapping paper or anything you can think of!
I'd love if you shared your ideas in the comments area :-)

This is mostly a 'dry' technique meaning that it won't cause thin paper to warp or buckle when applied.
I do also include a variation of this technique that is 'wet' for those who don't mind buckling or who use thicker paper.  The wet version has some really awesome effects like these (and even more fun ones if you colour-mix):

I confess that I hate typing so I've written the directions right in the photos.  If anyone has trouble reading my messy printing, please let me know and I will type out the directions below each photo.
Also, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask them in the comments area.  I've turned off that pesky comment security device so you don't have to type in any characters before commenting :).

Okay... here we go!

*note*
I should have specified NON permanent markers :-)

*other types of plastic may give different effects - experiment if you like!

Eventually I will post a video showing just how quickly this is actually done :-)  The faster, the better.

 

WET Technique:

 

close-up:

 

~

 

If you try any of this out and post somewhere online, please share in the comments area!  I love seeing what others do :-)

Grunge Star Rubbed Impression Page with Ink Pads and Cereal Box Stars

Did you save the shapes you cut out from the cereal box template project?
If not, you may end up cutting out shapes just to make fun pages like this one!

How To:

Lay a piece of thinner paper (ie printer paper) on a totally flat surface.

Take a stamp ink pad and lightly rub it and drag it around the page until you like how it looks.  *If you have an almost dried out ink pad this will be very easy.
All of mine are newer and the trick to prevent big blotches is to have the pressure so light there's almost none... and keep it moving!*

Repeat with as many colours as you like - preferably working from lighter to darker if you care about contaminating the lighter pads with darker colours.

When you like how it looks, take your cereal box shapes and lie them under the paper.

Take an ink pad of a darker colour (or the same as the most dark you have used so far) and rub over top of the paper in the area of the edges of the shapes until you like how it looks!

So simple and easy!

In the basic image above I just used 2 colours and only used the cereal box shapes on the final layer but you can play around to make this much more saturated, with shapes on various layers like this:

It only takes minutes to do but be warned - it's so much fun it can be addictive!
Now I just need a project to use these pages... which I will likely have way too many of soon :-)

If you do something like this and post on your blog or site, please let me know in the comments!  I'd love to share the links for readers.

Possibilities

 

I'm not quite sure what is going on with this playful piece.  I think I will add more layers to it as inspiration hits.  Right now the big empty spaces feel... well.. empty.

The background feels messy - I miss my acrylics SO MUCH.  I can't use them due to reactions to chemicals. I was trying to create a look of texture with just markers and watercolours on flat paper.  Not working... yet.

I rarely plan what comes out - I just go with the flow.

The words that came were 'possibilities... fill the silver seas'.

The huge red egg feels like something exciting about to hatch soon.

The grinning, tiny whale felt very fun even though the logical part of me thought it was ridiculous.  :-)