This one turned out to be surprisingly easy for me! I have always wanted to do something with my favorite photo of my children when they were 5 and 7. We had just moved here to Colorado and were excited about spending lots of time in Rocky Mountain National Park. This was one of the first photos we took. It was just waiting to be placed on a canvas:
I began by making a copy of this photo at the copy store. I then transferred it onto Sticky Back Canvas. You need a little patience with this technique when you use a larger photo, but it was so worth it! It gives a bit of a "rustic" look to the photo.
This piece was set aside while I worked on the main canvas.
The "wood" part of this piece is a Crafters Workshop woodgrain stencil that I used. I applied gesso to the canvas via the stencil, moving the stencil around until I had the canvas covered, everywhere but where the photo canvas would be.
I used a baby wipe and DecoArt Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide Fluid Acrylic paint to color the canvas. I then added a coat of DecoArt Burnt Umber Fluid Acrylic paint over the top. I was pretty happy with the resulting color!
Now to add the embellishments to the canvas. Of course we have to have trees since we live near the mountains. I used Tim Holtz's Thinlits Woodlands die to cut out three trees. You will notice that this tree die actually removes the inside of the tree. I kept the inside parts and pieced them back together as I wanted a more solid tree.
Now to add a word and some wildflowers. The wildflowers are a lavender stamp by Impression Obsession. I stamped it onto tissue paper using Wendy Vecchi's Fern archival ink. I then carefully cut around the image and adhered it to the right side of the canvas using matte medium. When dry, I cut apart some flowers from a stem I bought at a hobby store and placed the tiny purple blossoms over the lavender flower part of the stamped image.
I also added some white blossoms for variety.
To finish the piece I wrapped some gingham ribbon from Creative Impressions around the canvas, going along the base of the photo and adhering a word band from Idea-ology to the left side under the photo. I adhered a few more blossoms over the ribbon on the right side. The word seems to fit this scene perfectly as if says "Always be on the Lookout for Wonder". My kids were constantly amazed by all the beautiful things they found in the park.
If you will notice, there is an elk happily grazing in the background of the photo. She fits the "Wild" part of this adventure just as the Wildflowers do! Now for another "wood" element, I placed a found branch along the top of the canvas photo.
I hope you like this piece and will have fun creating your own project using the 3 W's! Happy Creating!
Susan
