March Creative Adventure - Numbers

Welcome everyone!  This month's theme for Creative Carte Blanche is "Numbers".  I have to admit I thought long and hard about this one!  However, after a while I began to think outside the box and wondered what we could do in a day to make a difference.  I finally came up with this canvas:

Now I am going to be brutally honest with everyone this month and confess that I struggled with this piece.  I initially wanted to use a quote from Ghandi "There is more to life than increasing it's speed".  You will see in a few of these photos that I cut the words up and used them on the piece.  However, as I went along, I was not happy as the piece began to look too busy.  Off went the words as I tried to "clean up" this piece and simplify it a bit.  I'm sure everyone has had this happen to them at some point, right?

I began by covering a 5" x 7" canvas with Gesso.  When dry. I used Tim Holtz's Dot Fade Layering Stencil to add some texture using Wendy Vecchi's Studio 490 White Embossing Paste.   Once dry, I used DecoArt's Cobalt Turquoise Hue paint to cover the canvas.  I used a brush and a baby wipe to cover the canvas, using the baby wipe to highlight the textured areas.

Later on in the process I added some DecoArt Burnt Umber paint lightly over the top of the texture as well.

I wanted to convey the message that the Earth keeps turning and time marches on whether we want it to or not, so I used Tim Holtz Sizzix thinlit Globe to die cut the earth from a piece of Manila card stock.  Then I used Tim's Sizzix Large Pocket Watch and die cut this piece from some alcohol ink paper I had.

The Earth needed some texture, so I used Wendy's White Embossing Paste again to slowly "dab" the texture onto the land masses with a small paintbrush:

Next I used some DecArt Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide paint with a small paintbrush to add color to the newly textured land masses.  To tone down the color and add more terrestrial colors, I dry brushed on some Burnt Umber and later some Sap Green paint.  Candy Colwell used a similar technique in one of her tutorials.  Thanks for the great tips, Candy!

When the entire piece was finished, I trimmed it down so that it would fit inside the large pocket watch.

The next step was to adhere the pocket watch to the canvas along with a few other pieces:

I added the "clock hands" (Idea-ology game spinners)  to my pocket watch "world" .  I then cut out the "2" and the "4" from the numbers on Tim's Sizzix Alterations Word Play alphabet from black card stock and went around the edges of the numbers with Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide                     DecoArt paint.  I also began to lay down different elements.  This is where I told you that I wasn't happy with the words, so things changed a bit at this stage.

I took off the words and added more metal embellishments to represent time.  I used several Idea-ology large gears to which I adhered Time Pieces and spinners.  I used a Remnant Rub about time on one of the gears.

I also found some ticket stubs in my stash that I used to represent" your ticket to today".  I liked the extra pop of color they added to the canvas as well.

I used an Antique Copper metal frame from Creative Impressions to highlight another remnant rub with the abbreviation for "Number" that I added to one of the tickets at the bottom of the canvas.  I also used some Creative Impressions ball chain to add to the top of the pocket watch.

I deided to add another number "24" to the bottom of the canvas as well.

To finish the piece, I added a few more tiny gears to the canvas.  A friend of mine suggested I computer generate the abbreviations for hours, punch it out and attach to the gears.  Wasn't that a great idea?

Now I am happy with this canvas.  When I look at it, hopefully it will remind me to slow down a bit and appreciate every minute of the day as we never know what tomorrow will bring!  How will you spend your next 24 hours?

Susan