Spring is in the Air- A Vintage Journey- April 2016 Challenge

Hello Everyone and Welcome

Hope you have all had a great week and been fortunate enough to enjoy at least some sunshine wherever you may be in the world.

So today sees the start of the 4th month of the year ( where did the other 3 go ??) and that means as today is the first friday in April its the start of a brand new challenge over at A Vintage Journey .

Lovely Sandy is the host this month and she has chosen a challenge theme befitting of the season - 'Spring is in the Air'. Here's what she says:

'Leave those winter blues behind . Make anything that says SPRING using pastel colours . Its your choice, a card, a canvas, 3D or a tag etc but remember it should be in one of the vintage, shabby , mixed media, art journaling, industrial or steampunk styles that we favour '

   As usual there will be one lucky winner who wins our sponsor's prize  which this month is a £20 voucher to spend at  Country View Crafts 

The Creative Guides also select 3 pinworthy winners who will not only win a pinworthy badge to display on their blog but will also be invited to rejoin us as a Guest Designer for a future challenge.

So with 'Spring in the Air' I have embrace my 'inner calm' and created a mixed media canvas using a more serene colour palette with just subtle accents of darker hues to give it a fresh, crisp 'spring like' appearance  while still retaining a little bit of 'grunge'.

I even managed to refrain from using any black soot !!! Yes, not a single dot of black soot was used in the making of this canvas !!

I began by priming a 5"x7" canvas with a coat of gesso and let dry. Next came the paint and I chose to use Tim Holtz distress paints, watered down to create paler hues - cracked pistachio applied to the left of the canvas, mustard seed down the centre and broken china to the right .

I realised at this point I should have adhered some tissue tape to the canvas before painting so did it at this stage making sure to take it over the edges as well as on the face of the canvas . I then added more paint and gesso to the canvas, remembering to keep it subtle, fresh and 'spring like'.

Now for the detail - stamps and stencils provide this using various products- Watering can Archival ink , distress inks, texture paste, Tim Holtz layering stencils, script stamp and a speckle stamp.

 It still needed a little more, I felt, so I kept stenciling and stamping until I was happy. I then used my splatter brush and the paints to create some splatters before spritzing with perfect pearls and adding  gentle touches of silver gilding wax.

 Now for some close ups of the background 

 The butterfly and Time piece

 As Spring officially begins when the clocks go forward I wanted to acknowledge that somewhere on my canvas so I found a wooden pocket watch embellishment in my stash and altered it with a coat of gesso. Once dry using my finger I caught the gesso surface with hickory smoke distress paint.

 The butterfly is from Tim Holtz 'Perspective' stamp set and is stamped and coloured using the same  archival ink and distress inks as I used for the canvas.  I embellished the butterfly with an ideology game spinner and hitch fastener to represent the hands of a clock . 

I also applied some Tim Holtz crazing medium to the edges of the wings to create a subtle crackle

The letters on the wordband are highlighted using Tim Holtz distress crayons. They do the job so much quicker and easier than using paints. I attached it to the canvas using brads..... 

... and here it is my 'Spring is the Air' canvas !  

 I hope I have offered some inspiration with my mixed media canvas and if you haven't already, be sure to pop by A Vintage Journey to view some of my fellow Creative Guides inspiring projects.

With this challenge only just beginning there's still plenty of time to enter and don't forget if you do you could be chosen as the random prize winner or one of the 3 pinworthy winners . 

I would like to enter my Spring is in the Sir canvas into the following challenges 
Stamps and Stencil Challenge: Spring is in the Air! 
Country VIew Crafts , April Challenge: Spring!  

Thank you so much for popping by today! Your visits, comments and follows are always very much welcomed and appreciated. 

Hope you have a lovely weekend and the sun shines downs on you all

Take care 

Amanda 

xxx