Mixed Media Kittys

I missed seeing my friends who live on another island.  Since I had plans to meet up with them, I decided to make them something to show them I was thinking of them.

I've been meaning to do another mixed media canvas project using my sprays, so I thought it might be good to try to make one for my friend.  She has two cats- Girly and Maui.  Since they are both black cats, I decided to go with her favorite color purple and pink.  Didn't know if she liked pink, but I was relieved to find out she did!  Yay!

This project was such a challenge for me! First I painted the canvas with gesso. Then used some of my stencils to add texture using Dreamweaver paste.  I think next time I'll try to use texture paste to see how that works.  After drying both, I started layering chipboard, metal embellishments and flowers.  Once I got the design how I wanted it to look, I started gluing everything down.

After that, I went to work using gesso to completely cover all of the items. I didn't paint the flowers, though maybe I should have.  I decided to add on some clothespins that were glued down, but still functional. Wanted her to be able to change out the pictures if she didn't like the ones I picked.

I'm not used to working with sprays and found myself continuously spraying, drying, blotting, and repeating.  I guess I was too impatient and didn't really let the color dry and set in. After a few hours of spraying, drying, blotting and repeating, I decided to call it a night and go to sleep.  When I woke up, I liked the results much better than the night before.  I guess sometimes you just need to sleep on it!

Here you can see the clothespins I painted and sprayed.  After they were done drying,  I glued on an acrylic flower.

Decided to raid my Scrabble tile stash and use that to caption the project.  Dummy me did not check the spelling of "Girly" and first spelled it "Girlie".  After checking the spelling, I prayed that I could take off the tiles and I guess it worked because they popped right off without ruining the project.  Yay!  You can see Girly sitting on the throne... Yup, the toilet seat!

I gave it to my friend this past weekend and she seemed pretty happy with it.  What a relief!  I was so worried she wouldn't like it.  I think next time I need to take it easy on the spraying and maybe do it on watercolor paper instead like I did on my other projects.