Sing your BRAVEST song

Hello sweet friends!!  I thought I'd share a special piece of artwork with you.

These past couple of months have been a little trying (and at times, more than a little trying!).  I have had moments of real difficulty. . . .but what's life without a little of that?  So being inspired by some of the girls over at the Brave Girls University I decided to paint myself a beautiful reminder to "Sing my bravest song"! It reminds me that no matter what life throws at me that I can always picky myself up, dust myself off, hold my head high, work through the pain (both physical and emotional) and just keep moving forward.  I hope this will help serve as a reminder to you, should you need it.

I began by adhering some blue tissue paper to my canvas using gel medium. I then applied a slightly thicker layer of gel medium over the top and then used the end of my paint brush to draw swirls in the gel medium. Be careful not to push too hard as this will tear the tissue paper. Set this aside and let it dry well.

I then mixed some white and teal paint together to create the shade of blue that I wanted for my sky and began painting across my canvas. While doing this I noticed some of the swirls were being filled in with the paint so I just used the end of my brush again and retraced over the swirls to allow the blue of the tissue paper to show through. I let the paint dry slightly and then took a baby wipe and began to wipe back some of the blue paint to bring through a little more of the tissue paper and pick up on some of the texture left behind from the gel medium.

Then while the paint was drying I used my stabile pencil to draw in where I wanted my branch to go, but I didn't draw in the leaves, these were freehand painted. And then I set about using some brown paint and painted the branches in and then the leaves. I chose two fabrics for the birds body and wing and then I free hand drew and cut these shapes. I also went through some of my printed serviettes and cut some small slivers in varying shapes and sizes to put over parts of the body, tail and wing. I used gel medium to adhere the bird and serviettes and paper. Be careful to make sure you separate all of the layers of serviette and only use the single printed layer.

Then I used some old book paper to create a beak, adhered it down and gave the whole bird a coat of gel medium. After this had dried I used my stabilo pencil to shade around the outside of the bird to help it become more a part of the canvas than a bird stuck on the canvas. I used some black paint to paint in the eye and feet and then used my white sharpie to create some doodling on the wings, eye and around the bird to help lift it.

And then finally I painted a mixture of brown paint, modge podge and water to create a glaze and I painted this over the entire canvas. Using a wipe I was able to pull back some of the glaze to give the canvas an antiqued look. I painted some white lace with black acrylic paint and while that was drying I stamped my saying. Then finally I adhered the black lace to the top edge of the canvas using modge podge under and over.

So It's onwards and upwards!!  We have so many exciting things planned for Whimsy in the coming year. . . . I hope you have some exciting adventures planed too.  But in the mean time. . . . Stay safe!  Keep sane and remember you are so very loved xxx