It's the ARTplorations Mixed Media Challenge for July, 2016

Hello and Happy Day Blog World, and welcome to my first ARTplorations Stencil Sunday post as a STAMPlorations girl on the Mixed Media design team!

  

I am super excited to have been chosen for this incredibly talented and creative team and I cannot wait to share ARTplorations with you for the next 12 months... Here is what I created for this my first "Stencil Sunday":

A 4x6 board canvas which also happens to be my submission for the Design Team Call. I used the ARTploration Feathers and Arrows large stencil and the STAMPlorations Trendy Birds stamps set on this project and I
detailed my process below.

Plus, because today is the first Sunday of the month, it's also the July Mixed Media Challenge!

Here are the rules for the Mixed Media challenge that runs the entire month of July and Prizes WILL BE AWARDED! Here are the rules:

MIXED MEDIA CHALLENGE GUIDELINES
This challenge starts on the first Sunday of the month and ends on the last day of the month.

• Your project(s) can be anything mixed media except a card (so no cards, please!).
• You must use a stencil or stencils (any brand) in your project(s).
• You can enter as many projects as you wish as long as they are in separate blog posts.
• To be eligible for the prizes, you must display the challenge graphic in your post and link back to the challenge post (not just the main blog).
• Link up by the last day of the month, 11:55 p.m. Pacific (GMT-8).

Prizes

• The winner (as voted by the design team) receives a $15 gift certificate OR her choice of any 2 ARTplorations standard size stencils OR 1 ARTplorations large stencil.
• The two (2) top picks (as voted by the design team) get to pick their choice of any 1 ARTplorations standard size stencil.

Pretty Sweet Huh? and we, the creative team, look at every single project that you link up and vote on a winner.  I hope you enjoyed my first STAMPlorations Stencil Sunday project and that it helps to inspire you to create something and join in with us this month.

Now for those of you that are interested here are the steps I took to create this mixed-media 4x6 board canvas... which took only an hour from start to finish!

I started with a 4x6 board canvas in my stash that was already covered in paper and a very bold paint choice (grin).

I used these metallic embossing pastes applied through my stencil ... it dried very quickly and with a beautifuly metallic sheen.

Next I sprayed some 140lbs watercolor paper with my Dylusions sprays and stamped bird images in brown and teal Stayzon ink... which I then cut out. (I ended up choosing the images stamped in the brown ink.)

Once the embossing paste had dried I dripped some Golden Fluid acrylic paint right overtop of the canvas and let it do it's own thing (part of the letting go and trusting in the process of mixed media art)

Finally I softened the colors on the canvas by rubbing on and then off some brown and rust colored pigment inks overtop of my canvas and outlining the embossed feathers in black waterproof pen to make them pop.

I mounted the bird images to the canvas using foam pop dots and used a matte gel medium to apply this saying which I had stamped on tissue paper in brown Stayzon ink.

And finally, I edged the entire canvas with some black acrylic paint, applied with my finger, to finish it off.  From this angle you can see all the lovely texture and it just makes me happy!

I am adding this project to the following challenges: 

Creative Artiste Challenge Blog: Challenge #16, Anything Mixed Media Goes 

CCEE Stampers 1626 Mixed Media

As always, thank YOU for popping in to see what I am up to and please do leave me a comment if you like what you see!

Mixed-Media Artist Lynne Mizera

for the ARTplorations Design Team