"Be kind" Canvas, by Amanda H

Hello Colour Blast fans!

Today I am sharing a canvas that I created for one of my daughter's high school teachers. She has made "Be kind to yourself and others" the quote of the year. I loved it and decided to create this for her classroom.

Here is a sneak peek, before I show you the steps I took to create it.

I started by painting the canvas with a coat of White Heavy Gesso.

Next I placed some tissue paper on the canvas and stuck it down with some matt gel medium.

Then I added a thin coat of Gesso. I used a very wet brush so the coat was thin and water-washed.

Once dry I used Colour Paste- in Snow White - through a damask stencil. I set the canvas aside to dry.

Next I did some stamping. Firstly I shaped some heads....

And then stamped the facial features.

I also did some random black stamping throughout the canvas.

Then I grabbed some Colour Artist Inks - in Berry and Slipper. I painted the canvas, adding colour and water as desired.

I also painted some Colour Spray - in Grape - to the canvas too.

Then I hit the colour with a heat gun. As it dried, I found places to add more colour or more water. For example, I added more colour around the heads, which, when dried quickly, it became the hair.

For some shimmer, I painted some Colour Shimmer Spray - in Blush - in a few locations also.

I then used my paint pen to highlight the hair on the canvas, and re-define the stamped image faces.

Finally I added some paint and splatters of gold, using Colour Shimmer Cube - in Bling.

For the title, I used some Colour Embossing Powder in Dusty Charcoal.

For the word "be", I inked the letters black before embossing, giving it a thick 2 coats.

For the word "kind", these letters were already white glittered, so I did just a quick light coat of the embossing powder. They kept some of the texture.

For detail, I used my black paint pen to trace around these letters.

And here is the final canvas... and I love it and so does my daughter. I cannot wait to see what her teacher thinks!

Close up of the title.

I love the stamped faces.

The colours have run into the scrolls and flourishes of the damask stencil and it looks awesome!

Thanks for looking today!

Amanda