Shadow Box Canvas

While I have never considered myself an artist, I do consider myself a crafter. I reserve the title of "artist" for those whose pieces I think belong in a gallery or hanging in the art institute. The interest in "mixed media art" has me fascinated. I love the painting and different textures and little accents and touches. It boggles my mind at how they can take so many different mediums and turn out a piece that looks so "put together."

Last  summer the Craft and Hobby Association's trade show had a focus on "Mixed Media Art." It made sense being that so many crafters have their hands messy with more than one art form. This being the case many of the vendors at the show, demonstrated how their products could be used in mixed media. I sampled and dabbled and tried them all. I had so much fun playing that I finally decided to jump in and try something new.

The phrase "pieces of my heart" kept drifting through my mind.  I envisioned hands tenderly holding cherished pieces of my heart. I know that I can't draw to save my life so I wanted my piece to revolve around a photo. I didn't want to just stick the photo to the canvas so I had the idea to shadow box the photo within the canvas.

Since a blank white canvas can be intimidating I started with a messy base coat of a creamy metallic colored acrylic paint, I then topped it with some music I photo copied and then distressed and tore up. I used Mod Podge to not only adhere down but to give the background a bit of a glossy texture. When it dried, I used my USX as a stencil to add a window in the canvas. Instead of using the USX blade with the template I used my Fiskars retractable fingertip craft knife to cut out the window. I then added a double mat frame using the same template I made the window out of to give me an exact fit. I used a transparency as my window glass to seal in the photo.



For the heart I wanted a kind of free form heart that somehow fit together, yet didn't but still made up the heart. Painted puzzle pieces fit the bill perfectly. For a caption I played around with different fonts of chipboard letters, edging some in gold and glittering others. To finish it off I added a touch of coordinating ribbon just cause I thought it needed a bit of movement along the side.

While I'm not sure the finished piece could "technically" be considered "mixed media art" based on today's standards. I was really pleased with my finished piece. It was fun to figure out how everything would fit together and dig through not only my paints, but my inks, metallic rub-ons, and papers, and even tossed in some photography as well.



Supplies used: 11 x 17 canvas, black art board, sheet music, chipboard-My Minds Eye, Rusty Pickle, Lil' Davis, photograph, old puzzle, paint-Plaid folk art various colors, Krylon Glitter Blast (starry night), Ink-Color Box Q Stack(chocolate and blueberries), Ranger Distressed Ink (vintage photo, tea stain), Metallic Rubons-Craft T (Set #2), ribbon-Stampin' Up!, Crafts Etc.,  Fiskars USX Template (Rectangle), Fiskars Retractable Craft Knife,  Mod Podge, Xyron 900, Glue Gun, Glue Dots, Staples.