Friday 10 February 2017

Canvas Book


A little while ago I completed a project for a trade with a lovely texan artist and I was itching to write a post about it here. As she has received it by now I am finally free to publish it here.

I was drawn to the theme of opposites, to be more precise to the theme of Day and Night, Sun and Moon. But to just simply paint a sun and a moon would not have been a complete mixed media project in my opinion, so I used a little Pinterest inspiration and made my trading partner a book out of two canvases back to back.

One side is the Sun


The other side is the Moon


I added two lovely antiqued hinges to the side and below you can see the outside of the opened canvas book.


I continued the theme of Day and Night on the inside by placing a fabric origami butterfly inside the sunny side and a fabric moth inside the dark side. 


To make the fabric more workable for my purposes I used version of a technique called paper fabric. Originally you would use diluted pva glue and different layers of papers and tissue to make a sort of fabric. I used fabric and stiffened it with diluted pva glue for the origami butterfly and the moths wings. The antennae for both were made with curled wire.
I drew flower in the corner onto tissue paper and then coloured it with watersoluble crayons and matte medium before adding it into the canvas. The whole project was varnished with a waterbased satin varnish for protection as a final step.





4 comments:

A Mynah Production said...

Oh wow! As a lover of altered books, this is genius! I love what you did here, gorgeous work dearest! :)

Janina Claywoman said...

Very clever...Beautiful work as always!!! (I might have steal this idea?!)

Miss Iowa said...

What a fun project! And I like that it would stand on its own for display.

Reji Kaur said...

Now that is what I call a nifty idea! I love how you carried the theme over to the insides of the canvases. Where on Pinterest did you find the inspiration?