La Calavera Catrina: Mixed Media Day of the Dead Painting

Here's my latest redone canvas. I thought I'd show you the before and afters. La Calavera Catrina is a companion piece to the Shadow Man I posted on Monday. Basically I took an old canvas that we'd painted on years ago, covered it in gesso and then spray-painted through stencils to add a little something to start with.

My next step was to add collage pieces, acrylic paints and pen work to personalize it. Then I splashed alcohol ink here and there to bring all the disparate parts together.

Then I started blocking out the main image and deciding what parts to keep and what t conceal. 

I imagined her as a Painted Lady Calavera so I left her chest designs exposed but covered over a lot of the stenciling on her face.

Her mouth and necklace are two of my favorite parts.

I used caran d'ache neo colors for most of the drawing. They blend into the acrylic paint beautifully and provide their own shading when they smear. 

Her hat is decorated with My TCW Balzer Designs Feather stencil.

This canvas was originally painted by one of my boys in a spider web pattern with thick dimensional paint you squeeze out of a tube. You can still see the raised sections. To highlight the texture, I scraped off the acrylic paint and gesso down to the spray paint. I love the effect.

Thanks so much for visiting. Have a great weekend!

Wedding Shrine

I've been wanting to make a wedding shrine for Chris and I ever since I started making them a year or so ago but I was intimidated by the importance of the event and didn't want to do it wrong. So silly!

Then, a few months ago I thought up the theme that I wanted the shrine to have and it all came together.

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I wanted to make a piece that spoke to the glamor of a wedding and the blissful utility of marriage. What better to represent blissful utility than an old well-used and truly worn cake pan? Cake, what we celebrate our occasions with, how we delight our children and fill our husbands stomachs? It was perfect.

So I scouted out the thrift shops until I found the perfect pan with the right amount of distress.

Then, employing paint stir sticks, an old wedding topper, skulls from a dollar store garland, Tim Holtz dangly sparkly expensive embellies and more hours then you'd ever imagine, I ended up with this:

Be still my beating heart!

This is a project I will treasure for the rest of my life. So pleased it came together.

Just an FYI, I have some extra architectural elements (the big plaster flourish) that I'm thinking about adding to my Etsy shop. Is that something any of you would be interested in?

Here's a picture of the plaster attached to the cake pan to give you an idea of how they look plain:

Linked Up To:

Tatertots and Jello

Whipperberry

Blue Cricket Design

House of Hepworths

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Tip Junkie

Fingerprints on the Fridge

Family Ever After

Momnivore's Dilemma

For Veteran's Day

(click on photo to see it up close)

Today I stand with people all over the world in silent thanks and to pay my respects to the brave men and women who sacrifice their time, their families and their lives to keep us all safe from harm.

This piece is dedicated to each and every one of them. 

You can see how this calaca was made on my post here.