2020 #13 My Home Canvas with Kay Carley Stamps {by Jenny Marples}

2020 Topic 13: Lines

Intro
This gorgeous Cottage is dripping with pretty flowers, perfectly summery! Jenny has come up with great 'line' ideas embedded in the background too! And the little key embellishment is perfect! Frescos and stamps combine with serene harmony for this delightful creation.
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jenny (Pushing The Right Buttons) here today, and I'd like to share with you a home decor canvas featuring, well, a home! And not just any home. Kay Carley has designed this very special, magical home complete with whimsical flowers and quirky windows. To add some detail without overpowering the image itself I decided to use the page from an antique French book about architecture as it's backdrop.

The photo below shows how I got started with working on the book page, stamping Kay's image from her EKC40 stamp set centrally with a stamping platform before painting it with diluted Fresco Finish Paints. Water was added to the paints to ensure some of the text could still be seen through the colour. It was easy to select coordinating shades of brown for the body of the house since they all came from the same 'family'. Then I went with muted cool tones for the flowers and vines to compliment the vintage look and used less water with the paint to cover the words more fully.

With the current theme being lines, this became the main focus when working out the composition for the finished canvas. I covered an A5 canvas in Grunge Paste, dragging it down the surface to ensure parts were left uncovered. Lines were then scored into the paste using a (dirty!) ruler to act as a guide for lining up the elements that would be layered onto the canvas.

Back to the paints and I gave the canvas a coat of Chalk Fresco Finish Paint before applying a dilute layer of French Roast Fresco Finish Paint. Just before it was completely dry I rubbed a clean cloth over the surface to ensure the deeper shade would be left in the crevices. By sanding back the top layer a little in some areas some of the Chalk colour was revealed again.

Moving on to the painted page I folded it along a line and cut along that line, leaving the overlapping areas in place. The book page was then backed with some off cuts of mount board to give it stability and dimension.

You can see below from the first of the close up photos that the cut page is mounted onto the canvas up against a textured strip of paper - it's actually the leftover strip from a paper pad once the pages have been ripped out. Next to that I added a couple of lines of burlap string, frayed at the ends to give them a softer finish.

Before adding the cotton lace I realised added the other side to the page used for the main image which gives the illusion that the page remains in one piece. The lace that was then added has been coloured with the leftover dilute Venice Blue and Forget Me Not Fresco Finish Paints, brushed over with the Chalk Fresco Finish Paint to catch the highlights. The little brass key sat on the torn paper edge fit well with the theme.

To complete the canvas I added some mounted Tim Holtz Clippings Stickers to tell a 'story' with the piece. You may also spot the inclusion of some stamped grass at the bottom, one of the images in the stamp set. That corner felt a little bare so I masked off the edge of the house and added it carefully.

I hope you've enjoyed the tutorial and seeing the finished canvas with its textured design lines, lines of script and of course the lines drawn by the hugely talented Kay Carley. If you haven't experiment with stamping and painting on book pages yet I'd highly recommend giving it a go.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Jenny

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