My first canvas Part 1

I am doing my first canvas project as the title suggests. I have chosen to use a Mont Marte canvas panel rather than a proper canvas as I find it hard to work with a proper canvas due to them always seeming to sink in the middle and not knowing how to tighten them lol. I might learn how one day but for now the canvas panel suits my purpose as it's nice and sturdy!

 The panels are pre primed and uber cheap. Only $2.50au for 2 at my local cheapy shop.

I started with distress stains in stormy sky, old paper, dusty concord, aged mahogany, gathered twigs and seedless preserves. I started by lightly misting my canvas and laying down colour in random places minus the gathered twigs. I then misted over the top of this and let my distess wick out and then encouraged the colours to move about more by tilting the canvas in different directions. 

I started to dry the inks and then took some paper towel and blotted the entire canvas... Oops. I had really liked the effect I gained but I lost it by using the paper towel haha. So... I dried the entire canvas and then reapplied the distress stains again lol. After drying again I flicked with water to get some nice splotches happening.

I then took the gathered twigs stain and made sure it was nice and juicy before swiping it along an edge of the canvas. I misted the stain and let it run and drip down the canvas. I repeated this on the other three sides.

Following on from this I chose the same inks as the distress stains (except the gathered twigs) and my blending tool and went over each colour on the canvas to bring them out a bit more. I then used vintage photo with my blending tool heavily around the edges of the canvas and lightly pulled the colour into the centre to give more of a distressed feel.

By now you should be getting the feeling that I love layers lol. Next up we have my favourite permanent ink stamp (it was stazon til I tried archival, swoon), archival in jet black. Using a tip I learnt from Tim Holtz I swiped my pad across my stamps to give a more faded look and stamped a bunch of Stampers Anonymous and KaiserCraft stamps onto my background. As usual I stamped a few upside down rofl. Fortunately for me unless you look really close you can't tell ;)

Stamps used include Stampers Anonymous Steampunk, Urban Tapestry (the speckle stamp, I had also used it with gathered twigs just before I started stamping with archival... oops forgot that bit lol),  Going Somewhere and The Journey rubber cling set not to be confused with the Acrylic set... I am asking myself why one company would give two totally different stamp sets the same name lol... From KaiserCraft I used Sears & Son.

Next up I used my picket fence stain swiped over some stamps stamps from the All Aboard Technique Tuesday stamp set. I stamped each one and allowed to soak in a bit so the white wasn't too harsh and then blotted any larger wet spots and dried with my heat tool. I also added some more of the blueprint stamp from steampunk and the alphabet stamp from going somwhere.

And that's my base done. I have to say my colours are much more subdued in real life. The flash kind of brightens everything up lol. Tried no flash but it made everything barely seeable lol. What cann you do? I didn't choose the colours for this project, my BF did as it is a present for him so I thought I'd hand him my distress and say pick lol. As always the colours work great together :) It does present the challenge of where do I go from here though lol...

What I do k ow is I want more of these canvases, they are so easy and fun to work with and the possibilities are endless. I'd really like to make one in some of the pretty pretty new distress colours.
Any way sorry for the mega long post. Maybe I should have split my explanation into 2 posts!

Happy Scrappin'
Purple

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