Home Sweet Home Pumpkin Mixed Media Canvas

Creating this was interesting on so many levels. I’m trying to enjoy fall more by decorating my house a bit. These aren’t colours that go with the little I have decorated but it’s still fun.

I hate fall because it brings cold weather right after I’ve enjoyed summer so much and is a forerunner to winter with even more cold. But I really wanted to enter a couple challenges that this theme worked with. I experimented with a new medium, water soluble oil pastels. And I tried out some other new techniques like adding colour to my embossing paste and not the background.

So here’s how it’s made.

1. add crumpled tissue paper to the background. I used one with birds, leaves and bird cages. Use gel medium underneath and on top of the tissue and allow some wrinkles to form.
2. add gesso mixed with water over hte top. Create as much opacity as you like. I often add two layers to make sure I don’t get too much coverage the first time.
3. This step is one I don’t know I’d use again but it was fun experimenting. Add dark brown oil pastel around the edges and over the edge, about 1”. add a lighter brown inside that. Buff with a rag and add gilder’s wax to the outside edge spreading some colour across  into the center of the canvas. (this didn’t end up showing in the end, I’ll explain as I go).
4. add music paper to the bottom of the page with gel medium, colour with alcohol ink.
5. add lace.
6. Die cut ivy tendril and flourishes, sponge and stamp them
7. cut sentiment from paper pack and add gold paint pen to edges in distressed (not perfect) way
8. tear oval shapes from orange paper. I used a die to tear against so my shapes were torn but still smooth-ish on the edges. cut a stem. ink all edges and assemble adding a twine bow .
9. add pumpkin and flourishes to canvas with gel medium. Use layers of scrap paper under upper portion of pumpkin to raise it to the height of the bottom portion which is over the lace. I didn’t make sure it met the edge of the lace.
10. add embossing paste to top of canvas using a stencil. Allow to dry without using heat gun. I found when I used the heat gun, it brought the oil from the oil pastels to the surface and made it shiny. When I buffed it, quite a lot came off and I had to add back more colour. It never looked quite as good as it did in the beginning.
11. when paste is dry, add green and brown ink. the good thing about the oil pastel background is it resists inking so the colour only sticks to the leaves. a nice bonus and something to think about when I use pastels next time.
12. add sentiment using layers of scrap cardstock behind it instead of foam dots. not only was a worried about the foam dots sticking on the oily pastel background, it is more sturdy to use cardstock.
13. add antique linen distress stickles to the pumpkin using a thin layer and to the heart in the sentiment using a thick layer. The moisture from the stickles and the uneven backing to the pumpkin allowed it to warp slightly which is a shabby look I quite like.

I’m entering this in the holiday SSS Wednesday blog challenge Anything Goes, the Mixed Media Colour Challenge to make a holiday themed project, the SSS Monday blog challenge Anything Goes and TSTR 190 to make a project using a pumpkin.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps: fancy flourishes-PTI
Ink: artichoke-PTI, Vintage photo Distress
Paper: Simple Stories
Accessories: Portfolio Oil Pastels, homemade embossing paste, Crafter’s workshop stencil, gilder’s paste-?, lace-stash, ivy die-Poppy, flourish dies, twine-PTI, Krylon paint pen, tissue-?, gel medium, gesso-Golden, canvas-Dollarama, nesties ovals (as tearing templates)