Chunky Birdcage Canvas Tutorial

I was recently asked how I made 

the piece pictured above, so thankfully 

I had posted a tutorial a long while back
 HERE

Enjoy!

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Golden Hand of Life Shrine

HAND OF LIFE

I'm revisiting a piece I created back in November. At that time I wasn't sure if it was finished or not so it sat waiting. Today I added brass candle cups turned upside down and screwed into the bottom for feet and an aluminum corner reinforcement piece hubby had given me after taking apart a screen.

Click the link below to see my post from Nov.

and view the before piece and my step by step process:

http://aileensmusings.blogspot.com/2007/11/chunky-shrine-canvas.html#comments

This is definitely another example of being patience and waiting for the right inspirations to come along to finish a piece.

Serendipity

I love when things seem to come together. I was able to finish the Old Friend's piece I posted about previously (see Cleaning is Like a Box of Chocolate.)

I began by spreading Golden's molding paste on the sides and backside of a 10x10 chunky canvas and then combed through it with a paint comb adding texture.

Once the molding paste dried I painted it with Golden's fluid acrylic paints in various colors & layers and then went back with transparent glaze and a baby wipe and hit the high points of the piece with the glaze. Once it was completely dried I added some printed gaffer's tape around the outside as a boarder and some rub-on numbers inside along with the book cover.

Next I added the embellishments: some shells in a small glass bottle of purple sand from Big Sir, a compass and a tag. Now it's ready to send to my friend. I love how serendipitous this piece started :-)

Chunky Shrine Canvas

Below is a shrine I had been working on I'm at the point where I feel it needs something more, but I'm not sure what but knowing my muse an idea will eventually come to mind. Scroll down to see my creative process.

10. Here's the front view, the hand is from a bird feeder that broke, I had been saving the hand for awhile now...I dry brushed the hand lightly with bronze acrylic paint. Then I added the nesting at the bottom and eggs and feathers. As I said I don't feel like the piece is done yet I'll post another picture when I finalize it.

9. Here's a side view where I've added more wire and then white washed it with white acrylic paint and gesso.

8. Here you can see I began forming a bird cage out of the wire I added.

7. After that I wrapped blackened wire around the nail at the top.

6. Here's the Front side of the Canvas you can see I've hammered a wide head short based nail into the top.

5. Here's a side view before glazing.

4. Then I glazed over the entire piece and stamped with some gesso and Krylon's gold leafing paint and then another layer of glaze.

3. This is the backside I stamped with some stazon ink and added pieces of torn decorative paper and then some molding paste around the edges of the paper, once it was dry I sanded it lightly.

2. Here I first painted it with acyclic paints and then added Modern Options Patina and a bit more acrylic paints.

1. I started with a chunky 8"x8" canvas.