Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Bits of spring and Butterflies!



Hi ~ Kirsten Reed here today to show you two fun projects using Maria McGuire's Butterfly Duo stencil from StencilGirl which also happens to be the Deal of the Day over on StencilGirl Products!

I have TWO projects for you today!

The first project I created a journal page. 
Before beginning, I took a piece of watercolor paper and put random splashes of color on it  ~ yellow, magenta, a bit of green and splatters of white.


After it dried, I traced out the stencil and cut out some beautiful butterflies!


I then prepped my A3 art journal with a bit of teal and added some texture in the background using Carolyn Dube's Linked stencil in random areas.




I painted the word FLY and some flowers and added some stamps in the background.


Here is the final page… ready for some personal journaling:



My second project was a canvas I created to give a friend. You can see the finished project at the top of this post. Here is my process:

I first primed the canvas with black gesso.  I find black gesso really gives a different depth and vibrance to colors than your standard white.  I wanted this canvas to be bright.


After it was primed, I brushed teal at the top, turquoise in the middle and green gold along the bottom. 


Each is mixed slightly with a bit of iridescent medium to give it a sheen.

Using pearl modeling creme, 

I stenciled three butterflies on to the canvas along the left side.  Three?  Yes I turned the small one around stenciling from a different side to make it "fly" the other way and look a bit different.  I really love to use Modeling creme on certain projects because you can spread it very thinly, and still get an amazing texture. It dries fast and I love the pearlized look to it!


After the creme dried, I used Carolyn Dube's Words to Live By stencil for some texture in the background with a mixture of interference green from Golden and the iridescent medium. It is faint, which I wanted, but enough to know it is there.




I wanted the butterflies to "pop" a bit more so I used some cobalt turquoise and brushed around the outside for some shadowing.


I then added some drippage in turquoise and in green from the top.  I then added in some magenta splatter for the look of field flowers.  



After it dried, I stamped on a quote that says, "Friendship is like a butterfly..It goes where it pleases and pleases where it goes."




Thanks for joining me today! If you enjoyed and want to keep following me, click on Bloglovin' and my posts will be directly delivered to your inbox! Or just go to my Kirsten Reed Designs on Facebook.

Have a great day!




13 comments:

  1. Really lovely, that canvas is just gorgeous!

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    1. Thank you…there is a lot of iridescent sheen to it that is just hard to photograph. Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. Beautiful art Kristen - and of course beautiful stencils by Carolyn and Maria -- the dynamic duo!

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  3. Gorgeous piece...but I LOVE the subtlety of the words.

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  4. What a gorgeous painting, Kirsten! Wow!

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  5. Kirsten.. this is fabulous. Your knack for the field of greens are amazing. Love the creams.

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  6. I love love love what you've made! The way you have created the backgrounds with the stencils and the colors all interacting and playing with each other - fabulous!

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