Magical Land Mixed Media Canvas

My best friend Courtney turned 30 in July.  I wanted to make her something since she has admired things I have created.  She has loved unicorns ever since she was young.  I created this mixed media canvas with tons of bright colors and a beautiful unicorn at the center of it all.  The inspiration for this is from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXTgnNXpd6M and her birds of a feather mixed media project.

Step 1: I took a canvas that was 8 ½” x 11”.  I put a coat of gesso over the canvas and let dry.  I took some cardstock pieces I ripped from the Prima Jodie Lee Fairy Better Collection Aquarelle cardstock and used mod podge to apply to the canvas.  Run your finer over each piece you glued down to help with air bubbles.

Step 2: Apply a thin layer of a gesso white wash to blend the pieces into the background. Set with a heat tool.

Step 3: Take gesso and go around the edges of the pieces to help with the contrast. Take a baby wipe and remove gesso that got onto the center of the pieces and reveal the cardstock pattern.

Step 4: Use whale watch blue, tiffany blue, frozen jack frost and mix equal parts in a cup.  Add in a mini mister. Take cosmopolitian pink and spray some areas of the canvas and let the excess run down the canvas vertically. Set with a heat gun. Take wild honeysuckle coral and spray and let drip down the same way. Set with a heat gun.  Take sea grass green and spray a bit heavier and let drip horizontally compared to the other colors that dripped vertically. Set with a heat gun. Spray the mixture of blues and tip vertically quickly for a small drip and set with a heat gun.

Step 5: Take a crafters workshop 6x6 mini ledger, chicken wire stencil, and a polka dot stencil and apply to areas of the canvas using texture paste. Clean the stencil in-between each use and set each area with a heat gun.

Step 6: Take some Prima flowers solid flower vine in yellow and cover in gesso, apply a few coats.  Spray with frozen jack frost lindy's spray.

Step 7: Take some chipboard circles and tags and apply gesso around the edges.  I used chipboard pieces from Leaky Shed Studio assorted chipboard tags.  Take some pattern cardstock from Prima Jodie Lee Fairy Better Collection Aquarelle and apply it to the chipboard pieces with mod podge.  Do not put a top layer of mod podge. Fussy cut them out of the cardstock. Sand the edges.

Step 8: Take some cardstock from the Recollections Rainbow Pixels cardstock and fussy cut some honeycombs out. Adhere these to chipboard using mod podge. Do not put a top layer of mod podge. Fussy cut them from the chipboard. Sand the edges.

Step 9: Cut a clock with the Tim Holtz weathered clock die cut and cover with a few coats of gesso.

Step 10: Take some Recollections Floral Embellishments white roses, paper flowers pink/blue garden romance, Prima flowers kindled sienna roses, and white fabric roses bouquet and cover with gesso.

Step 11: Take some metal pieces (junkyard findings vintage trinkets, large paperclip, grapevine designs domino pieces, nuts and bolts, single stories DIY clothespins, finnabair vintage trinket metal flowers, junkyard findings heart gears, tim holtz metal ink pen nibs, junkyard findings clock hands, tim holtz locket keys, finnabair vintage trinkets bottle cap),  and cover with gesso.

Step 12: Take a Martha Stewart adhesive die cut large doily and cover with gesso.

Step 13 : Start creating the canvas and determining the placement. When applying your pieces and to make them level add pieces of chipboard behind pieces to prop them up.  Puddy in the cracks with texture paste. Use a glue gun, glossy accents and e6000 for gluing your pieces.

Step 14: Once everything is applied add some texture paste into the cracks and spaces around the edges.  Add a bit to some of the embellishments.

Step 15: Go over with a few more layers of gesso to the embellishments.

Step 16: Spray a layer of cosmopolitan pink.  Heat set.  Spray with wild honeysuckle coral.  Heat set. Spray with sea grass green. Heat set.  Spray with the blue mixture. Spray with the silver.  Spray with luscious lime.  Heat set.  Keep applying with the colors from earlier until you get what you like.

Step 17: Take three Leaky Shed Studio Chipboard shapes unicorn medium and take some tacky glue and glue the three pieces together.  Once dry color the unicorn using perfect pearls in blue raspberry, sour apple, pink gumball and grape fizz. Adhere to the canvas using e6000. 

Step 18: Take Unique Pages chipboard magic word and cover with a few coats of gesso. Once dry apply wild honeysuckle coral spray, cosmopolitan pink, and silent night silver. Once dry apply a layer of stormy sky distress ink with a blending tool.  Adhere to the canvas using tacky glue.

Step 19: Add some Finnabair art ingredients glass beads in crystal to the nuts and bolts and the bottle caps using glossy accents.

Step 20: Once everything on the canvas is dry, highlight with a couple of coats of gesso.  Add a last layer of frozen jack frost. Dry overnight and highlight one more layer of gesso on all embellishments as the light is coming from the left.