Show & Tell Saturday: Kitty Canvas

Hello again!

Well...another month over and done and into autumn we go then! Even though the nights will be closing in, that means we'll have all those GORGEOUS changing leaf colours as inspiration - beautiful and abundant warm earth tones splashed with the gold of autumn sunlight.

In celebration of a lovely summer, I created a little 8"x8" canvas as a birthday gift and thought I'd take some process pictures to blog for the Artists In Blogland Show & Tell Saturday. So, without further ado - here we go!

Stage one was to choose a pose and sketch it, then to add crumpled tissue texture in layers to a thinly gesso'd canvas, building the kitty cat up a little from the background in the process:

I wanted kitty to look cute and friendly, not aiming for uber realism, more something cuddly and lovely to look at.

Adding some layers of shade and colour with neocolorII wax pastels and Faber Castell Pitt pens.

Time to add some colour to kitty.

The texture from the tissue paper helps when adding colour with wax pastels. Time to add a garden for kitty to sit in. I raided my die-cuts box for some flowers - they're K&Co ones from the Brenda Walton range ...I've been saving them for something special!

You know....this pic looked FINE on the camera....MASSIVELY fuzzy now! How irritating! I used Claudine Hellmuth's Studio matte multi-medium (from Ranger) to adhere the tissue paper and all the flowers. It leaves the surface nicely prepared for  any paint or other medium added thereafter, whereas Mod Podge can be a little smooth for some things - wax pastels, for example! I had fun with paint splatters and then put the finishing touches to kitty and his garden:

I glued the butterflies to the canvas with Groves Hi-Tack Fast Tack Adhesive. I've used Glossy Accents before but find that it's not awesome for this as it tends to dry out and crack over time.

Voila! One kitty. Hope you like him! Sending out my hugs to you for an awesome September - here's wishing something lovely happens for each and every one of us and those we hold closest to our hearts. - Shroo :)

PS - don't forget to have a visual hug of some of the lovely posts by other splendidly gorgeous artists by clicking the pic below! xxx