A Fantastic Weekend

Hello everyone and thanks for dropping by. As many of you know I have just returned from the most fantastic weekend doing classes with the fabulous Finnabair. It was the most amazing event, not only because of all the wonderful classes Finn taught, but also because I met up with so many like-minded friends, old and new.

It's late at night as I write this post, so I will keep it brief and will show much more in the days to come, but for right now I at least wanted to share one of the projects we did and show you my version. No doubt you will be able to see many more in various places across blog land. It was a great inspiration to see what so many talented artist managed to create under Finns amazing guidance.
So today I will share an 8 x 8 canvas. I took a few step by step photos, but very soon I got so caught up in the creative process that I forgot to take more.....

Here you can see about step three. After covering the canvas with strips of randomly torn paper and canvas resist, we arranged our embellishments around a photo and then covered the bottom half with black acrylic paint.

Here is further stage, the canvas now sprayed with mica sprays, both over the black at the bottom and over the top half which had been thinly coated with gesso first.

The final stage, bringing the whole piece together with further layers of gesso and sprays, plus (in my case) a few high lights with some Treasure Gold.

As you can see, keeping the photo clean is not so easy, specially if you are a messy worker like I am.

Here are a few close ups still:

Some of the embellishments included in the very generous kits we received

I decided to give my lady some creative head gear... I chopped up some of the wooden bits that came with the canvas and cut up some of the larger bits to create the rest of the contraption.

Here you can see some of the fab texture created with the help of bits of canvas and lace. The paint, sprays and gesso bring all the textures to life.

Well, that's it for my first project (it was the second one we did in the classes) I'll leave you with a few happy snaps that capture some of the wonderful moments during the weekend.

Back row from left to right:
Lesley Ebdon, Alison (Butterfly) Brenda Brown, Emma Taylor
Middle row: Alison (Crafty Trog) Finn, myself and Tracey Bantoft
Front row, the "terrible twins" Nicky and Gillian

How's this for a photo composition?

With Alison, Finn and Brenda, - so wonderful to meet you all!!!

Here you can see all of us proudly displaying our canvasses after the class.

Well, that's it for today, but before I sign off I want to apologize that I have not been visiting nearly as many of your blogs as I would have liked in the last few days. I had a full day of work today, but hope to catch up with you all in the next day or two.

Thank you for visiting like always! Hugs