Birthday Triptych

We have a special story for you today of how a birthday card idea can turn into a beautiful, personal and very touching canvas triptych. :)

My dad has a birthday in September and I thought to make something for him. I had no idea what to give or rather make him, but then I happened to see card sized mini canvases on sale which lead me to making him a card style little canvas.

When I then opened the package and spread the three surfaces side by side on my craft mat, the idea hit me. To make a little triptych!

 

I had scanned and printed out some old photos previously for a workshop I attended.

I'm lucky in a way because I'm the only child and my father loved to take photos of me and the family. So there's plenty of albums full of little memories!

For this piece I chose to go with two photos: me with my mom and of course me with my dad. In the center part I used a little die cut tag with a picture of a ship in it. It refers to my dad's original job as a builder of scale models.

I played with the new Finnabair Art Mediums in this creation and shot a few step photos along the way.

 

1) First I adhered the three bases together with strips of sticky back canvas. I left a couple of millimetres between the sheets so that the piece can be manipulated - the strips of canvas work like a hinge.

I then cut random pieces of patterned papers, resist canvas and also pieced a doily to go in to the layers. 

 

2) I glued the pieces overlapping each other with the Soft Gloss Gel. I could have used also the Matt version, but as I knew I was going to paint the layers partly with gesso anyway, it didn't matter that much.

After drying the gel, I added a coat of clear gesso on top of the papers but tried to avoid the resist canvas pieces.

3) Then I added the colors! First I sprayed the pieces upside down with mists so that the mists would run "upwards" in the final piece. I used warm yellows, pink and brown.

After drying the mists with a heat tool, I then felt that the project could do with some more paint. So I added touches of white gesso and golden acrylic paint here and there with a palette knife.

 

4) More layering with different paint media! It was time to add the pencil in there, a few pieces of washi tape for contrast and then glittering splashes with Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze. I also added some splashes with Glimmer Mist, too.

 

5) Then it was time to add the embellishments and also the photos. I layered some patterned papers behind the photos and mounted the photos with the foam squares. I added metal embellishments, some thread and also some epoxy stickers.

 

6) Lastly I added some contrast to the piece with stamping. I used Archival ink and two different stamps and added a touch of pattern here and there.

 

I've given the piece to my dad already and he keeps it on his table top. That makes me feel good as it was my intention - to create something that could be showed!

Thank you for visiting the blog today! I hope I have inspired you!

Supplies from Mixed Media Place: