Fortuitous Timing...

Warning, this is a rambling, meandering post, but it does all tie together in the end (I think!)

Recently, I have been inspired by the Painting a Day that Donna Downey has been doing and have been eyeing this truly hideous canvas hanging on my scrap room wall that I did several years ago. It was the first altered canvas that I ever did and it definitely looks it. Well, earlier in the week, Linda (a wonderful artist in her own right) had issued a collage challenge and I am never one to turn down a challenge so the canvas had come off the wall...
Canvas in original state

I had been debating what I wanted to do with the canvas and yesterday morning was feeling particularily down about the how we, as women, get such joy out of tearing each other down. (Nothing has been done to me personally, I just have observed such negativity that makes me sad.) So I decided that I wanted to do something with the canvas that would urge me to Do better and be a better person. I was literally just starting to walk into my craft room/Kat's room where she was sleeping to dig out some paints (which might possibly awaken her) and I heard my postman drop some packages onto my front bench. There were two boxes...both beautiful gifts from two wonderful scrapbooking friends! That alone is enough to help boost my faith in the fact that there is still kindness out there.

The first was a gorgeous lantern that I won off of Jeanne's blog. Halloween Lantern by Jeanne
Jeanne is a wonderfully creative friend who I know through the 21-day challenges. She is one of those in the group that is ALWAYS out there forever cheering us all on while creating her own absolutely gorgeous work! I didn't realize that she had an etsy shop which means that I really need to pay better attention when I blog hop because she has some fantastic wares.

The second package was from the afore-mentioned Linda. She had emailed me a couple of weeks ago saying that she had missed my birthday. I didn't give it too much thought, but yesterday I received that birthday surprise and this is where the fortuitous comes in...the package had paints in it (remember I was on my way to possibly wake up Kat to get some paints when I heard the packages arrive.) It also included some very fun Love, Elsie epoxy stickers and this very creative card made from packaging material.
Birthday card by Linda Peterson
Isn't that the cutest?!?

So yesterday, I set about re-altering my canvas. Remember, I am NOT a painter! And, again, as with anytime I do collage work, I am just not too sure that I actually like it. For me and collage, I think that I always manage to take it one step too far. It's like that rule with jewelry, put it all on and then take one piece off before you go out. I need to figure out how to do that with my collage work...it just always ends up too busy and over the top. But anyway, here is my newly reworked collage and I do like it better than the before so I suppose that I am still better off.
Reworked Canvas Collage

One thing that I have determined from this experiment though is that I am just not patient enough to work with paints. I hate having to wait for my layers to dry before I can play with my art more. When I have finite time playing while Kat is asleep, I don't want to be wasting that time watching the paint dry. :p

BTW, yes, those are Heidi Swapp masks actually glued onto this piece. I have decided that I am mask impaired...I cannot tell you how many times I tried to mask on this darn canvas and finally just decided to glue on some masks instead. :)

I probably will be missing for the next couple of days. I have a couple of assignments that I need to get done that I have to work on...
smiles,
christi