Diaries of a Scrappaholic

Last week, I decided to have some quality time with my man creating a mixed media canvass piece together. I was expecting a lot of protests but surprisingly ( and maybe because we are still in a new relationship lol ) he agreed to do it with me. What's more blowing me away by telling me because I love mixed media scrappbooking/art and it was part of me, he wanted to understand what it is that I do and love so much. Awwwww!

So we set of to Scrappingville in Bangsar Shopping Centre and spent half a day creating this lovely canvass piece (under Sharon Yong's guidance) which now has a special place of pride for both of us.

1. We started by deciding on the colour scheme, pictures we wanted to use and also positioning the pictures on the canvass for an idea of where we wanted it placed and the size of the stencils we wanted to use and where they would go. We then matted the pictures with red scrapbook paper to give it a border and also to make the pictures "pop".
2. We painted the background red, with him taking the top part and me the bottom half. It was interesting to have 2 different painting strokes and contrasts as we did it. His neat and precise, and mine very abstract!
3. We both wanted a very vibrant colour scheme, with some Chinese influence since Alain lives in Shanghai. So we chose red, gold and black. Very "Ong" as my Chinese friends would say!
4. Once we painted the background red and dried it with a heat gun, we used a stencil with a wording which had meaning for us " Trust your Heart" at the bottom right hand side of the canvass. We slanted the stencil and painted it black.
5. We then used stencils randomly along the 4 sides of the canvass, leaving space for another stencil, and spray-painted it with gold.
6. After that, we used a different stencil and painted over carefully with black.
7. Once that was dry, we then pasted the pictures onto the canvass and finished off with another word stencil " Believe" and voila, very gorgeous!

So, take time to smell the roses and create a canvass piece jointly with a loved one. A piece which will hold so much meaning for the two of you and bring a smile to your faces everytime you look at it!

Have fun!

TIPS:

Be careful to paint sparingly over stencils so that it's not too wet or thick and bleeds under the stencil, ruining the pattern.

Lift the stencil of carefully to avoid smearing the paint.

Wash your stencils immediately so that you avoid staining it with colour.

When you are going through the steps above, make sure you dry the paint at each stage before moving on to the next step.