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Saturday, August 17, 2013

the blank canvas project - #214

it's been a long, quick week.  we didn't do much, but it seems like more than enough.  momster left today, so i am back to my regularly scheduled programming of shopping, eating, and tv watching.  vacation was good, but as always, not enough of it.  

i have about a million posts a-brewing, meaning i took photos of stuff and never did anything with them.  (i also have a million crafty chores that need doing - t-shirt appliques, paintings (canvas and cabinets), bracelet fixings, sewings, etc. - that i have up in the air that i need to buckle down and finish, but those are for another day.)  but until i have some time to put together other posts, i will share this project i did, as i already wrote it up back when!

a little background:  the blank canvas project was created by erin quinn, a school teacher in calgary with amazing creativity and drive.  (i became acquainted with erin via livejournal a long, long time ago and she has always impressed me with her passion for her work, as well as side and home projects.  i obviously haven't been in her classroom, but i'm pretty sure i can safely say that her kids are lucky to have her as their teacher.)  per her website, the blank canvas project "is designed to get people to be creative and to spread positivity in their communities."  to get involved, you sign up via the page, erin sends you a mini blank canvas and easel, you do whatever creative thing you want to do to it, you put it out in the world for someone to find, and hopefully someone finds it and lets erin know what happened to it.  when i learned about this project i really wanted to participate - canvases have been left all over the world, from canada, to the u.s., seoul, nepal, and abu dhabi!  how amazing is that? 

as i mentioned, i submitted my project awhile back, so i'm going to share here what i wrote for my submission.  check out what i had to say, along with some photos - some of which weren't featured on my canvas's page (ooh, exclusives!).  you can also check out my canvas' page at the blank canvas project here:  http://www.thebcp.org/2013/03/canvas-214-outside-barnes-noble.html

I had a lot of fun doing this project.  Your envelope showed up on the day after Valentine's day and I was on a mini vacation, had gotten engaged the day before, and I was really excited to see the canvas when I got home.  I knew it was coming soon, but hadn't really thought about what I wanted to do until V-day, when my fiance and I were both having insomnia in the hotel room.. haha.  As I lay awake an idea came to me of creating a starry mountain scene, but starting with a black canvas and painting around the mountains to create their shape.  For some reason I really liked the idea of the background being connected and flowing with the foreground, just one solid piece.  I also liked the idea of using spatter techniques to create a glitter-crusted starry sky.  I really like the poem, "The Lady of Shalott," one I actually recite to combat insomnia (still learning it) and I love the Lancelot parts where Tennyson compares his gear to the stars:

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
...
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
      Moves over still Shalott.

So I had all this in my mind when deciding what to paint.  The process was pretty simple:  paint the canvas black, block off the mountain areas with masking tape, and spatter away.  I used a paper box as a "studio" to keep things clean.  I messed up and ended up doing it all over, but since the background is black, it was no problem to do that.

mail call!  it's always fun to get a package, right?

first i painted the entire canvas and easel black (omitting the sign).


masking tape to keep the "mountains" from getting star paint on them.

i set up the canvas in a box so i wouldn't splatter paint everywhere.




splattering is a messy job.



 I could *not* decide where to put this thing!  Finally, today, I just left it outside of Target.  I thought it was a good spot, but when I came out an hour later, it had fallen over and no one had bothered it.  I just couldn't leave it there.  So I took it back and tried the Barnes & Noble near by.  I found a little nook for it outside.  I watched for a little while, but no one really seemed interested in it.  Hopefully someone will come along and take it home.





so that's my project!  i know you're wondering if anyone found my canvas and checked in with erin.  to find out the answer to that question, click here:  was project #214 found?

i just want to thank erin for putting together this awesome project.  if you want to participate too, check out the blank canvas project.

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