It is open topic week at Inspire Me Thursday so I will take this prompt as my chance to write about how I made "Invite Peace" as promised.
First I covered the canvas with old book pages from a 1917 book called the "Story Book of Knowledge" by L. B. Franklin. It is about a young inquiring child's questions answered by a loving grandfather. There was a beautiful one about The Star Spangled Banner and how Francis Scott Key came to write it. Thought it fitting for the "Peace,Piece". I am not a history buff by any means but his inspiration was from living through a battle and having to wait until morning to see if the flag was still there ...here...in...America.
I do not have many pictures of the process, camera battery needed to charge.
The red toned background was drops of various reds and magenta's and gel medium and scraped together and off with a credit card. From there I dug into my giant bag of wooden letters I scored a while back and my favorite antique shop. I found the perfect letters and just started dripping ever color that made me happy on my pallet and started to stamp with them...on test paper at first to test then directly onto the art.
then outlined in charcoal and coated the letters with a thick gloss "string" gel...the consistency of honey but clear.
There was a multicolor puddle of paint on my pallet so I took some string and blotted it in and just dropped it on sheet music and a few times on the canvas. Then the bird and leaves were cut from the sheet music and used the sting to outline with. Then filled in with a pool of the same honey gel. It is hard to capture the thickness of the "invite" leaf and bird. By the way...it's tail is a heart!
"Invite Peace" is finished and will go to my Etsy store soon.
Update 11/13/08: "Invite Peace" was sold pretty quick and is currently flying to it's new owner!