Finn inspired Fleur-de-lis

Bienvenue blog land!

If you have ever been to Louisiana then you will know, there are Fleur de-lis EVERYWHERE! It's even the symbol for the NFL football team...the saints!!!

It's used in clothing, decorating, art, you name it...they've got it!

So in an attempt to embrace my new culture, I decided that when my girlfriend Kim came to visit, we would do mixed media fleur de-lis canvases.

Oh my! Did I have a blast!!!  Plus I luv Kim:)

I felt that this needed to be something Finn inspired...since I luv her too. I started by free-hand drawing the fleur de-lis on the canvas, then mixed my own paint, painted the background, added another contrasting color (yellow), covered both colors with silks glaze in olive vine, and finally started gluing within the image itself. I used gloss gel medium to adhere all the bits and baubles to the canvas and then sprayed with varying mists including dylusions; black marble and dirty martini, and finally added the finishing touches with some silks glazes in emperor gold and honey amber.

You can see in the photo above that I have used so many different textures in order to achieve a super eclectic look. The butterfly is a simple resin piece with layers and layers of mediums, causing a multi dimensional shimmer and color effect. The flowers are just simple paper flowers (Petaloo flowers here) of varying color and design. With all the mediums that are used, the underlying color is irrelevant and the mists and paints allow for an overall congruency in the piece. 

Chipboard is perfect for these types of mixed media projects! They absorb the color and come in so many shapes and sizes. This is just an old piece that I had in my stash. You can find lots of chipboard and wooden pieces at eP including Wendy Vechhi and 7 Dots studios!

Other pieces to use are prima wood pieces like the fern on the lower left of the photo, some leftover nuts and bolts, various buttons, mini cloths pins, large plastic crystal pieces, bottle caps, and metal corkscrew chips that your hubby brings home from the shop for you;) Use your imagination, the sky is the limit.

Only when I was done with the hours and hours of gluing did I realize, I haven't even made a DENT in my stash.

*hangs her head in shame*

Kim wasn't able to finish hers in time so I'll be shipping it home to her and hopefully she will post it to her blog soon.

Hop on over to eP to purchase many of the items that I used on this project and play along with our fall themed challenge this month.

{{hugs}}

Andiepants