The Busy Bee

Hi everyone! Maggi here to show you the newest project from Alchemist Jo, who created this altered canvas back:

For this project, I was inspired by a piece of Punchinella – to me it looked like honeycomb and was also the gorgeous colour of milk and honey. I had a small (7″x5″) blank canvas that I wanted to use but I thought the back was far more interesting than the front! I really liked how there was a big rough chunky frame around a smaller canvas area (4″x2″ approx).

First, I brushed some gesso onto the wood to act as a primer (I didn’t want the wood to just suck up the ink). When that was dry I roughly dragged Distress Inks (Dusty Concord and Peeled Paint) all over the frame, including the outside edge. I used some Ranger clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint over the frame, although it dried with a very fine crackle so isn’t very clear in the photos.

I painted the inside canvas area and inner part of the frame with gold acrylic paint. I cut a piece of the Punchinella to size and stuck it in the middle area with Mod Podge..

I found a wonderful image of a bee hive at The Graphics Fairy and, having strengthened my copied image with thick paper, stuck it onto the bottom right hand corner. I rubber stamped the bees onto old paper (an end paper from an old book) and cut them out, sticking them onto the frame and inner honeycombed area.

Finally, I rubber stamped the words, “The busy bee has no time for sorrow” by William Blake, and stuck them onto the frame, outlining each word with Distress Inks.

It was such fun to get away from dark wintery colours and this little frame made me feel rather Spring-y!

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Fantastic work Jo! And don’t forget, you can stock up on our Punchinella and everything in the Gauche Alchemy store at 10% off through the end of March in honor of National Craft Month!

Now go glue something awesome onto some awesome something!

Maggi

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