Free Artwork

Today we are getting some much-needed rain here in sunny California.  I can’t remember a year, at least in my lifetime, that it has been so dry.  I woke up early this morning to the sound of rain on my window and it made me smile.  As I sat there drinking my coffee, I contemplated the busy day I had planned for myself and decided instead to stay home, watch the rain out of the window and work on an art project.  Ahhh…my kind of day!

I dug through my arts and crafts supplies to see what I could come up with.  I definitely didn’t want to go out and buy anything, so I needed to be creative.  I had noticed the other day some blank art canvases in my husband’s office.  “Would you mind if I used one of these?” I asked as he was on a conference call, knowing my chances would be good because he would be distracted.  They’ve been in his office for about a year, just waiting to be put to good use.  He put his hand over the phone and whispered “sure”.  Sweet!  So far so good.  The next thing I pulled out was my trusty Mod Podge.  Seriously, this stuff has been a staple for me since about second grade.  In the garage I found some wood stain and a foam brush.  Ok, this art project is coming together.  Next, I went to my computer and printed out some lovely images from The Graphics Fairy.  This amazing web site has thousands of free images, practically any subject matter you can think of.  For my project, I decided to do a British themed collage.

So here are the items needed for this project:

Art canvas, Mod Podge, wood stain , foam brush and images from The Graphics Fairy.  Being that I had all of these items on hand, this project was totally free.  But, if you had to go buy everything it would only run you about $13.

1.  First I cut out all of my images and lay them out on the table.  I arranged and re-arranged until I got a layout that looked good to me and was the size of my art canvas.  I used a combination of pictures and ephemera.

2.  The art canvas was a bright white, so I applied the wood stain to give it an aged appearance.  I just used a clean cloth and wiped it on in layers until I achieved the right color.

3.  After the stain had dried, I started gluing the images to the canvas.  I took a picture of my arrangement for reference before I started, just in case I couldn’t remember how I arranged them.  I applied a thin layer of Mod Podge to the back of each image and then smoothed them out on the canvas

4.  I then applied 4 more layers of Mod Podge over the entire canvas, waiting about 20 minutes between each coat.  This protects the artwork as well as giving it some texture.

5.  Lastly, I applied another thin layer of wood stain over the entire canvas to give it just the right appearance of aging.  Here is the finished product:

I’m really happy with the way it turned out.  It was a fun, easy, affordable project and a great way to spend a rainy afternoon.  In fact, I enjoyed it so much, I have decided to make another one to give away in a drawing to one of my readers; a little thank you gift for checking out my blog and spreading the word with your friends.  I can either make the exact collage you see here, or I will make a custom one with a theme and color scheme you provide me.  There are several ways to enter and you will receive one entry for each one.  Are you ready?  Here are the rules:

1.  Share this page on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or all three.  Each one gets you an entry.  The buttons are at the bottom of this post to make it easy for you.

2.  Posting a comment at the bottom of this page gets you another entry.  Be sure to mention where you shared this post so I can give you the correct number of entries.

3.  Subscribing to my blog gets you yet another entry.  Simply click on the follow button on the right side of this page and enter your email address.  If you are already a subscriber, mention that in your comment and I will make sure you get an entry for that as well.

4.  You have until midnight February 7, 2014 to submit your entries.  The winning entry will be drawn on February 8 and the winner will be notified by email.  The winner then just needs to respond to the email with their shipping info and the theme and color scheme they would like for their collage.

5.  Sorry to my international friends, but due to shipping costs this contest is only open to U.S. residents.  Just know that I appreciate you following my blog as well! 🙂

Good luck everyone!

Thanks again for your support.  It means the world to me.

Lynne