Hi all and a Happy Fathers day to all the Fathers for this Sunday in Australia and New Zealand.
For this special day I made my husband a gift of a Steampunk inspired canvas. He loves trains, cars, gears and anything mechanical.
I grabbed one of my 20 x 25 cm ( approx 10 x 8 inches) canvas panels and used Lindy's sprays to get a lovely shiny brown background colour. Then for the clock pattern on the left I used modeling paste with a Tim Holtz stencil. For the black background design on the right I used a TCW stencil called Mini Gears with black modeling paste. The wording, numbers and main steampunk man image are from 2 Andy Skinner stencils called Made to Measure and Industrial Elements. For this I just used black ink and a round blending tool.
To get the copper look on the corners and edges of my canvas I used Helmar Tacky Craft Glue and black card stock. I layered the black card stock in an overlapping pattern and then rubbed DecoArt Gold Rush Metallic Lustre onto the card stock. Making sure not to cover it all up so I get some black showing through. Then I added brads to all the corners so it looked like rivets.
I found a piece from an old Meccano set, so that became my main gear piece. The only thing with it was it was all hollow at the bottom, so Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots did the trick. That worked so well, I put it in three places and very lightly pressed it into place in the centre of that main big background gear. I did not want it to come out of the holes. Then I used more of the Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots for the rest of the gears. I liked how I could just dab a little on it and it was quite easy to be very precise, so it did not show. I also glued a gear to the wheel of one of my sons old toys and added a chain from one of my old necklaces. Stuff I keep came in handy for this one.
I really like the way this part of the canvas came up. I have always liked looking at steampunk themed things, so it was fun to play with this and add all the layers of gears. The Helmar Liquid Scrap dots worked a treat as most of the gears were not flat and had uneven surfaces. Some I pressed flat onto the canvas and others I lifted to give it some dimension and interest. The 5 is my Husbands lucky number so that had to go on there somewhere.
I left it all to dry and then added 2 layers of Helmar Crystal Kote Matte Spray Varnish. This gives your canvas a fabulous seal and protects it from dirt, dust and fading.
Hope you liked my take on the steampunk theme,i think this will not be the last one of these I do.
