MIXED MEDIA CANVAS - GRAD GIFT

The daughter of a friend graduated from college last week.  After much deliberation (with myself) regarding gift ideas, I decided today that I would create a piece of art for the daughter's new apartment.  She is a go-getter . . . a high achiever . . . a hard worker . . . and her sights are set on beginning a career in the big city . . . the really big city . . . New York.  Her major was journalism so, for the mixed media canvas, I knew that I wanted to incorporate patterned papers with text that resembled newsprint.  My favorite inclusion of this is the skyline, which I created by cutting strips of paper and

 coloring them with a black Faber-Castell Gelato.  A black Pitt marker was used to outline the strips, and depth was achieved by slightly smudging the inked outline.  I might should have layered the "buildings" for my skyline so they wouldn't end up resembling a row of books, but a row of books isn't such a bad thing.  ;-)  The "she was" image is from a Christy Tomlinson stamp, and I love that the image has "she was a daughter of God" printed on the skirt.  While coloring the image with a few layers of paint and ink, the word "daughter" kind of disappeared, so I created a replacement for that.  The figure was given two rows of jewels (adhesive trim that I found in my stash), and I used the Pitt marker once again to outline and smudge the image to not only give it depth, but to give it prominence.  Because every mixed media canvas needs texture, I used Texture Paste and the Tim Holtz Flourish stencil on the left edge.  Portions of the texture were colored with ink, paint, and Inka Gold, and I left some of the areas uncolored to add a little brightness to the piece.  I don't know about everyone else but, when I work with a canvas, I hardly ever end up with what I thought I was making.  ;-)  That's always okay with me because the process is an evolution . . . starting in a direction and ending up with something even better than what I had envisioned.  As long as I can incorporate the elements that I want to be present, it's all good.  I just hope the graduate will love it.