Oh my goodness. I have never, ever played like I played when making this canvas. I loved the messiness, the sheer fright that I would do something wrong. Who says that crafting doesn’t involve adrenaline? Sheer and utter fear. What if I messed it up? Did it matter if I messed it up? Who cares? Have fun. Play. Enjoy – and I certainly did.

I wanted to take myself into a new arena. For some reason, mixed media hasn’t been attractive to me. I usually prefer a more focused, planned, and tidy sort of card making. Always knowing the basics of what I was doing, even though many things changed during the course of making cards. But with this – no clue where it was going…

As most of us do, I had many items I have never used, I just bought them because we ‘had’ to have them – and there they were, sitting in my cupboards and drawers. They didn’t even talk to me! How very ignorant of them.

Then – I was searching through YouTube, saw an Indigo Blu video of Mike Deakin making – very easily and simply – some mixed media canvas. He made it look soooooo easy. It got me thinking – I have some 6 x 6 canvas, some gesso, plenty of small MDF and other items I can stick on. I had a search through my stock – hey presto – loads of stuff I can play with.

So – girded my loins, straightened my spine – and got down to playing. I covered the canvas with a layer of white gesso, used texture paste. Covered in black gesso. Embellishments were stuck on, then covered with black gesso. I thought it looked good just in plain black. The next bit is where the fear kicked in….added some colour. Looked rubbish. Let it dry. Looked rubbish. Added more white and it looked better toned down slightly. Scraped some black gesso everywhere in small slight strokes of a brush and it looked a bit better.

This is when my stubbornness and determination went into overdrive. I kept going. Added some Gansai Tambi gold, then more gold, then toned it down again. Added some spritz of my cosmic shimmer sprays. Toned it down again. Then more fear kicked in – had I ruined it? What do I do now? Is it done? Do I keep going? When do I know it’s finished? Oh my goodness…….

Eventually, after three days of playing, waiting for drying, working, sleeping, playing again – I decided I was done.

I have no idea whether I will do this on a regular basis, as I am a creature of habit – but you never know!

I am entering this into the ‘crafting while we can’ challenge, and ‘love to create’.