Dyan Reaveley was coming to town (well not my town, but one about 3 hours away) to teach several classes, but I just fell in love with this canvas class sample:
I was on the fence about whether or not to go all the way to KC, so I posted a note on Facebook to The Scrapbooking Studio's DT Coordinator, Stacy Rodriquez to see if she or any of the gals from the store were heading down. Sadly, they were not, but Dyan jumped in to let us know her class was going to be "freakin' fabulous." And with her fun and spunky dialogue added to my decision making mix, I decided that if she can hop across the pond and make it to Kansas, I could certainly make a 3hour drive to go see her.
Mollie Deem and Dyan Reaveley
But of course, every road trip needs an accomplice... er... uh... I mean a travel buddy. A "Thelma" to my "Louise" if you will, so I promptly rang up my friend Linda and chatted her up. I'm pretty sure I had her at, "you get to play with paints and get all inky." So now I had everything I needed... except for tickets to the class. The store was closed so I had to wait 2 more days until it opened to call for tickets, but fortunately there were 2 spots left. The plan was hatched, the tickets were paid for and all we needed next was a playlist and some snacks!
So the day came, and we headed off on our little adventure. During which we discovered that the GPS on my phone was broken and the directions I'd printed were worthless. Fortunately the GPS came back to life in time to get us most of the way through Kansas City and we'd been to the store about a year a go, so our memory got us the rest of the way.
While I really wanted to make EXACTLY the store sample, I knew that would be next to impossible and well... I'm not much good at following instructions anyway, so I figured I'd just go with the flow. So for the next 4 hours we added layer after layer of gesso, paper, and colorants in a multitude of forms - paints, spray inks, markers, baby wipes (yes, I said baby wipes!) and more. At the end of class my hands were nearly as much of a work of art as my canvas (and I looked like a member of The Blue Band for nearly a week following). Dyan warned us not to use the letters and numbers because we'd try to make them too perfect, so of course the little rebel in me went straight for those (plus, by the time I got to the stencils they were really the only ones left, ha!). Dyan came by a few times to review my use of said stencils and since I wasn't scolded, nor did she take them away, I'm assuming I must have been doing them justice :)
And at the end of four hours of furious creative activity, this little "masterpiece" was born. Quite simple to make really -once Dyan had deconstructed it. Now I just have one decision left to make... to frame it not? That's the question!
Abstract Canvas by Mollie Deem.
And here's the fabulously, no diliriously happy canvas that Linda made. How can you not just look at this and smile?
(Sorry, not the best photo/photo editing job ever.)
Just to give you a little taste of the variety that can be generated by the same techniques, here are pictures of canvases made by some of our classmates:
