Lepidoptera--or--Three Square Inches Of Creativity

 Sometimes around my studio things happen totally by accident. I had purchased this frame, which said it had a 3 inch opening. Perfect! I have 3" x 3" canvas! This is great!

Except, when I got it home, the "3 inches" in China are NOT the same "3 inches" here in the States.

I had already prepped the canvas with a piece of paper for a bit of texture and numerous coats of gesso, then I got involved with the wall hanging and everything was pushed to the side---literally! Things were buried on the work table so that I could use my massive opaque projector.

The other day, I was finally at a point where I could put the behemoth back in it's box and stagger to the cellar with it, and ta-da! There is the frame and the tiny canvas.

Hmmmmmm.........

So in between the other picking up and rearranging for the next step in the *big work*, I spent a little sit down time.

Also, floating around was a single monarch butterfly wing, and I had this fear it would be lost before I could put it to use in a collage. So, really

having little direction or though, I grabbed some old entomology books, found a few choice tidbits and adhered them to the canvas. Then I grabbed three jars of Golden mica mediums, some fluid acrylics, interference paints and a black pencil and just let my mind wander.

The hardest part was the placement of the butterfly wing, because if it was totally centered, it did not look right.

I would work, then sit and tilt it this way and that until I was happy with the placement and grabbed the gel and gently adhered it to the surface. (I had previously sprayed both sides with workable fixative, so the scales would not disappear during the work)

Bit by bit, I added a little paint, a little of the different mica gels and easily built up the texture, which looks a lot more complicated

than it was. Sometimes doing two things at once is very good.
The side shot of the small canvas shows the amount of light reflected from the gold, pearl and black mica gels. They are easy to work with and well worth the price; a little goes a long way.I had planned to try and cut the back of the frame out more to allow the canvas to fit in, but while waiting for a layer of gel medium to dry, I set it atop the frame--paid no attention--came back later, looked at it and there it was......the solution to the two different "3 inches"......Get the E-6000, squirt a good line all around the inner lip of the top of the frame opening, set the canvas on it and push hard.

And what do you know; I have just made everything work together without really thinking too hard.  :-)  And that made me happy,  and the rest of the rearranging go a lot quicker!

So that's your art tid-bit for a while kiddies~~and maybe I can get back to blog hopping soon!

Pax....