In the spring of this year, I created a mixed media collage painting for an art show that was held in conjunction with a missions conference at the Bible college I attended. The subject matter was  “Captive” and the speaker was Gracia Burnham, a Christian missionary who was captured by Muslim terrorists back in 2002.  She spent a year in captivity and saw her husband, Martin,  murdered before being released.  When I was creating the painting, I only knew the subject matter, but did not know it was for a missions conference or anything about who the speaker would be. Gracia wrote a book called “To Fly Again” that tells of God’s grace to start life again with new dreams after going through her captivity and the loss of her husband. I love it when the Spirit of God is active without us even knowing He is inspiring us:) Here is the process I went through in creating this piece of artwork.

Step 1
Draw lots of thumbnail sketches.

Step 2
Prime the hardboard with 3 coats of gesso and sand it with a fine grade of sandpaper. (Tip – Make sure you paint a large “X”  from corner to corner on the back of the hardboard to keep it from warping.)

Step 3
Paste my selected collage papers with gel medium and coat the entire canvas with one final coat of gel medium before I begin the painting process.

Step 4
Transfer my drawing to the canvas.

Step 5
Paint with fluid acrylics, oil paint sticks, charcoal, and Pitt pens.

Step 6
Varnish the finished painting with gloss varnish.

I began working on this painting over a month ago. I actually have four other larger paintings in the works. Here's a photo of the work in progress...

And here's the finished painting...

This one is for sale in my Etsy Shop. I hope you like it!

Toni

I recently completed a couple of paintings for my great-nieces who love fairies. I wanted to do something personal for them so I turned them into fairies by collaging their photos, butterfly wings, decorative papers, and acrylic paints on canvas.

I hope they enjoy the paintings as much as I enjoyed creating these pieces especially for them. P. S. I was able to give the girls their paintings and they did like them very much:)

Hooray! I finally have opened my Etsy shop and now have one new painting for sale. I plan to be adding more new paintings and digital prints to my shop soon. The link is http://www.etsy.com/shop/toniwall?ref=pr_shop_more. Thanks for your support!

Greeting Card Designer: Selling My Art Through Social Media

For years I have enjoyed mixing acrylic paints with decorative papers but never found a technique I was as excited about as the one that Kelly Rae Roberts teaches in her book "Taking Flight". She inspired me so much that as a result I have found a new passion for painting.