Junk mail into a landscape canvas guest post by My Creative Chaotic Life

I am a huge fan of mixed media pieces and I love using what I have on hand to create art.

Which is why I am so excited today to introduce you to my guest blogger Nikki today from My Creative Chaotic Life as part of my small blogger guest post series.  Nikki is going to show us how to take junk mail and turn it into a landscape portrait.  Pretty cool right?!

Hi there guys! I'm Nikki, and I take 

inspiration from the chaos of my everyday life and create ART! 

And how do I go about doing that? Well, let me show you how I turn this:

plus this:

into this!

 

 I have a series of canvases I have been creating that uses my junk mail and turns it into landscapes of the area I live, and I was asked to share with all of you how I do just that! So, sit back and enjoy the process!!!

 Of course, the first step in anything is to create a background. I used acrylic paint to make the background sky and clouds. BUT, the grass needed more texture and depth than I could get with paint. Instead I found a piece of a credit card application and added some paint using a template to add shadows and interest. I also added some different shades of green using misting sprays.

Once the paper was dried I crinkled it up to add more texture and used Golden acrylic medium to glue it to my canvas. 

You can see that there are a few different layers of greens to help add to the piece. I did the same thing using grey to add some boulders to the base of my garden.

 As you can see in the photo, the garden is surrounded by pine trees. Looking for a way to create the texture of the pines I used some corrugated cardboard, removed one of the paper covers and colored it using some glimmer mist and glimmer glaze paints. 

 

 Once the paint was dry I used more of my acrylic medium to adhere them to my canvas, using bits of cardboard as well for the trunks when needed. 

 The focal point to this garden is the butterfly house, and I really wanted it to stand out, and how better to make something stand out, than to make it literally stand out? I used a catalog printed on newsprint to fold the butterfly house. 

I first added gesso to the piece to add some strength and a wood grain texture to the paper. Finally, I added bits of cardboard to create the roof. 

Once my butterfly house was completed I used acrylic paint to add the decoration and glued it down to anchor my garden bed.

 

 Finally, I needed to add in some of the more airy plants to help tie the garden all together. To achieve this I used some pages from a plant catalog. 

I tore the pages into loosely shaped 'fingered' shrubs. Once the pieces were torn I added them to the canvas, being careful to arrange them in a way that they had depth and interest.

  The final step? Sit back and enjoy your creation! I hope you enjoy seeing the process behind creating these textured up-cycled pieces. To see more of my creations check out my blog "My Creative Chaotic Life". Would you like to see my art pieces I have for sale? Check out my Etsy Shop : Creating Amidst Chaos In the meantime, I hope you can find a way to create from your chaos! 

Thanks Nikki!  I am seriously inspired!  I can't wait to start digging through my recycling bin!