Ugly Duckling #3

Okay so if you have been following my posts this week I am in the process of showing you how I made some of my "ugly duckling" canvases more appealing.  Old to new.  Repurposed.  So on and so forth.

Today is the third "re-do".  It started out as this small 4x3 canvas.  Are you seeing a theme here?  I don't do small canvases well I think.  Not enough space for mistakes, abstracts? I am not sure.  But here I am again looking at another small canvas that needs new life.

So here is my butterfly.  Not horribly ugly, but not very interesting either.

My first step was to add some warm colors to the canvas.  Red, orange, yellows.  No rhyme or reason.

After it dried, I decided to turn the canvas the other way.  At this point I was thinking a heart.  I like hearts.  I paint them a lot.  I have them in quite a few of my canvases.  And well, this is February, the month of love, so why not another heart?

Then I thought of putting words inside the heart.  So I gathered a bunch of words I liked and assembled them on an acrylic block.  I then put something behind it to absorb the pressure and stamped.

Total FAIL. Ugh. Really?  Half the words did not show and they smudged.  Now what?

I decided to add more layers. Right? Because layers can cover it and make it look like it was on purpose.  So I used a number stencil thinking "how do I love thee, let me count the ways?" and used white paint.

 I then sketched out the heart.

Still, I wasn't loving the lack of contrast.  I decided to add some texture.  Used bits of the leftover dress pattern from previous ugly duckling re-dos and adhered it with some gel medium on bottom and top.

I liked the textured and just added splotches of teal paint for a beautiful contrast.

Still, it needed a focal point.  So I added the word love. It was small enough to fit and clearly belongs in a heart! :)

I then went around the edges added a bit more paint for contrast and interest.

What has been your favorite ugly duckling redo so far?