Sea themed mixed media canvas

Hey all,

Recently I started working on a mixed media canvas with a beach theme. This is going to be a gift for my friend Monique who (finally, LOL) gave birth to her daughter. She shared the decorating of the new baby's room with me, and I was inspired immediately to do a canvas once I saw the sea/beach theme. Running into a steering wheel with the perfect size brought my ideas even more to life!

I started out with a blank 12' by 12' canvas and painted the upper 2/3 section with a light blue paint. The section below that is supposed to be the sea, I painted that with a mix of texture paste and teal mica.

The bottom section is supposed to be the sand/beach so I painted it with a structure paint turned a sandy colour and sprinkled sand on it afterwards. 

First, I draped some fishing net over the canvas.

Then I started embellishing with everything sea/beach themed I could think off. 

A firehouse, shells, seastars, fish, boats, seahorses, a bottled message, anchors, steering wheels, beach houses, slippers, seagulls. 

Quite the colorful display :P My aim was to end up with the colours of the canvas, because those are the colours of the baby's room. 

So I added a few coats of gesso on everything. Painted a few clouds with gesso while I was at it.

Then it was finally time to bring out the glimmermists and Lindy's stamp gang sprays!

I'm ashamed to say that I have about 50 different colors... But still didn't really have the colors I had envisioned! 

I chose for a blue/grayish one for the top section, a mint one for the sea part and a brownish tone for the bottom part.

In the meantime I distressed the too white steering wheel all sorts of ways. 

Covered it with a crackle medium and painted light blue over that. Felt it became too blue then so I added some more white paint. Brushed a few little streaks of Inka Gold here and there, etc.

Because I needed 3 e's I couldn't use any of the chipboard alpha's I had wanted to use. Chose for these felt alpha's instead and altered them later on by painting them with a mixture of glass beads texture gel mixed with mica powder teal.

Once my spraying was done it was time to emphasise everything with Inka Gold. I chose to use an anthracite color. 

Afterwards I added some of the glass beads texture gel here and there, which I probably should have done earlier. It dried up looking very shiny and glassy, absorbing the Inka Gold. So I redid those bits a little.

I wasn't happy yet but that's just me. So I sprayed a different tone of brown at the bottom section, and used my glass beads texture gel with teal mica powder (left over from coloring the alpha's) here and there some more. Used a bit of brown Inka Gold to emphasise things, after I tried to dry brush some parts with a linen colored paint.

Finally I was (rather) happy and glued some thick rope around the steering wheel and canvas. Which I sprayed with the same color sprays I used on the canvas. Glued the steering wheel down and then it was done.

I really hope my friend will like it. It's not as subtle as I was planning. Though she's not into pastels, these aren't the exact colors of the baby's room either. Well, it's a gift I lovingly made for her and her baby and that's what counts. Right? ;)

Happy scrapping and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask! You can find me on Facebook too: Less is bore!