 Okay guys, if you watched my recent video For art for therapy, then you saw me make these little canvases So I want to make these little canvases into one bigger canvas The more I think about it the more I think that's a good idea now for what I want to do I have one too many canvases. So I do want to take One of the more positive affirmation ones and I'm going to actually hold it aside and hang it up here in the Art room or put it by my desk as a reminder So I'm going to do that first Let's see This one now all of them are signed on the back and I wrote on the back what the Saying is that I wrote on it in case nobody can read it In case someday somebody takes this apart. I'm not going to change that. It's going to stay that way So then the idea is I'm going to I'm just going to put these out here for right now I don't know yet what order they're going to be in but it's this is a piece of foam core These are just four by four squares. So they don't even have to be all the right ways up Although I probably will make them that way is To arrange them Like this Nine by nine so see I have one too many it doesn't work and then I have a self-portrait I did of myself a ways ago in one of my sketchbooks and This is a printed copy of it on regular printer paper I also printed it on some vellum and that's given me a guide That I need to go back into with something darker that'll show up, but then I want to layer it on top of this You see what I'm going with that So as these are pieces of me pieces of who I am part of my journey and The white isn't bad, but I want it to be more transparent because I want you to be able to see these So I think we're going to take the vellum and use the printed Copy of the original drawing as a guide and then we'll go over it in pen and ink and make it darker So until it shows up first we need to arrange the background So we'll take all of these and put them over here aside first thing we need to do is figure out how big this is going to be and Then I'm going to take a pen and I make some reference lines on each of the corners And There we go, and we're going to use a straight edge and a mat knife to trim this and trim it up even not nice A street edge This is just a spare piece of foam core that I have laying around Nothing spectacular Let me use in what I have I could probably go get something nicer a piece of wood or something that would Eliminate the using what I have thing that I'm trying to do I'm wishing I was still in an art gallery because I do think that Although it wouldn't be something happy that you'd necessarily want to hang on your wall these art therapy pieces would make an interesting display and on a gallery When put together especially if you had more than one artists Therapy pieces hanging up They would tell a interesting story Okay Now we're going to cover the edges with some tape I'm going to sit down for this So I'm going to cover the edges because it's foam core the edges aren't super nice So I'm going to cover the edges with masking tape Okay, so next We are going to take a mat knife Probably this one. I want to get um give the foam core some texture Again that probably won't show In the background, but it'll make me happy I've never used this before so I don't know what to expect But I'm going to put a bunch of it on here And then we're going to just loosely scrape it on. I want to give this some texture Again, it's probably not going to show but I don't In case some of it does we're also going to paint it a color So At least around the edges They won't be obvious. Oh, hey masking tape So here we are with the vellum portrait and I am going to use Black and I think Black or dark gray. Holy cow. I don't know But no I Don't know Let's try dark gray Grab a dark gray We'll grab a black and Maybe a light gray For shading. Okay. We're going to start lighter and work our way darker That's pretty good. So let's take this and set it aside Sort of at random that's much better but I do think it needs to be darker. I think we're going to have to go with black I could print an extra one on vellum just in case because you know I do I am going to add some shading lines. The original has some shading lines in it in this gray color Let's see so the original has some Pen marks for shading So I do think we're going to add some of that in. Let's try that again So I did go ahead and once the texture medium was dry and paint the background Bored black And it's off to the side. You don't need to see me paint that But next thing we're going to do is attach these together now Initially, I was like not wanting to do that and then I really had to have sort of a mental talk to myself and ask why I don't want to permanently attach these together and I think part of me Is not wanting to acknowledge that these are good and bad These are all part of me and I think that I've talked myself into letting that go I need to just be okay with all of me and we are going to go ahead and permanently attach them now. I did Figure out what each one of these say including the one that I Have can't read anymore and I printed this grid And these are what they all say this will be attached to the back of the finished piece I also as I spoke in the previous clip. I printed two of the vellums as a guide in case I messed one up I do think I'm going to layer them together Because I think that is a little more opaque than just one you can see the image better and You can still see the background pieces Of me through the image of my face. So I think that's what I want to do now The first thing we're going to do is attach all nine of these together We're going to do that with e6000 But we're going to temporarily hold them in place while that dries with hot glue an old crafters trick so First thing my my e6000 is white because that was all they had in stock the last time I had to go buy this So we're going to carefully apply this and hopefully not Not um Get it where somewhere where it's going to show. So I'm going to put a thin bead of e6000 And I've already again. I've already arranged these how I want them to permanently be I'm going to put a little dab of hot glue on either end and then Put these together And hold and hopefully not lose them to the table Okay, there we go. So we're going to do all nine of them that way until we have our square and I will be back Hi guys, I want to pop in here for a second with the pieces of me video that you're watching right now and say Uh as a reminder, I'm not an art there uh an art therapist. I'm not an art therapist. I'm not a counselor I'm not a physician by any stretch of anyone's imagination. If you're suffering from any mental health issues Please go get help. There's no shame in that. That's what I'm doing And I just want to bring you these videos as a way to show you all how I'm helping myself or trying to at least Work through my own issues with help from my own counselor So I hope it gives you some ideas of what you can do and again if you need help Please get it. I will try to include a link to a website I found in the us that should help you Find someone if you need someone to talk to and if you have a link for someone else in the um Country that you live in that you'd like me to include. Please let me know private message me leave it in the comments Um email me whatever. Um, you know how to contact me. All right. That's it back to the video Okay, the next thing we're going to do is carefully stack our two pieces of paper And center them on our canvases And then i'm going to use some melashi tape to take them down And we do the next step. This is a sort of A low-tack washi those of you who have washi tape know That some of them are more sticky than others This is one of those ones that's not super sticky piece there So the paper so the papers don't move around See that's what I mean about them not being super sticky. Okay, so now it's taped down And you can You know take a second look and make sure you like the way it's going to look which I do I have four little black brads. I had four or the other one go. Oh, there it is So we're going to attach this through the canvas with a brad and we're going to actually poke a hole with an exacto knife In each corner Through the paper through the Canvas and again, I did want to tell you all this is not an easy thing for me to do Although I know In my brain I need to Part of me did not want to do this Because it's sort of owning up to who I am and how I got here But that's okay It's part of my process part of my journey and we're going to just own it Okay, so I'm just going to eyeball this if you really want it to be precise You probably could measure and make sure you're getting the whole of the same place on each one, but Obviously, I'm not doing that Okay, now we can take the tape off I don't remember now until I edit that if I said that, you know, if you don't have a drawing of your face You could definitely maybe print a photo of yourself onto Something to semi-transparent or you could trace a photo of yourself Or something like that or you could maybe draw or use a symbol that represents yourself That all of those things will work. Okay. So now we're going to get our backer board and hopefully it's dry You could definitely just leave it like this You could definitely go there. I do want to put it back on it. And so I'm going to do that and I'll be right back Okay, I decided that we're going to use the solid painted black and textured Part of this board as our background to our finished piece And this is going to be where I glue the little canvases I um Going to put It together the same way we put the canvases to each other with some e6000 and then hot glue to hold it while the e6000 dries so I'm going to Move things around a little bit so you can see what I'm doing. Maybe Let's see Okay, so there we go. That'll do our burnout. So I'm going to put e6000 like the same places where I put it When I put the canvases together and then we'll put dots of hot glue in all the corners and then really quickly flip it over And attach it to the board. So I'm going to do that and I'll be right back Okay, now I want to attach our paper to the back and I am going to sign it But first I want to get it attached Um, and I think I'm going to try a technique. I've never seen anybody do before Is it a good idea? I have no idea Uh, so first I'm going to just center this And then I'm going to flip part of it back Kind of run A little bit of hot glue I'm going to spread the hot glue real quick with a palette knife And then stick the paper down And a little bit And attach seems to attach it quickly. It doesn't leave it bumpy If because you spread it out with a palette knife and it doesn't also leak through the paper You just have to be really quick because it's hot glue so And as you can see I have black paint on my hands again if you can see that because There's some parts of the paint that aren't dry yet There's lots of other ways you could attach this if you're not as like impatient as I am You could use any one of a number of glues Again, if use what you have don't go out buy something special This is about using what we have and working through our our issues In any way that we can creatively There we go Now to get the hot glue off of the palette knife The easiest way is to take one of these razor blade things Um always move it away from you And It should come right off So I know you need to let it dry a little more, but you get the idea. Okay, so now we're going to sign this And there we go. There's our finished art piece pieces of me And I might actually title it that what do you think? I'd love to see what you do if you guys take this idea and do something of your own with Um something like this that you've done. Um inspired by my visit videos or not. I'd love to see it Do go join my facebook group a life of art and self-expression if you're not already And do tag me in the post because I'd love to see What you're doing. I don't always see the posts immediately But I do see them eventually and if I miss something One of my admins or other art friends remind me. Hey jena go look at this. So I do want to see them. Um If you have questions comments or concerns, do leave it down below again If you're friends with me on facebook or in the facebook group you can private message me a question Um all of my social media stuff including my facebook group link are all in my video description along with My at the shop and everything else most of it is in the link tree list of links Happy mail addresses down there and all that stuff. I'd love to hear from you Don't forget to like share and subscribe and above all go out and do something nice for yourself because you really do deserve it And I'll see you later. Bye guys