Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Spreading Peace

The other night I went for an ice cream run.  I stood in front of all the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream and this one flavor called to me...."Imagine Whirled Peace".  So fitting for me.  I really didn't care what the flavor was, I just needed this pint of ice cream.  Luckily for me, the ice cream was delicious.  It is a Caramel & Sweet Cream Ice Cream, with Fudge Peace Signs & Toffee Cookie Pieces. Mmmmmm Good!  As I sat there, pint in one hand, spoon in the other, I noticed words on the inside of the container.  Which of course meant I needed to eat the whole thing so I could read each and every word...things like..."Give Peace a chance" and "Love and Peace are Eternal".

The inspiration.  After all the ice cream was gone, I had to keep these words!  I wrote everything from the inside of the container on a few post-it notes and the light bulb went off.  Art!  I will make a couple of art pieces to go into my Beatles room (also my craft room).



The process...I started with a piece of linen fabric and spread three different shades of white acrylic paint to create a base.  Let that dry.  Next layer was the blue, nothing fancy just squeezed out the color on the canvas and used a sponge brush to spread it out.  Let that dry.  For the next layer, I took my kitchen sink sponge and cut it into a square.  Brushed the metallic silver paint onto the sponge and stamped it to the canvas.  Let that dry.  For the peace signs, I squeezed out two shades of green (one was metallic) in the shape of the peace signs, making numerous lines of paint.  Then with scrap paper, laid the paper on top of the paint, pressed down slightly and gently pulled off.  Let that dry. 

At this point I wanted to cut the canvas and get them into a frame before the words.  Using a rotary cutter I cut two identical rectangles from the canvas.  Then, using some 1 1/2" x 1/2" wood I created a 16" x 12" frame and stapled the canvas to it.  Finally, with dimensional black paint wrote the words.  Took a few days, because I wanted to make sure the paint was completely dry before I went to the next layer....but I am very happy with the end results.  Not sure the picture does them justice.




"When Ben & Jerry's wanted to talk about peace, we couldn't think of a better person to exemplify the message than John Lennon. Through his art and lyrics he imagined a world without war and asked us all to 'Give Peace a Chance'. We hope this whirly mixture of toffee cookies and fudge peace signs enlightens your bellies and souls and makes you ask what you can do to promote peace in your lives." - on outside of container.