A fabric postcard for myself

I say this is for myself, meaning it 's not for a swap or trade. Most of the art I've done in the past year, regarding 5x5s and postcards, has been for swaps. Which is great, because then I get wonderful art from other artists, which I love getting. But sometimes it's nice just to make art and keep it for myself. I feel some of my best art was done for swaps, and I must confess that sometimes it's difficult to part with my favorite artworks.

The fabric I used here for the background is batik-like, and one I love. I found a remnant at a thrift store and was drawn to it, so I snapped it up for $1.50, half price that day. I got at least a yard or more, I haven't measured it. That's enough to be useful for a lot of art. The hearts are cut out of my "rusted fabric" (scroll down for samples below).

I love, love, love rusted fabric, or rusted anything. As you can see, I glued on three rusted found objects, scavenged from the parking lot of my local truck stop. I cut out strips of paper from National Geographic magazine, from pages that would make a good background, and glued them down on the fabric first. Then I tea dyed cheese cloth, and glued that down over the strips of paper.

Then I glued down the hearts and the rusted found objects. I frayed the edges of the fabric, and used those threads on the piece also. The more I work with fabric and fibers in art, the more I love them. The base to this piece is frozen pizza cardboard, which I use often for postcards, 5x5s, and ATCs.

One thing I don't like about how the photo came out though, is how the cheese cloth looks more white than sepia. Because it is sepia, due to tea dying it. Although I wish I'd left it in the tea dye longer to make it darker. As a matter of fact, I have more cheese cloth tea dying right now, that I plan to leave in the tea for several days, to see how dark it will dye. The cheese cloth on this piece was soaked in the tea for only a few hours,

Another option for me is to dye some cheese cloth in walnut ink, which I think I'll try too. That should come out a lot darker than tea dying. I have walnut ink crystals, that I can use for that purpose. Hmmm, I might just do that after I post this to my blog.