Saturday, September 27, 2008

Nature in Threes

This is some new art I made today. I guess I can say I recently took a brief sabbatical from making art. Don't ask me why, I'm not sure....maybe I just needed a break. It really felt good to make art today though.

I didn't have anything specific in mind when I started this piece. This is 5 x 7 inches, the base is frozen pizza cardboard. I used wallpaper from a sample book for the background. Then I distressed three green paint chips, by sanding them and using a sharp awl on them, then rubbing brown show polish all over them. The leaf on the middle paint chip was made by spreading gel medium on the back of a real leaf, and then stamping with it. When it dried, I rubbed brown show polish over it. I used a punch for the grasshoppers. The middle grasshopper was punched out of the leaf I used to stamp with.

The other two leaves are real, glued on with gel medium, then coated on top with gel medium, so as to preserve them. When dry, I rubbed them with brown shoe polish also. Then I glued tea dyed cheese cloth on the top and bottom corners, then rubbed it with....guess what? Yep, the brown shoe polish. The "three" is stamped caulk, painted with Gold Lumiere paint when dry. I outlined the middle paint chip with a gold paint pen. The seeds at the upper corner are from my yard.

And the key is one I got on ebay, that came in a large lot of cool, vintage keys. I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE those old keys, and should have enough now to last me a while.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is a great piece, glad you felt inspired to create something.

Sandy said...

Fabulous piece, I would love to see this in person.

Christy said...

This is gorgeous Val. Reading through the description I didn't see what the vertical uhmm dots I guess? are in the upper right running parallel to the leaf? I like the way they look too. I like your leaves and your use of the tiny seeds too. You are really tempting me to buy some brown shoe polish LOL

Barb said...

Oh Val,
This piece is amazing! So many interesting layers, techniques and textures!
Thanks for sharing.

Michi Michaelson, Orange County, CA said...

This is a LOVELY piece of artwork, Val!!!! I LOVE the natural elements you used on your collage . . . VERY exciting!!!!!

FLYING SOLO said...

I LOVE YOUR TEXTURE AND COLORS. GREAT WORK.

nancy said...

Val, This is beautiful. So is your other new stuff. As always, I so much appreciate your sharing of your techniques!
I just came back from Kentucky and delivered the collage to my daughter that I did for her birthday (Inspired by you, my collage guru) and she was beside herself, she loved it so much. I used lots of things that had special meaning in her life, and got real bold with the shoe polish.
Nancy

Anonymous said...

Hi Val, I love all the great textural interest in all your pieces. Your techniques are very creative!Glo
http://papermoongoddess.blogspot.com

Christy said...

Just popped in again to say that I am tagging you... I hope you can play along!
http://averageamericangirl.com/blog/?p=915

Helen Percy Lystra said...

Good that you're back to making art... You're too good not to though we all go through dry spells I think