Washboard Effect

This is a 5x5 art squared piece I made a few weeks ago. After I made my "Starkness of Winter" piece with the weathered by nature corrugated cardboard, I still had some left over, fortunately. So I decided to use some on this piece, and just play around. I've been "into" the harlequin pattern lately, and finally bought a harlequin rubber stamp, my first one, and wanted to play with that too. And then I noticed that the bottom of a styrofoam meat tray I had washed and kept also had a harlequin pattern, which excited me, so I cut a rectangular piece out and used that for a stamp also, in the lower left corner.

So this piece is about weathered corrugated cardboard and the harlequin pattern, and as always, texture. I started with frozen pizza cardboard (FPC) as my base. I used the brown side, and etched random lines in it with a sharp awl for texture, then rubbed the piece with paste brown shoe polish. Then I glued down corrugated cardboard, and then some tea dyed cheese cloth on top of that. I also glued down a piece of rusted dryer sheet in the lower left corner. Then I used lavender and green acrylic paint and stamped with my harlequin stamps, and also painted over the corrugated cardboard. Then I rubbed brown shoe polish over the cheese cloth and dryer sheet and corrugated cardboard.

Then I distressed lavender and green paint chips by sanding them, and etching diagonal lines to get a harlequin pattern, then rubbing with the brown shoe polish. Then I used paper punches to punch out the shapes and glued them down. I don't often use beads in my work, although I have lots of cool beads, so on this piece I decided to use them. Just one more art supply I have that I should use more often. So I glued various beads down, and then sealed the whole piece with Future Floor Finish (FFF), which gives a glossy finish. The last touch was the cool rusted old key, from my stash off ebay.

I had to take a digital picture of this, rather than scanning it, due to the dimension on the piece.
I prefer to scan, because it's so much easier, although the colors don't always come out true. That's the downside of scanning. And the down side of taking pics is that oftentimes, there is unwanted glare. I even took this picture outdoors, so my flash didn't go off, which was what I wanted. Even so, there's some minor glare over the cheese cloth, which ends up looking like glitter, but there's no glitter on this piece. I enjoyed using the weathered corrugated cardboard as an element on this piece, and think it gives a washboard effect, hence the title.

I still have a few small pieces left of the weathered corrugated cardboard that I'm sure I'll use in one way or another. I'm so glad I accidently discovered it behind my garage a while back, and don't know where it came from, perhaps the trash, but am grateful. What a cool gift it was! And just to make sure I don't run out, I put a large pizza box, (not the frozen kind but the kind delivered, the corrugated kind, and no it wasn't for me but for my housemate) out behind my garage, where it can be weathered by nature. I sprinkled twigs and dried leaves over it, just for good measure, and weighted it down with a brick, so it won't blow away. Since I live in Colorado (Denver metro), and it's only February, I'm sure we'll be getting more snow and winter weather. I don't know exactly how long it will take to adequately distress and weather the pizza box, but I figure that is up to Mother Nature. At some point it will end up looking very cool and I can use it in my art.

However, today, at 11:30 am, it's 59 degrees outside, with the sun shining and a beautiful blue sky. The high is supposed to reach 64. Yesterday it was even warmer, close to 70. I don't know why we've been blessed with such beautiful, spring like weather, but I'm certainly enjoying it while it lasts. Because I know it won't last, but it sure gives me a case of spring fever. Anyway, it'll be interesting to check on the pizza box from time to time, and see how it's coming along, see what Mother Nature is doing to it.