Caulk in Art Revisited - Yummy Texture and Dimension

Oh my goodness, where does the time go?  I'm really trying to post more consistently so my blog doesn't grow old and become stale.  I'm so honored to have so many followers and people who visit my blog, and I feel like I'm dropping the ball this year because my posting has been so intermittent.  On the other hand, when one is fighting the cancer battle, art becomes secondary or even further down on the priority list.

These pictures are not of new, recent art, and yes, they've all been posted on my blog before.  But they are three of my favorite works using caulk....which is a product I love to use, write about, and show and tell how it can be used.  I guess I just love promoting the use of caulk for great texture and dimension.  Some artists out there already know about it and have used it in their art, but there are also many artists who don't know about it and haven't used it.  Those are the ones I'm trying to reach and inspire to at least try using caulk.

I love the fact that it's so inexpensive (meaning cheap), so easily accessible, so easy to work with, and gives such great results.  What could be better than that?  It can be found at Family Dollar stores for a mere buckaroo ($1.00).  It's a little more expensive at the home improvement stores, ranging in price.  I buy the 5 ounce hard cylinders that need a caulk gun to extrude, but even caulk guns are cheap.  Or, you can buy it in the tubes that don't need a caulk gun.  I extrude it into a glass jar (the more shallow jars salsa comes in work great), and then put two layers of plastic wrap over the top, and then screw the lid on.  That helps keep the moisture in.  I've never had any caulk dry out on me, it can stay moist and usable for at least year, or even longer.

It can be colored with acrylic paint and liquid inks, and possibly even food coloring.  Or painted any color after it dries.  It can also be sanded after it dries.  It can be stamped or impressed into when it's wet, or frosted over stencils for a great but subtle dimensional effect.  It's a great adhesive and things can be embedded into it, or it can be used like glue to attach and adhere heavier items to a base or assemblage.  It can be applied to rubber stamps or any item with a make-up sponge, to get some dimension.  It can be diluted with water, or I suppose with any acrylic medium, to any consistency you desire.  You can put it in a plastic squeeze bottle to get the effect of dimension, or dilute it even thinner and use it more like gesso.  You can mix things with it when it's wet to get different textures, such as sand, cornmeal, tea grounds from used teabags, used coffee grounds, saw dust, small beads, torn paper, etc.  The sky is the limit as to what can be mixed in with it.  Oh yeah, and caulk can also be used on fabric and almost any surface.  If any of you have any more suggestions on how to use it, please share that information in a comment so all of us can learn about it.

What I've shared here so far are general tips on all the different ways to use caulk.  For more specific information on how I made certain art pieces using caulk, here is the link to all my caulk pieces.  So just scroll down that page.  And here's the link to my very first post on caulk, posted soon after I started my blog in February of 2008.

Regarding making some new art, I am actually working on an 11 X 14 canvas panel, a gift for my dear younger sister (and only sister) Jan, who requested an art work from me.  She has helped me so much and been so supportive during my battle with cancer.  And I love her and appreciate her so much.  I've managed to get the canvas panel painted in different shades of blue, green, and purple, and duh....I'm not liking it much at all.  Which is disconcerting to me.  No, more than that, it's bugging the heck out of me.  It doesn't happen very often that I dislike my art while in the process of creating it.  Occasionally, yes, but not that often.  Usually the more I do on a piece, the more I like it as it progresses.  And I consider this to be a very special and important piece, as a token of my love and appreciation for my sister.  

 The problem is, I'm really in a quandary as to where to go from here.  I suppose I could just gesso over it and start over again, even though I have many layers of paint on it, first with the credit card technic, then the sponge technic.  It has lots of paint on it, but I don't like the way it looks.  Even though it may sound crazy, I've never started over on a piece of art.  It shouldn't be a big deal, but it feels like a big deal.  I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head regarding what I want to do, I can't pick a direction to go in or focus on what to do next.  The ideas are: 

1.  to use caulk and/or wallboard joint compound for a very textural abstract piece.

2.  to do a layered collage, which I haven't done in a long time

3.  to use fabric and lace on it, and maybe even some kind of transfer

4.  to do a nature piece

All of these ideas are competing in my head, and I'm even trying to figure out how I can do all of them in one piece.  That would be great if I could manage to do it.  Or would it be?  Maybe not.  I just don't know.  So right now I'm very stuck.  I wonder if I should start over on it or just set it aside for a while, until I can focus on where I want to go with it.  There's no time deadline or urgency to get it done, and yet I'm very impatient to get it done.  Not only for her sake, so she can hang it in her home, but for my sake, to prove to myself that yes, I can still make art that I like or love.  Because I am concerned about that since I've made only one piece of new art since January, when I found out about the cancer.  At this point, I'm afraid I've lost a lot of the confidence I used to have, regarding making art.  And that is not a fun place to be in.  Oh well, this isn't earth shattering, I'm sure I'll work through it.  But I'd like to be there already!!!  I really need to gain my confidence back.

Oh, one more tip.  When I go to thrift stores or yard sales, I always look for frames. Sometimes I find canvas panels of different sizes, either clean and unused, or already painted on.  This panel I'm working on was already painted on, it was a painting of flowers.  It was not a very good painting.  So I just gessoed over it, and voila it was like a new large canvas panel that I paid a buck for.  I've been able to accumulate six canvas panels so far. Sometimes I find wooden plaques that would make good, sturdy bases for a piece of art.  So keep your eyes open for any kind of base that would work for an art piece.

And if any of you have any great tips for anything regarding making art, please leave that info in a comment.  I think tips are always fun and interesting to read, and it's great when I haven't heard them before.   Tips can really inspire me, and I could use some inspiration right now.  So how about sharing your own tips?  Please do!!!  You'd be doing me a favor.  I have the rest of the day to work on art.  Here's to hoping I find my way out of this quandary today.

One more tip.  If you like using lace in your art, look for lace tablecloths at thrift stores and yard sales.  I bagged a large, mint condition white tablecloth at a thrift store on sale for $2.00 a few weeks ago.  It's the thicker cotton lace, which I prefer.  And cotton lace can be dyed.  All lace can be painted.  The easiest and fastest way to paint it is to use spray paint.  Painting it with a brush can be slow and tedious.  I figure this large tablecloth will last me a good, long time.  I won't be running out of lace anytime soon, that's for sure.                                                                                                                         

Bones -- Halloween/Autumn Collage

Ahhh yes, skeletal bones.  And a fine looking skeleton it is.  It started out lavender, the color it came in the package.  Which was cool, but not the color I needed for this piece.  So I painted it with Lumiere Gold and then rubbed black over it, then sealed it with Future Floor Finish (FFF).  Regarding the second photo, I once again played around with the fish eye lens on my photo editor just to see what it would look like.  I like the way it looks.

Let me back up a bit here.  This is an 8x10 inch piece of chip board.  I had an unopened package of multiple colors of Mulberry Papers, so I decided to finally use some.  I glued down an orange sheet with Mod Podge, and then glued down a piece of very red lace on top of  that.  I was going to go with that as my background, but I felt the lace was too red so I glued down another sheet of orange mulberry paper on top of the lace, and liked that result much better because it toned down the red lace and gave me the colors I wanted. I really like how the orange fibers in the mulberry paper show up so well.  I sealed the background with FFF also.

The orange piece is obviously a large paint chip from Lowe's.  I considered distressing it first, by sanding it and then etching in it with a sharp awl, but chose not to.  I did however brush over it thickly in all directions with gel medium in order to give it some subtle texture.  When dry, I rubbed paste brown shoe polish over it.  Well, before I textured it, I used my trusty Hot Stamps tool with my number set and burned in the numbers.  I did the same thing with my alphabet set for the word "Bones".  I do love my Hot Stamps tool, but haven't used it in quite some time.  It's one more great tool I should use more often than I do.  It works quite well on paint chips I discovered this time around.  It's always good to learn something new.

The spiders came in a package of Halloween confetti, and worked out great for this piece.  The paint chip came with the square windows in it, so it only made sense to glue the spiders there.  I had the transparent round pieces for years and never used them until now.  It's a miracle I even remembered I had them.  

The long fiber piece is an orange chenille pipe cleaner wrapped with the orange fiber specialty yarn.  Not my idea, but a great one.  This idea, and many more easy and innovative ideas for very cool embellishments are featured in Sherill Kahn's book, CREATIVE  EMBELLISHMENTS.  It's one of my favorite books ever, a must have for my own library.

The leaves were picked up off my driveway yesterday, not long after they fell off the tree.  I immediately preserved them by sealing them with gel medium on both sides, then put them in a book to flatten them out for a few hours.  I like them a lot on this piece, but am not sure if the color works well.  I would've preferred for them to be more orange, whereas they're kind of inbetween green and orange.  I don't even know what color to call them.  Maybe I'm crazy here, but it occurred to me I could paint them red/burgundy, and maybe even get crazier still and paint orange polka dots on them.  I mean hey, this is not exactly a serious art piece, right?  It already looks kinda funky, so why not expand on the funkiness with crazy painted leaves?  That thought is still tickling my fancy, but I'm a little afraid to try it....as in, what if it screws up the whole piece?  So I'd really like your opinions on this idea.  Do you like the leaves the way they are, or should I get crazy and paint them?  I'd really appreciate your input, because I still haven't made up my mind on this idea.  Thanks for any input.

Linearity -- Caulk Squares and Rectangles

This is a new work, and a bit different for me, at least in some ways.  This piece is 4 x 9 inches, a size I've never worked on before.  The base is frozen pizza cardboard (FPC), nothing new there.   I've been using circles in my art for some time now, because I really love them.  But recently I've been inspired to play around with using squares and rectangles, with caulk applied with a small palette knife.  It was harder to make them that way than I expected, because it was the first time I tried it.  Hopefully, if I try it again I'll get better with some practice.

On this piece, I sanded the image side of the FPC and then covered it with white gesso.  Then glued down the netted fabric, then painted over it with Liquitex Majenta acrylic paint.  After that dried, I rubbed Liquitex Cadmium Yellow over it with my finger.  This is a color combination I love and have used at times.  Although the magenta looks more like a burgundy to me, and not true magenta at all.  I love burgundy and yellow used together.  

After that, I applied white acrylic caulk with a small palette knife.  I thought that part would be easy, but I was wrong.  It was rather difficult and required a lot of patience.  Once the caulk dried, I painted it with different shades of orange, then rubbed contrasting colors over the squares and rectangles with my finger to highlight the texture.

I liked it at that point, but felt it needed more and wasn't finished.  So I picked up the stems off my driveway and glued those down, then rubbed brown shoe polish over them.  And then pulled out my stash of skeleton leaves and found just the right size for this piece.  I didn't initially intend for this to end up being a nature piece, and yet it sort of is -- at least partially.  My squares and rectangles are far from perfect....but that's okay.  I kind of like them that way.  

If I do this again, I think I might try adding the paint directly into the caulk and mixing it in before applying it to the piece.  Just a thought anyway.  Or perhaps diluting the caulk a bit and see what happens with that.  Or maybe applying the caulk with a paintbrush instead of a palette knife.

So anyway, that's what I did on this piece.  I kind of like this size and format, at least for the linear effect.  It's nice to play around with new ideas.  Where they might lead....I have no idea!!!

Solitary Leaf (another caulk-art piece)

As many of you may already know, I LOVE using caulk in my art.  And I must be on a caulk binge right now, which suits me just fine.  This is a special piece to me, one I'm very fond of, because I made it as a gift for a very special artist, person, and online friend,  Corinne Stubson, whom I admire a lot.  And I'm very happy with how this piece turned out.  The theme is a circle theme, one of my favorite themes for art, and one I keep going back to.

Normally, I explain how I make my art and the technics I use, and I so enjoy doing that.  However, I just spent 45 minutes typing up this post, then previewed it, then lost it.  It just disappeared.  Which made me want to tear my hair out.  So, I'm not going to redo all that again.  I've done other caulk circle pieces that I've explained, so if you're interested in this technic, you can find caulk and circles in my labels on the right side of my blog.  Those will pretty much explain my caulk technics.

Also, the leaf in this piece is a real leaf from a tree in my yard.  The dimensions of this piece are 5x7 inches, so it didn't take that long to make.  Enjoy.

Addendum:  I just remembered I explained how I made this piece on one of my yahoo groups,  the Collagecats group.  Here's the link to that group.  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Collagecats/  The number of the post that explains this piece is #56932, so if you're a member of that group you can read it there.  If you're not a member, you might want to join because it's a great altered art group.  There, now I feel better, having explained how I made this piece but just not on my blog.

My first "killed catalog"

Oh my, it seems like it's been too long since I posted new art. Or even made new art. Well, as I've said before, at times, life and reality intervene, and so art gets relegated to the back burner for a while. That has been the case for me lately.

However, I'm happy to post this new work, which I made a few weeks ago. I started reading Maggie Grey's blog about killed catalogs, and it seemed very intriguing to me. So I thought I'd give it a try with a catalog I got in the mail. I mean using anything free as a base for art always attracts me, which is one reason why I've used frozen pizza cardboard (FPC) for years as a base for most of my art. However, before I started reading Maggie's blog, I'd never heard of "killed catalogs", and the whole concept was totally new to me.

Maggie's concept was to bury a catalog outdoors and let it disintegrate for a period of time. As for me, I wanted more instant results, so I changed things up a bit and took my own approach. First I soaked the catalog overnight in water, then put it on my picnic table on the patio the next day to dry out. It did dry out to some extent, but then an art buddy, Linda East, suggested I finish the drying process in my clothes dryer. I thought - what a great idea - so I tried that. First I put it in a mesh dryer bag, but it escaped the bag, and got somewhat mangled in the dryer. Luckily, it didn't leave a big mess in the dryer.

Then Linda suggested painting it with flour paste, and baking it in the oven. That sounded good to me, since I wanted to adhere it all together, and coat it with something, and hey, flour paste is cheap, right? So that worked out well. Then I painted it with a coat of white gesso. Then misted it with Memories Mists Strawberry Daiquri, and Mod Podged down some netted fabric , and then some yellow lace on top of that.

Then I frosted some caulk over parts of it and texturized that and let it dry. Then I rubbed paint over the caulk with my finger using burgundy and orange, then misted Memories Mists Mango Lemonade (a cool yellow color) over that.
I glued down some threads, burgundy twine and leaves, and frayed fabric strips. And then the orange circles, punched out of paint chip, and the yellow square paper clips, and the yellow plastic "9" in the bottom left corner. The "9" is rather hard to see on the scan. I did a scan on this, and the art piece was bigger than my scan surface, so I didn't get it all on there. I had to sacrifice the far right side, where I had glued down three orange circles and two square paper clips. So one circle and the two paper clips don't show.

I'm happy with how this turned out, although it doesn't look much like a killed catalog, a la Maggie Grey. Meaning it doesn't have much dimension, and ended up rather flat. But hey, this was my first try at this, and I mostly improvised on the spot. And gee, isn't that what making art is all about anyway? We can all start out with a plan, and then kind of get sidetracked into a direction our muse takes us, and end up with something much different than what we planned. So I guess I have to say that's kind of what happened here, but even so, I really like the end result.

I'd like to thank Maggie Grey for coming up with the idea of killed catalogs and posting about it on her blog. And for opening the door to something new and different, a new idea, a new technic. And I'd also like to thank my art buddy, Linda East, who came up with some great suggestions. Take a look at what she's done with her killed catalogs on her blog. I think they are totally great!

In closing, I'm so pleased to post some new art. I have another art project I'm working on, which is my first fabric book ever. It's a project in my local art group, and one that has taken me far too long to make progress on. It has been very slow going, one small step at a time. I think partly because I've never done a fabric book before, so I feel more than a bit intimidated and lost. I don't know how long it will take me to finish, there is no specific deadline, but I am determined to finish it. All in due time, whatever that means.

Big Reveal of 2nd Collab Project

I'm so thrilled to be able to post this beautiful art work. This is my second collaboration project of this type. My dear friend Heather Robinson and I teamed up to put our hearts and minds together to create this piece. One I am in love with, I don't mind saying, and I'm so excited and grateful that it's MINE ALL MINE!!! This arrived in the mail last week, and I've been admiring it ever since.

The first picture is of the background I made on this 8x10 inch piece, done on thick piece of chipboard. Then I mailed it to Heather for her to work her artistic magic on it. And so she did, and I'm in awe of what she turned this piece into.  The second picture is what it looks like now.  I totally LOVE what she did, and the result of our heartfelt collaboration. She made her background on stretched canvas, and sent it to me, and I did my part on that and sent it back to her. From what she told me, she loves her piece too. We chose to synchronize our blog posts of "The Big Reveal", so you can click on her name above to see her piece, and what I did on that.

I'm happy to post the before and after pictures here of my piece. Because it shows how Heather transformed my background into a totally different work of art, by using what I did as a jumping off point. One that never would've happened or been created if we hadn't done this together, as a collaboration. And I did the same with her background. I was oh so excited when this arrived in the mail, and I could finally see how she chose to complete this piece. I kept wondering and guessing in my mind, but had no clue what she was doing on it. Once I opened it, I was in heaven, and at peace. Because this was perfect, and meant to be, and far exceeded any expectations I had.

I realized that she finished this piece in a way I never would have, meaning it never would've occurred to me to do what she did, not in a million years. Because we are two different and individual artists. One interesting and even surprising thing about this collab effort is that although Heather and I have the greatest respect for each other's art, we both admit that our art and art styles are very different, indeed almost opposite. She uses a lot of vintage images and text in her art, whereas I rarely do. My art style is more raw and unexpected and unconventional, and hers is more refined and elegant and generally conveys a message. Initially, this was a bit of a concern to us, that our art styles are so very different.

In the beginning, I think both of us, secretly and privately, felt like we had to reach for the "middle ground", and try to make art more like the other person's style. But over time, in a number of wonderfully honest  and vulnerable emails, we expressed our thoughts and feelings about this, and realized the goal was not to meet in the middle, or compromise our own art styles, but to make our own art in our own styles, and be true to ourselves. Once we established that and agreed, we felt freedom and excitement and anticipation at what the other would do on our backgrounds. That made it so much more interesting and exciting, knowing that our art styles were so different, but that we could still be true to ourselves.

Heather and I were online acquaintances and friendly before we embarked on this collab effort. But in the process of doing this, we became true friends and got to know each other much better, in a much deeper way. Our friendship grew and blossomed, because we shared our true thoughts and feelings about our art and ourselves and this whole process and collab effort. Now we have a wonderful and special friendship that we intend to maintain, that we both appreciate so much. And I don't think that would've happened if we hadn't embarked on this venture and adventure, and both said an unqualified YES to it, even though we both had some underlying fears and concerns.  I am just so grateful that Heather and I agreed to do this project. Grateful for the awesome, beautiful art piece I ended up with....but even more grateful for the friendship and connection we developed, which to me is the real prize!!! Thank you so very much dear Heather, for this awesome art piece, and even more so for your friendship.

I have to shout out to the world -- MISSION ACCOMPLISHED -- beyond my hopes or expectations, regarding this collab effort. And I also have to say that the same thing happened in my first collab effort, with Mary Schweitzer. Click on her name to see my finished piece from her. Mary and I also became friends as a result of our collab effort. Gee, it's funny how that happens. No, not really. I think it's the extra bonus, the special gift, of doing this kind of cooperative venture and adventure with another artist.

So as you might expect or understand, I'm very big on doing the collab thing right now. It's rather a life changing experience, as a person and artist. At least it has been for me and for Heather, as she told me that. I see it as the next step of my art journey, and life journey. And it's not like I sat around and thought about it, about doing collab projects, before the idea came to me last summer. Because it just popped into my head, out of nowhere, totally unexpected. And I just went with it, and invited Mary and Heather to jump in and go with it too. I simply did it on impulse, and am so happy and grateful I did and they did. (Because sometimes when I do things on impulse, well the outcome isn't so great, LOL.)

For those of you artists out there reading this, I totally encourage you to jump in and do a similar collab effort, for the first time. At least try it once, but most likely if you do, you'll want to do more than one. (I've got two more going right now.) I am very fortunate to have a local art group here in Denver metro that meets once a month, and I totally love it. But many of you don't have that. And so I know, you make your art alone at home. Yes, you may belong to great yahoo groups and visit blogs, and know a lot of artists online as acquaintances, but when it comes to online art friendships, and really connecting with other artists, do you have that? Well if so, that's wonderful. If not, and you'd like to have that, then you might need to reach out and take the initiative, and propose a collab effort with another artist. The most likely by-product of that will be friendship and a beautiful piece of art.  And gee, if they should turn you down for whatever reason, that's okay.  Just know there are other artists out there who would love to do this and would say YES!

I don't know, maybe I'm trying to start a movement here. My muse hasn't confessed to me if that's what she's up to or not. I just know doing a collab effort is a very special thing, with so many positive benefits. It's a challenge, a growth experience, a cooperative experience -- that isn't available doing art alone. It's a totally different experience, and a positive step forward in my opinion, in the art journey. It requires trust, cooperation, communication, vulnerability....all things that build friendship.  All things that may not be easy, but the rewards make it totally worth it, in my opinion.

Well, I hope I didn't go on too long here, but this means a lot to me. Not only in my own collab efforts and experiences, but in my hope that YOU out there will try this also, and reap the wonderful rewards and benefits I have. So yes, I'm trying to start a Collab Movement here.   I'm wondering, what is the next step in this MOVEMENT?  Perhaps the sky is the limit.

Nature Art

This is a 4x6 inch piece I did over a year ago and posted on my blog way back then. I'm posting it again now because I want to enter it into the Saturday Surprise challenge, of which my good art friend Heather Robinson is hosting. The theme this week is Mother Nature. Also, when I first posted this piece my blog was very new and not that many people knew about it or visited. So this time around perhaps more people will view and hopefully enjoy it. If you want to know how I made this piece, here's the link to my first post, where I explained that. http://valsalteredheartjourney.blogspot.com/2008/02/ive-been-good-little-art-do-bee.html

Regarding nature art, I love it. It's one of my favorite themes. I mean, what could be better than using items from nature to create art? I used tea dyed cheese cloth to wrap this piece, kind of like a present I guess. I love using cheese cloth in my art, and love it even more if it's tea dyed. The idea to wrap it like this came at the very end, when I thought it was done. But it wasn't quite done yet, according to my muse, Bonita. Oh yes, I do love her....but sometimes she can be frustratingly contrary and unpredictable. However, on this piece she came through for me, and I think wrapping it with the cheese cloth was the exact right thing to do. Thank you Bonita!

Lately I've been involved in a heart postcard swap in one of my favorite yahoo groups. I've already posted two that I've made, and will be posting a few more in the near future. Oh, it's so good to be making art again, after a dreaded art slump. Making art rocks!!! And Bonita has been very supportive and cooperative lately, which makes my heart sing.

Collaborative Project -- Fairy in a Tree

Wow! Isn't this a fabulous piece of art? And I'm the very lucky owner of it. Recently my good art buddy, Mary Schweitzer,http://greenwomandesign.blogspot.com/, and I agreed to do a personal swap. We wanted to do a collaborative project. And so we did, and this is my piece that I get to keep and admire and treasure. We each worked on our own 8x10 pieces, then sent them to each other to be worked on, and then sent them back.This was a first, and totally new to us, to do this kind of collaboration. I think we were both nervous about working on each other's art, but that was the whole point, so we jumped in and did it. For results we couldn't have gotten on our own, as this beautiful piece shows. And I'd like to encourage those of you who do personal swaps to consider doing a collab effort like this, because you don't know what to expect. And what you get back can be so much better than what you sent, as this piece proves.

I made the collage background, and Mary made the oh so realistic tree, with a fairy perched in it. I mean truly, doesn't this tree look totally real??? When it came in the mail and I opened it, I was bowled over and blown away with what she did on this. And immediately emailed her to ask HOW she made the tree. She made the tree with brown tissue paper and gel medium, and lots of scrunching and shaping. I think she should do a tutorial on this on her blog. Because I've never seen tissue paper used this way before, nor seen such a realistic, dimensional tree on art before. I'm just so lucky it's on my art, and that I'm the lucky owner of this fabulous piece.

I've admired Mary's art for a long time now, even to the point of (shame on me) envy. I consider her a very innovative and avant garde artist, who tends to think outside the box and push the envelope when it comes to her beautiful art. I was thrilled when she agreed to do his collab swap with me. And I'm more than thrilled with this art work, and that we followed through on our idea to do a collab project.

So thank you so much Mary, I couldn't be more pleased with how this worked out. I'm so lucky and proud to own some of your avant garde art. Please visit Mary's blog, and enjoy her beautiful art. And if you even feel a bit envious, I can relate to that. And if you want to see Mary's piece, and what I did on it, she has it posted on her blog. What is so interesting to me is how very different our pieces are, and what we both did on the other's pieces. That's what's so cool about doing a collab effort -- you just don't know how it will turn out until you get it back.

So right now, I'm thinking COLLABORATION RULES!!! Can you blame me?

Understand with Your Heart

This is something I made yesterday. I don't often use text in my art, but I think maybe I should more often. Other than the text, I didn't really plan this out, which is mostly normal for me. Once again, I used frozen pizza cardboard (FPC) for the base, which is 5x7 inches. I cut up a lace blouse for the background, which I bought at a yard sale a while back and forgot I had. It was a cute blouse, but much too small for me. But I definitely liked the texture of the lace and knew I'd use it in my art.

After I glued it down, I painted it with Sweetheart Blush acrylic paint, then rubbed paste brown shoe polish over it. Then I used a bold yellow paint, and rubbed it over some the lace with my finger. Then I sealed it with Acrylic Floor Finish (AFF) from the Family Dollar store. The rectangular piece at the top is a distressed paint chip, sanded and etched with an awl, and then rubbed with brown shoe polish. I used a corner rounder punch for the corners. This was the kind of paint chip that already had the "windows" cut out of it, so I glued a fiber ribbon piece across those on the back of the paint chip, then glued it to the background. I punched the hearts out of another paint chip and glued those down.

The text piece came from an Inspirations daily calendar. I tore around the text and the image (a parrot), then crumpled it up, then rubbed over it with brown shoe polish, and glued it down. I also used a green skeleton leaf to repeat the green of the text piece.

I thought it was done at that point, but then the idea to make a cross came to me. But I didn't know what to use for that. So I looked around my studio and spotted some screening that I thought would work, and cut it out of that. Lastly, I glued on the rusted bottle cap. Just because I love using rusted found objects (RFOs) in my art, and I have quite a stash of them by now. I chose an assymetrical, imperfect one, because hey, none of us are perfect, right? At least that's what it meant to me, and why I used that one.

Once again, I used some of my favorite things on this piece. Such as lace for texture, distressed paint chip, hearts, a skeleton leaf, and an RFO. I keep coming back to using some of my favorite things. I see that as a good thing. Also, I'm glad I chose to use text to convey a wise message, mostly for myself. If it reaches anyone else and touches them too, that's all the better.

Starkness of Winter

This is another winter piece, and quite different in appearance from the last one. I wanted this one to look more real, more raw, more natural. I found a very weathered piece of corrugated cardboard behind our garage, distressed naturally by nature. That's what inspired me to do this piece. Then I pulled the rusted piece out of my rusted found objects (RFOs) stash. Oh yeah....this was a perfectly rusted piece! The leaf I picked up from my yard a while back, and stuck it in a book to flatten it, so I pulled that out too. Then I scavenged in my yard for just the right twig. And then I was ready to start on this piece.

The base on this is an 8x10 inch piece of frozen pizza cardboard (FPC). I probably should've used chip board, because there's some minor, minimal warping on this, but not bad enough to effect it much. The white background is white caulk spread on with a vintage, non-serrated butter knife. I texturized it as I spread it, then let it dry for about three hours. Then I sprinkled on some walnut ink crystals, spray misted it with water, and let the ink run down the piece randomly. Then I used double stick carpet tape to adhere the corrugated cardboard. I'm so glad I thought of using the tape on this, because using Matte Mod Podge or gel medium would've been much messier and more difficult, especially with a non-flat piece of corrugated cardboard.

After I adhered that, I glued down the leaf, the tea dyed cheese cloth, the rusted metal, and the twig. Then I sprinkled some more walnut ink crystals over those areas, spray misted with water, and just let it dry. The last thing I glued down was the feather, as kind of an after thought.

There are different colors and textures of winter, in my mind. After a fresh snowfall, there can be pristine beauty, eery stillness, even a peaceful feeling. But there can also be starkness, and the color of brown, rather than white, can dominate. I was trying to express starkness in this piece.

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.

Nature Art with a Twist

I finished this piece today. Yippee, I finally got some new art done I can post. I used my usual for the base - frozen pizza cardboard, of course. Then for the background, I used crumpled, then uncrumpled, glossy magazine page. I can't remember if I glued it down, or used double sided tape, because I did that part about a month ago. I think it could be done either way. It's the first time I've ever tried this technic, using magazine page. It gives really great texture.

Although I can't take credit for this technic, I didn't come up with it myself. I found it online at the Trish Bee Design Studio website. Here's the link to her website: http://www.trishbee.co.uk/techniqueszone/ . It's a wonderful website with a wealth of tutorials for many different technics. I was thrilled when I found it. Thank you Trish for your wonderful site and all the great tutorials. I'm sure I can learn a lot from your site. It's oh so inspiring!!!

Now, back to my piece. I punched the shapes out of entree cardboard, then frosted them with caulk (the poor man's modeling paste). On the larger circle, I stamped into it for the design. I used the underside of a vinyl carpet runner for the stamp, which has a swirl pattern.
On the other shapes, I frosted the texture onto them. For the painting, I used black acrylic paint, and then rubbed Lumiere gold over the textured parts with my finger. I love the look of black and gold, it looks so elegant and rich to to me.

Now for the leaf. It's a real leaf from my yard. I preserved it with gel medium on both sides and let that dry. Then I used a paint brush to paint caulk onto it. After it set up a few minutes, I used a toothpick to make the leaf veins. After it was dry, I painted with Lumiere gold, let that dry, then rubbed on Lumiere rust with my finger over the textured parts. After that, I used my finger to rub on some black, to get more contrast. To finish it, I sealed the whole piece with Future Floor Finish (FFF).

I had all the shapes done and ready to glue on, when the idea came to me to use the leaf. I've used real leaves before in some of my art, and love them. And gee, they are free from my yard and so accessible, now that spring is finally here. But this is the first time it occurred to me to use caulk on the leaf, to give it more texture. That's why this is titled Nature Art with a Twist. The leaf is totally natural, but putting caulk on it isn't. But even so, I like the way it turned out. I keep sayin' I LOVE that caulk!!!

Floating Through Grunge

Thanks to Diane on the clothpaperstudio yahoo group, I can post the whole picture of my collage. She was able to rejoin the three scans I took of it. You can view her blog here. Thanks so much Diane.

So anyway, here is what it looks like as one cohesive piece. Better than the three separate pieces I think. I came up with the title of FLOATING THROUGH GRUNGE kind of off the top of my head. I didn't want to over-think it. I must admit, I've gotten quite attached to this piece. Thank goodness I didn't make it for a swap, and then have to part with it. That would be very difficult. Thanks to all who left comments about this collage, or emailed me about it.

My Own Grunge Painted Collage (done on upholstery fabric sample)

This is a piece I worked on over several days, since last Saturday after our local book arts group meeting. Doing the grunge painting on fabric there must've really inspired me. (Scroll down to see a post and photos on that project). I really enjoyed doing the grunge painting, and love the results of it....and started thinking hmmmmm, can I produce similar results all by myself, as just one artist? Because the painting we did at the meeting involved the whole group, 13 artists.

At our meetings, oftentimes members will bring things to share with the group. At our last meeting, some people brought fabric remnants and wallpaper sample books to share. So, I brought home an upholstery fabric sample. It's dimensions are 17 x 12 inches, and it's quite thick and somewhat textured. I didn't care for the color, it was kind of an orange/tan, and I didn't know what I planned to do with it. Then it occurred to me I could just use it as a "practice" piece for grunge painting, that it would be perfect for that. And since I considered it a practice piece, and just for fun, I lost all fear of ruining it.

Now you have to know something about me. I am fearful about the "C" word. Doing "collage" scares me, for some strange or stupid reason. Anytime I think I'm doing a "collage", I get fearful and anxious and tense about my art and what I'm doing. Because I feel like I DON'T know what I'm doing. I start to over-think what I'm doing, or should be doing, and start second guessing myself, and get all concerned about placement and composition. I also get that way about layering. I have a really hard time with much layering at all, because I find it hard to paint over or cover up something I've already done, especially if I like the way it looks.

That being said, I really wanted to see if I could cut loose on this "practice" piece, and do a layered collage -- spontaneously, and with abandon. And see if, and to what degree, I could overcome my fear of collage and layering. That was my main goal with this piece, much more than being concerned with how it turned out.

I really, really got into working on this piece bigtime, and everytime I thought, okay it's done, more ideas would come to mind on what more I could do, what more I could add. Although I must say, in the beginning, I really didn't care about what I painted over or covered up. But the further along I got, the more attached I became to the piece, and the more concerned I was about what got covered up, and where to paint and stamp and glue down. I felt much more free about that in the beginning than later on. So in that sense, I didn't totally achieve my original goal, but only to a certain point.

So anyway, I think it's finally done. That is if I don't add something else. I couldn't scan the whole piece because of its size, so I had to do three scans. It would look better and more cohesive to see it as one piece, but this will have to do. The bird was one of the last things I added, and is embroidered on denim. I embroidered it on a pair of bell-bottom jeans in the 1970's!!! How "groovy" is that? So gee, it's over 30 years old! I cut it off the jeans many, many years ago, and held onto it all this time. I'm amazed I still have it, and more amazed that I actually found it and thought to use it on this piece. I think this is the exact piece it was meant to be on, and was waiting in a drawer for all these years. I was also able to use three of my caulk inchies on the right edge of the piece, and I added those last too.

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!! In comparing this to the grunge painted fabrics posted below, I think the results I achieved are somewhat similar, but also different, because this turned into a collage, and I used other elements in addition to just paint, such as glued on crumpled tissue paper, yarn, cheesecloth, ric-rac, fabric, silk leaf, and of course the embroidered bird.

So, what do you think? I'm almost afraid to ask.

Mega-Texture My Way

These two pieces are not recent artworks, but rather were done over a year ago. However, since I've been posting about texture, I thought I'd post about these. I call them Mega-Texture, because these are more dimensional than my other textured work.

This is how the first one, the framed one, came about. A member of our local book arts group, Mile High Book Arts (MHBA), asked our group members to make artwork for a charity auction she was involved with. I said sure, and then came home and thought about what I would make. The idea of making a very dimensional texture piece popped into my mind, out of nowhere. (Well, it was probably my muse whispering in my ear). So I decided to go with that idea, and basically just "wing it", since I'd never done a piece like that before.

So I can honestly say I developed this technic for myself, because I didn't learn it from a book or a workshop or anything online. I had a framed picture I bought at a yard sale, the kind with no glass. I pulled that out to use as my base. Then I just started gluing down all kinds of things that would give dimension and texture. At that time, before I was introduced to gel medium, I used Matte Mod Podge to glue things down. If I do this again, I'll definitely use gel medium.

Some things I used here were crumpled/uncrumpled tissue paper, used dryer sheets, gesso, fluffy yarn, string, twine, plastic mesh veggies come in, fluffy seed pods, other seeds, silk leaves, and used tea bag grounds. (Real leaves preserved with gel medium could also be used.) And of course my little friend, the lizard. As you can see, the list is endless and you can be very creative in what you use on a piece like this. As I recall, with the dryer sheets, I dipped them in a flour and water mixture, the kind used for paper mache, and tried to drape or fold them onto the base for that extra dimension. I suppose wallpaper paste would work for that too. It takes at least overnight for those to dry.

After everything was glued down and the piece was totally dry, I painted white gesso all over it, and let that dry. Something I didn't do was dribble gesso onto it, which is also a way to get some texture. Then I started painting it, which was a long, time consuming process, due to the dimension and all the nooks and crannies it produced. I mean seriously, it takes a long time to paint something like this. It would be much faster to spray paint it, which I would probably do in the future.

I honestly can't remember if I sealed this with anything, but I think I probably did, since there is glare from the flash on the digital picture. I most likely used Future Floor Finish (FFF), which is a great glossy sealer I use a lot. It's very economical too.

The second piece is a tag book I made, hence you see the fibers from the tags hanging out on the right side. I think I used frozen pizza cardboard for the base for this piece. Sorry, but sometimes my memory isn't so good. Pizza cardboard works okay as a base for this kind of technic, especially if you're just playing around and experimenting, but something thicker and less flexible would work better, such as heavy corrugated cardboard or chipboard. And of course, canvas board and stretched canvas would work well for this technic. If I did this again, I doubt I'd use the pizza cardboard for this kind of technic. You need something substantial that will lay flat when it's done.

I added most of the same things to the tag book cover I used on the first piece, and then I also added glitter after I painted it. That really added some pizzazz, but it's kind of hard to see the glitter in the photo. This piece was sealed with FFF.

Now that I'm posting on these, I'm thinking maybe I should revisit this technic, and come up with even more "stuff" to use for texture and dimension. God knows, I'm overflowing with "stuff". Well, isn't that the true mark of an altered artist??? Anyone interested in trying this technic? If you have suggestions for other things that could be used in this technic, by all means, leave a comment with your suggestions. I'd love to hear them.

I've been a good little "art do-bee"! Remember Romper Room?

Yes I have! What is a "do-bee"? Does anyone remember the TV show Romper Room from the 1950's? Remember Miss Gloria, the show's host? It was on here in Denver, I'm not sure if it was just a local show or not. Anyway, a "do-bee" was a good little kid, who got things done. Good things.

So I've been a good "do-bee" today, regarding my art. And getting a new art work done. Beyond that, doing something totally different from what I normally do. It's been on my mind lately, call it an urge, to do something with wallboard joint compound (JC), which is somewhat similar to spackle. Don't know why that "urge" cropped up out of nowhere, but it did. So today, I followed it. Beyond that, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to make.

But I was out in my yard, so I started picking up "nature" items, thinking I could use those in my art today. And so I did. I also used cheese cloth that I recently tea dyed. And I used walnut ink crystals in the JC, to dye it brown or sepia, because I didn't want to have to paint the JC.
That worked out well, although maybe I should've added more, to make the JC darker. Because once it dried, it came out lighter than I expected. I also sprinkled some walnut ink crystals on my piece, to make some areas darker.

And once I started on this piece, with the natural items to inspire me, my muse jumped in and things moved right along. The idea to add the cheese cloth to the back, and then wrap the piece with it, came at the end, out of nowhere. I do love using cheese cloth in my art though, and even more so now that I started tea dying it. Today I also put some in walnut ink, to see how that comes out. Hopefully, it will come out a little darker brown, whereas the tea dyed cheese cloth comes out a sepia color. But until recently, it never occurred to me to dye cheese cloth. However, I read a tutorial on the net that included doing that, so I tried it.
Sorry, I don't recall where I read the tutorial, or I'd give credit to that artist.

Anyway, as one idea leads to another, and one idea can inspire other ideas, this is where I ended up today. I chose a small piece for today, but hope to use this conglomeration of technics on a larger piece soon.

Regarding the Romper Room thing, as an aside here, I actually got to meet Miss Gloria when I was in my 20's. It turned out that a new girlfriend I made was her daughter. And so she took me to meet her mother. I have to say, it was a thrill to meet Miss Gloria, 20 years after I used to watch her on TV. And practice being a good "do-bee"!!! And never being a "don't-bee". (Like yea, right. I'm sure my own mother would have something to say about that!) Ahhh, the memories from childhood.