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.

Oh my gosh, I've been remiss.

Gee, I cannot believe that I haven't posted on my blog in three weeks, and I feel bad about that. Good grief, this is the first time this has happened. I don't quite know what to say, except that time got away from me and I haven't made any new art lately to post. Nothing major or bad happened in my life, I just took some time off from making art. So for now, I'm posting these art pieces, that I made a while back and never posted on my blog, except for being in the slide show on the side. The first two were for swaps, and are no longer in my personal collection. Which is a good thing, because my personal collection of my own art is getting quite large. Thankfully most of them are small pieces so I still have space for them.

Hopefully, soon enough, I'll be posting new art. And hopefully, I won't go this long between posts again.

A New Award!

A few weeks ago, I was emailed by Jo Anne Owens of Paper Cat's Page that she nominated me to receive this wonderful award. Oh happy day, I feel very honored and I accept. Thank you so much, Jo Anne, for honoring me with this award and for thinking of me.

In accepting this award, I agree to:

1. Display the logo and link to the one who awarded it.

2. Nominate at least 7 blogs to receive the award.

3. Add links to those 7 blogs to my blog.

4. Leave the nominees a message that they had been nominated to receive the award.

These are the names and links to the seven artist/bloggers I choose to nominate. When it comes to something like this, it's often hard to make choices and narrow it down. I choose these artists because I think they have great blogs, and do beautiful, inspiring art work, and would like to share their blogs with you, and to extend this great award to them. I totally think they all deserve this award. I love being inspired by other artists, and these artists definitely inspire me.
Please visit their blogs and enjoy their art works. The number of artists who inspire me is greater than seven, but I could name only seven for this award. Click on these names and that will take you to their blogs. Once again, thank you so much Jo Anne, for this award. I truly appreciate it.

1. Heather Robinson at Creative Solace

2. Marva at Purplepaint's Muse

3. Nancy at Never Enough ATCs

4. Linda East at Timeless Treasures of Least

5. Mandy at Pearl Maple

6. Michi at Michi Rhymes with Peachy

7. Julee Herrmann at HeArt Collective

I've been busy making art -- woohoo!

Yes indeed, I've had more time to make art lately, and have devoted it to that end. Which pleases me because I don't always accomplish that. This top piece is a layered collage postcard, 4x6 inches. I used dress pattern tissue paper, gold wrapping paper, napkins, and paint sample. I used the paint sample distress technic for the shapes, which I explained in my August 20th post. I've only used napkins a few times before in my art, and I think I need to get them out and use them more often. They aren't doing me any good stuck away in a drawer.

I used light spackle on the second piece. Since it has very little moisture, and is harder to work with than caulk or wallboard joint compound, I chose to add some water to it with a spray bottle. I didn't add a lot of water, but enough to mix in with it and make it spreadable. Then I spread, or frosted it on with a plastic pallet knife on one area, but not all over the whole piece. Then I stamped into part of it with a heart stamp, cut from vinyl carpet runner. I bought it at a yard sale, and it has swirls on the under side, so I cut it into different shapes for stamps that work great for stamping into caulk, joint compound, and spackle. I also used a swirl stamp with paint on the left upper side.

The small heart in the center of the swirl heart just happened when I pulled the stamp up. (When stamping into caulk, jc, or spackle, you have to use a release agent. I use Armor All protectant, which works well and has no odor to it.) It looked like the shape of a heart, so I outlined it with a brown marker. I embedded the key into the spackle, but it didn't adhere when dry, so I had to glue it on. I used brown acrylic paint, brown shoe polish, and gold Lumiere paint on the piece. I also used an awl to distress parts of it, the parts without the spackle. I used tea dyed cheese cloth on the lower left corner. I'm happy with the texture on this, but not so thrilled with how the colors came out, especially on the scan. The parts that look almost peach are actually gold. I suppose I could repaint it, but don't know if I will.

I have a new needle felt piece posted below, that I made a few weeks ago. So yes, I've been working on art more than usual, because I've had more time to do it. I'm happy about that.

Needle Felted postcard

I'm switching things up a bit here, as in not posting a collage. This is something I made, gee, over a month ago. And I wasn't happy with it. Well, I was fine with it, except for using an orange paint pen to outline and make marks on the hearts. That was the last thing I did back then, and felt like it ruined the piece. Which really frustrated me, since I liked it until I did that, and went too far. So it sat in my work room/studio all this time, because I didn't like it and didn't know how to "fix" it, and didn't want to post it on my blog.

Then today, in a bored state of mind, I picked it up and thought gee, I think I'll sand these hearts, punched out of paint samples. And then rub brown shoe polish over them, and see if that improves this piece. So I did that, and liked the result. Then I did the same to the small squares, and liked that too.

I know in the scan, the outlining of the hearts looks pink, but no, on the piece it's a light orange. I find that the true color quality in scans can leave a lot to be desired, at least on my printer. So anyway, I like the result now much better than it was before, and am willing to post this piece.

The main feature of this piece is the needle felting onto a piece of cotton fabric. This is my second real art piece, using the needle felting. And I love how that part turned out. It took a while to fashion a heart out of the yarn, but I stuck with it and was able to make a heart. I really enjoy doing the needle felting, but haven't done any since I finished this piece. I need to get back to felting soon, or maybe not. There are simply too many choices and options in what kind of art to make....and I tend to get overwhelmed by that. Nothing new there.

Two more collages

These are my most recent works, and just happen to be collages. I'm so proud to say that, because I believe I'm making some progress on this front. These are 5x5s, the art squared format I like so much, and feel very comfortable with. One of these days, I hope to make a book with all my 5x5 art pieces that I've been making and saving for quite a while now.

In the first collage, I punched the hearts out of paint samples. The small frame is also cut out out of a paint sample. Then I sanded them with sand paper and used a very sharp awl to distress them, then rubbed brown shoe polish over them. (My oh my, but I do love that brown shoe polish!!!) I used the awl and shoe polish on other distressed areas too. The "J" is light spackle packed into a stencil. I've learned it's more difficult to frost light spackle as I do with caulk and wallboard joint compound, because it has a lot less moisture. So I can't frost it over a stencil, but can pack it into a stencil.

This is the first time I've used an awl to distress with, and I'm kind of liking the result a lot. However, you have to use brown shoe polish to get a much more cool distressed look. Good thing that shoe polish is cheap and accessible. The idea of sanding and distressing paint samples in my art just kind of jumped out and bit me on this piece. I'm thinking my muse was paying close attention and making herself available -- which is not always the case. So now, I'm glad I have a lot of paint samples in my art stash. Woohoo for that. I plan to use this "distressed paint sample technic" again and often, and maybe try to expand and perfect it.

In the second collage, I used images torn from a book for the sea creatures. And some tea dyed cheese cloth, but then rubbed over it with blue glaze. Then I added some rusted screen and a rusted washer. Oh right, I started out packing the light spackle on the piece in various areas.

I pretty much used the same technics I've explained before with these collages. If I try something new, I explain that too. The distressed paint sample/awl technic is new.

These are not for a swap, so I get to keep these. And hopefully incorporate them into my own book, at some point. Hope you like them, I do.

The Key to Your Wish collage

Gee, I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. That I'm actually WANTING to do layered collage, as opposed to avoiding it like the plague. Who knew I'd ever get to this point? I know I sure didn't. So yes, this truly does shock me, but also pleases me very much. Hmmm, perhaps it really is true that we must face our fears in order to overcome them. That seems to be working for me so far, in doing these layered collages. And I'm thrilled about that.

This is something I "threw together" yesterday in just a few hours. (That's amazing to me also.) It's for a personal swap with an online art friend (Hi Linda!). She suggested we do a swap about a year ago, but I had other art commitments at that time, and couldn't do it then. I told her maybe we could do it sometime in the future. So, the future is here, and we both agreed it was a good time to do a swap. And gee, I haven't done an art swap in many months, so I was very pleased and motivated to do this one. And I didn't even have to agonize over what to make. I love it when art happens that way, don't you?

This piece is 5x7, which is a new format for me. I mostly work on 5x5 art squared formats, or else 4x6 postcard formats. But I was game to try a different size and format, and am glad I did. There are similarities with this piece to the last two collages I posted. I glued down a piece of light blue fabric (dimensional) from a fabric sample book onto frozen pizza cardboard. Then glued down a poem torn from a book, music paper, and a definition of Precious cut from a dictionary. Then I rubbed brown shoe polish on the whole piece. Then I used brown acrylic paint sponged onto swirl stamps, and stamped a few times.

Then I painted wallboard joint compound on with a brush in certain spots. After that dried, I rubbed blue glaze on with my finger in certain areas, and rubbed brown shoe polish over them again. I was mostly going with the brown/blue color theme. Then I remembered that recently, in my local art group, I had dyed some cheese cloth blue and purple, so I pulled that out and used it on the lower right side. And also used a piece of tea dyed cheese cloth on the upper left side. I used some brown netted fabric over the blue cheese cloth, and a strip of it towards the top.

Then I cut a strip (the brown embroidered piece) from a blouse/frock I found at a yard sale a while back, and glued that down. The hearts were punched out of a textured paint sample. The key is one I got in a lot of keys off ebay. LOVE THOSE OLD KEYS, AND KEEP LOOKING ON EBAY TO SCARF UP A GOOD DEAL ON MORE. HOWEVER, THEY DON'T GO FOR CHEAP. And the "wish" part came last, and fit nicely on the key.

And I sealed the piece, once again, with Acrylic Floor Finish from the Family Dollar store. When I used it in the past, it gave a non-glossy satin finish, as opposed to the glossy finish that Future Floor Finish gives. I really liked having the choice of using a satin or glossy finish. But now, I'm almost out of the AFF, and using the last few ounces, so it has thickened, and now it's giving a glossy finish. Don't know what's up with that, it's a surprise, but I think I need to buy a new bottle of it. Well, I've had this bottle for a few years now, and perhaps it changes over time?

So anyway, this is the art I ended up with, and I'm pleased with it. I really enjoy using paper and fabric together in one piece. And gluing down a dimensional/textured fabric piece as a background ends up interesting, because it provides lots of texture right off the bat. I've learned that when I do that, I don't have to add a lot of texture, even though I tend to anyway, to a certain extent. The cheese cloth is always a good way to add texture, and I love it. I love texture so much, sometimes I worry if I add too much texture to my art, as in over-kill. But I don't worry enough to stop doing it. And I don't normally use much text or words in my art, but I'm reconsidering that, and thinking I should do that more often.

Strawberry and Lemonade layered collage

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. Well, it hasn't been waaay long, but longer than I intended. I started out so well, for the first several months after I started my blog, by consistently posting twice a week. Then it kind of got away from me. Well, my work schedule has also changed several times, which has had an effect on my free time and time to do art, so that's been a factor. At any rate, I got some new art done yesterday and today, so I have something new to post. Yippee! It always makes me happy to get new art done, and to post it on my blog.

On my last post, I posted a layered collage, and confessed I didn't intend for it to be a layered collage when I started out. However with this piece, I did intend for it to be a layered collage. Which hopefully means that I'm gaining more confidence in doing this kind of work, and overcoming my fears, or at least some of them, related to layered collage. Although you can't tell from the photo, this piece is smaller than the last one, and is a 5x5 art squared piece.

I glued the background, a page from a wallpaper sample book, onto my old standby, frozen pizza cardboard. This sample is fabric wallpaper. Cool, huh? That gives it a lot of texture, right off the bat. Then I glued down some hand written text, some music paper, and some dress pattern tissue paper. Also some torn strips of gold wrapping paper. At the bottom right, I cut out the image from the envelope of a dress pattern, and glued that down. I also used some netted fabric, fiber paper, screening, and obviously the small key.

Once again, as I did on my last collage, I rubbed brown shoe polish over the whole piece. Then I sprayed with Memory Mists in Mango Lemonade and Strawberry Daiquiri. I LOVE those two colors together. I finished it off by sealing with Acrylic Floor Finish, the Family Dollar brand. One last thing. The key and the screening look silver-ish in the photo, but they are more of a bronze color on the actual piece, and look a lot better than in the photo. It bugs me that they look that way in the photo, but I don't know how to fix that.

Regarding the key, I won two auctions on ebay for a number of old keys. For skeleton keys, and other interesting keys. I lost several auctions before I finally scored. And was amazed at what most old key lots are selling for on ebay. Considering that, I did pretty well on my two auctions, bidding at the last second. Now, I'm the proud owner of 17 very cool old/antique skeleton keys of different sizes. I hope to use some of them on assemblages, if I ever get around to making an assemblage. I was excited to use this tiny key on this piece. I think maybe it's a jewelry box key.

So that's how this piece came together, and I'm feeling better about attempting layered collages. Thanks so much for your encouragement in comments on my last layered collage, it encouraged me, motivated me, and inspired me to make this one. I'm trying to face my fears and overcome them.

"Playing with Layers" collage

I don't do "layered" collages very often, and so far, I've only done a few. Why? I think because I have far less confidence in attempting them, I don't feel I know the technics used very well. Also, it's difficult for me to want to cover up things I've already done, as in the layering aspect. Consequently, I've mostly steered clear of them, except for occasionally. When I do attempt one, I do much better if I'm just playing around and experimenting.

When this first started out, I wasn't thrilled with it, and I almost wanted to toss it. Because I hadn't planned for it to be a layered collage, but it looked so bad, I felt it was the only way to salvage it. So I thought....hmmm, this is a good chance for me to play with layering.

This started out with frosting lightweight spackling onto frozen pizza cardboard. Now I'm well familiar with using caulk and wallboard joint compound, both of which I've used fairly often in my art. But I had never tried the spackling, so I decided to get some and try it, and see if and how it differed from the other two. I wasn't sure if I wanted regular spackling or the lightweight kind, but that's what I ended up buying. At first, when I first started frosting with it, I wasn't too happy with it. It seemed harder to work with, harder to frost, and harder to adhere to the cardboard, because it has a lot less moisture content than the other two. But I persisted and got some to adhere.

I wanted to embed some text into it, which was the first time I tried that. I had never tried that with the caulk or jc before. So I tore two short poems out of a book, one about Mom and one about Time. And tore another small piece out of a dictionary, and two small pieces out of a song book. I also used a few pieces of torn tissue paper and dress pattern tissue paper. That's the point at which it wasn't looking too good, and I was tempted to toss it. I set it aside to dry overnight and went to bed.

The next day is when I decided to try salvage it with a lot more layering and collage. I glued some netted fabric, lace fabric, and cheese cloth on, which I liked. Then I added the bird image and strips of rusted fabric, and few small pieces of decorative papers. Then the idea of stenciling the "B" occurred to me. I frosted more spackling over the stencil for that, and I really liked how that worked out. Then I did some stamping, glued on the punched out shapes and the feather. I also added some micro beads in gel medium on a few spots. I used my finger to rub on some different colors of glaze in different areas, then rubbed brown shoe polish over the whole piece. (I love that brown shoe polish.) I wrote the word "play" on there, and added some touches of gold rub on. Then I sealed it with Acrylic Floor Finish (AFF), bought at the Family Dollar store. The last thing I added was the rusted piece in the top right corner.

Making this piece was fun and challenging, and I should maybe try doing this more often. Maybe it would help increase my confidence at layering.

Feathered Carpet Ride (and you might get a chuckle out of this story)

I actually did some needle felting on a real art piece here, instead of just playing around with the felting. And I love my Clover needle felting tool, and the brush mat, and doing flat needle felting. These are some tools I'm very happy I bought, with no regrets. I highly recommend them, especially for artists who love using fabric and fibers.

I made this piece for an online challenge in one of my yahoo groups. The group is The Latest Trends in Mixed Media Arts and now has 617 members. It's a great group, and this was my first time signing up for this challenge. The challenge is the monthly Art Partner challenge, where Inka (of Inka Stamps) sends out an envelope to the ten people signed up for the challenge. The envelope includes one of her unmounted stamps, a piece of cardstock, and an embellishment. Those in the challenge must use these items in their art piece and then upload it to the photo folder on the group site. Then at the end of the month a winner is picked, and the artist sends the art to Inka in return for a $10 gift certificate for her stamps, and she posts the art to her gallery.

Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I got confused when she sent a piece of Ghirardelli chocolate in the envelope. And made the incorrect assumption that it was meant to be an embellishment on the art piece. Yes, I thought it seemed a bit strange as an embellishment, and wasn't thrilled about having to use it on my art piece, but just figured those were the rules. So I worked on this piece a few hours last Sunday, and completed it, all except for using the candy. And I was very happy with it, and balked at gluing the candy on. I didn't WANT to include the candy on this piece, I didn't think it belonged there.

And my muse, Bonita, threw a fit, and was screaming at me, "You CAN'T be serious about adding this candy to this piece!!!" So we argued back and forth, but I won. And so, grumbling under my breath, I reluctantly glued the candy on. And then uploaded it to the folder. And shortly thereafter, found out from a post on the group by Inka that the candy was to eat, not to use as an embellishment for the art. So then I laughed about it, realizing how clueless I'd been, and felt very silly indeed that my piece of candy was now part of my art. Furthermore, it was posted in the folder for all to see my silly mistake. And would be the only piece in that folder with the candy on it. A testament to my cluelessness!

So, that's the story behind this. If I thought I could remove the candy without ruining the piece, I might try. But I'm afraid to risk it now. I used a piece of cool fabric gelled to pizza cardboard as the background. Then cut out a smaller piece of the fabric, and needle felted around the edges to make a frame for the stamped image. I stamped it onto a paint sample, cut it out, used a rounded corner punch, and glued it down. Oh right, I painted the vintage lace with Lumiere Sunset Gold and glued that down first. The swirl clip is glued over another paint sample. And the very last thing I did was glue on the darn candy!

I had fun with the needle felting, and of course had to finish that part before I could glue down the fabric. I really had to plan out the steps on this piece due to the felting, since I couldn't felt through cardboard. The felting itself was very easy and quick, and I used mohair yarn unraveled from a sweater.

Now I have four different sweaters bought at yard sales for the yarn, and perhaps my next project will be to dye some of the yarn with Kool-Aid, so I can have various colors. Some friends on another yahoo group are doing this very thing, and it's working well for them. I think it would also work for silk or wool roving. If I do this dying project, I'll post about it.

Oh, and one last thing. Right now I'm trying to rust a bunch of safety pins in a container outside. I'm not sure if they'll rust though, because some safety pins are treated so they won't rust. I bought these at the Dollar Tree, so I'm hoping the cheapo safety pins will rust. Will let you know on that, once I know. But hey, wouldn't rusted safety pins be cool to use in art? Yes indeed, I think so!

More experiments with needle felting

Soooo, what have I been doing??? I've been playing with my new needle felting tools. And these pieces are what I've produced. Again, keep in mind here, I'm a total newbie to this medium, so I'm just playing around and having fun. In the first photo, I used yarn for rug punching on a piece of fabric. It looks better up close than in the photo. In the second photo, I used yarn unraveled from a cotton sweater, felted on a piece of muslin. I like the way this turned out.

The third photo is a scan of the back of the first photo. And the fourth photo is of wool yarn unraveled from a sweater. It rather looks like a rug, and I'm thinking someone could actually make a rug with this technic, although it would take hours and hours to complete a decent sized rug. Right now, I seem to be into using unraveled yarn from sweaters. Well, I'm new to this technic, and just playing around for now, and using what I have on hand.

In fact, I bought the sweater for this fourth piece at a yard sale yesterday. And then today, went back to the same yard sale to buy two more sweaters at half price, for 25 cents each. I haven't unraveled the yarn from those yet. And when you unravel yarn from a knitted sweater, it ends up being all kinked up. And I'm wondering, if I wash the yarn in the washing machine, if it will come out straight, like regular yarn? Does anyone know if that works? I do have some specialty yarns for my art, but don't want to use those yet, until I get more proficient at this technic.

It does seem to be rather addictive though, and I can see me getting a lot of good use out of these new felting tools!!! And that is a good thing.

My first attempt at needle felting

Well, this isn't much to brag about, but then again, it is my first try at this. I bid on a Clover felting needle tool on ebay and won it, and it arrived today. So I've been playing with it, and this is what I ended up with. I debated about felting the threads on top of the yarn, (that resulted from fraying the edges of the fabric), and thought oh well, might as well try. Once I started on that, I was committed, since I couldn't pull them out. Now I'm not so sure I like the threads on top, I think I liked it better with just the yarn. Darn!

No problem, this was basically a "practice piece". I may or may not use it in a fabric book I'll be working on in the near future. The yarn was unraveled from a sweater a few years ago, and was very kinked up, due to that. So I just layed it down randomly on the fabric. I also bought the large brush mat that is supposed to be used with this tool, and I'm glad I did, because it works great to keep the fabric in place while felting. Someone on a yahoo group posted that a piece of dense foam works with this tool, and it probably does, but I'm happy with the brush mat. And very, very happy with this needle tool.

It is so user friendly and easy to use, I was felting with it right away. I like the fact that mere yarn can be felted, as well as wool roving. And with this piece I was even able to felt the threads from the fabric, but that was more difficult and took longer than felting the yarn. Yes indeed, I'm very happy I purchased this nifty little tool. No regrets there. I highly recommend it.

If you post a comment, please weigh in on what you think of the threads on top. Do you like it that way, or think it would look better with just the yarn? If I had it to do over again, I would've stopped with the yarn and not felted the threads on top.

Fruit of the Spirit cabinet card

I'm calling this a cabinet card, but am not sure if that's the term for it. If it's not, what is the correct term? Anyway, I picked up six of these at a thrift store for 33 cents each, thinking I'd find a way to use them in my art. And so I did. I worked on this Friday and yesterday, and it came together fairly easily. I'm happy about that. This was made for an online art friend, and will be in the mail to her soon.

The bottom two photos are scans, so you can get a better look at it. The first photo, from my digital camera, didn't come out too badly, considering I still haven't figured out how to turn off the flash. I used the same Lumiere gold paint on both pieces, but the leaf one looks much lighter, due to that darn flash. On the leaves, I frosted caulk over a stencil, let it dry, then painted it with Lumiere Sunset Gold acrylic paint. When that was dry, I rubbed black acrylic paint over the leaves with my finger. The base is frozen pizza cardboard, also painted with the Lumiere gold. Then I just taped the piece into the frame part of the cab card with double stick tape. That was much faster, easier, and safer than gluing it, and risking getting glue on the black card.

On the left, I experimented with Tyvek from a mailing envelope. I cut it out with deckle edged scissors, which I learned don't work too well on Tyvek. Then I painted it with the Lumiere gold and painted lines with regular black acrylic paint. I painted two twigs gold, then slipped them into slits at the top and bottom of the Tyvek. Then I put the piece inbetween two Teflon pressing sheets, and ironed it on the wool setting, the hottest on my little travel iron. After it cooled, I sealed it with Future Floor Finish (FFF) for a glossy finish. While that was still wet, I flicked some Pearl Ex pigment powder in Aztec Gold into it with a dry paint brush. I liked that effect. I let it dry, then sealed it with another coat of the FFF.

When dry, I glued it on with Craft Goop (comes in a purple tube). Initially, I wasn't planning on the Fruit of the Spirit part, but after all this was done, the idea occurred to me, so I went with it. I used a metallic gold paint marker to print all the text. I'm not totally happy with the placement of the words on the left, but I had already glued down the Tyvek, and had to write nine words around it, some of them quite long. If I'd known I was going to write the words on that side, I would've placed the Tyvek differently, to allow room for them.

So, there you have it. Regarding using the Tyvek like this, for a cool embellishment, I got that idea out of Sherill Kahn's wonderful Book, Creative Embellishments. Using the twigs was my idea, to make it look like a scroll.

Mosaic Heart Fabric Postcard

It's Sunday, so soon again, and a good day to post. And I actually got some new art done yesterday -- yippee for me! I'm SO happy I did, because I've been in an art slump lately, and was really getting frustrated about it. So, this one small piece is a breakthrough of sorts, but certainly no major breakthrough, and no guarantee "the slumps" won't return. I'm a bit nervous about that, and will just have to take things one day at a time.

I posted some questions on most of my yahoo groups recently relating to this, and other things, that frustrate me about making art. I posed the questions to get responses and feedback from other artists, to open a dialogue, that would hopefully help me out and give me some new ideas/solutions to my making art dilemmas. And I suppose also to discover if other artists out there have the same dilemmas I do, so I wouldn't feel so all alone. And I did get a lot of great responses, that hopefully will help me, and I'm very grateful to those who took the time to respond to my questions. Thanks very much to all of you.

This piece is a postcard I made for an online art friend. I will be mailing it out soon. And yes, the background is all fabric. First I glued down the the netted fabric, which was black and shades of brown. On top of that I glued down some pale yellow lace fabric, then rubbed over it with brown Brilliance pigment ink. The lace part shows up better on the postcard than in the scan. Regarding the gold heart, which I love, I pulled out a stencil I've had for over a year and never used, and frosted it with my old standby, white caulk. After I did that, I thought gee, why in the world haven't I used this stencil before now??? At least now I know I'll use again, for sure.

I love the way this mosaic heart looks, especially with the caulk which makes it dimensional. And it was a piece of cake to do, the hard part was waiting for the caulk to dry so I could paint it. I used Lumiere Sunset Gold, and then Lumiere Metallic Rust inbetween the mosaics. The strips of fabric were cut from a frock blouse, made in India, that I picked up at a yard sale a few months ago. I loved it on sight, and knew it would look cool in my art. I love the color and the embroidery on it, and it went perfectly with this piece. The hearts were punched out of a paint sample. So overall, this was an easy piece of art to make, and I'm very happy with it. Gee, if only all art could be this easy.

New art product

I feel the need to do a new post today, but I have no new art to post. Well, that's not exactly true, I do have a new art piece, but the photos I took of it didn't come out well at all, mainly due to using the flash which created a lot of glare. They just don't do the piece justice. I hate it when that happens, and haven't figured out how to turn off the flash on my camera. So until I can figure that out, and take another photo that ends up decent, I doubt I'll post it on my blog.

So here I am, posting, with no art to post. So I thought I'd post a great link here, to a video featuring a new art product. http://www.panpastel.com/ It's called PanPastel Artists' Pastels, and they are very impressive to me, in the video. And a fair warning here, are not inexpensive. And also, when it comes to these kind of art supplies, I have no, or very little experience or knowledge in using them, because I basically don't own these kind of art supplies.

But I thought I'd post this link, so you can actually see how these work in the video, as I did. And perhaps be as impressed as I was, with how well they seem to work and blend. It seems to me they would work incredibly well for altered art, in many ways.

Would I like to own some and use them in my art? Absolutely! Would I like to pay that much for them? No, not exactly. I'm sure they're worth the price, I'm just not accustomed to paying that much for art supplies. However, I'm so impressed with these, I might just persuade myself to buy some, and consider it a gift to myself. Gee, I have a birthday coming up in August, maybe I could justify buying some as a birthday gift to myself! That's an idea.

So anyway, please view the video, and leave comments on what you think of this new product. Would you purchase it yourself? And if so, how would you use it in your art?

Victoria -- Lady of Lace

I don't normally title my art works, but I'm going to try to do that more often. Anyway, I have had "lace on the brain" for a few weeks now, even to the crazy point of dreaming about it. Good grief, can you believe that? Because I can't. The reason I've been so obsessed with lace lately is because in our local (Denver metro) book arts group, we have an upcoming project to make a lace book cover for a fabric book we'll be making in the future. Our talented and fearless leader, Karen Campbell http://karensaltereddreamz.blogspot.com/ ), came up with the idea after she was inspired by a gorgeous lace book cover made by Val Orner. I wish I could give you a link to it, but I don't have one right now, and am trying to find out if she has a blog. If I get a link, I'll post it. Anyway, her lace book cover is beautiful and inspiring, and now our book arts group is going to do that project soon.

So that's why I've had "lace on the brain", and why I went ahead and made this art piece. I wanted to experiment with lace, and get a head start in preparation for our group project. I worked on this for two days, and this is what I created. I'm happy with it, but it was much harder than I anticipated. I mostly had difficulty, and much frustration, figuring out how to arrange the lace on this piece. It just didn't seem like I had that many options, and the ones I tried I wasn't happy with. At least until I came up with this composition, and once I did, I was ready to go with it and felt relieved.

The lace used on this piece is the more dimensional cotton lace. I painted each piece of lace before I glued it down, and I used Liquitex Gel Medium for that, which I had to re-apply a few times to make the pieces glue down. After they were glued down and dry, I sealed the whole piece with Future Floor Finish (FFF), and then sprinkled fine purple, pink, and yellow glitter all over the piece. So, I learned that FFF can be used as an adhesive for glitter. After the FFF dried, I sealed again with FFF, to make sure the glitter would stay put.

The glitter doesn't show up that well in the digital photo, (except as white spots), but up close it looks very cool on this piece. I love the look of glitter, but only on certain art works, when it's appropriate, and works, to use glitter. The other thing about using the fine glitter is that I tend to get it all over everywhere and everything, even when I try to avoid that.

As you can see, I used two lavender buttons on this piece, and tied yellow thread, that I frayed off some yellow fabric, through them. And Victoria.....is a paper cast I made a few years ago, from a brass mold I got on ebay. (Hmmm, I'm wondering where in the world I put that mold?) I also wrapped a pink chenille stem with some neat purple yarn, cut in two pieces, and glued that down. I got that idea from Sherill Kahn, in her fantastic book, Creative Embellishments, published last year. She has other ideas I want to try also, and I highly recommend her book.

I'm glad I got to play with the lace, and experiment with it. I've been haphazardly collecting lace fabric and trims for several years, but I wasn't sure exactly what I had or how much I had until I took an inventory the other night. I didn't have them stored in one place, but many places, and now I have all my lace together. I've used lace in some of my art, but I don't use it often. Now, I'm thinking I should use it more often, in different ways.

And also, I hope I don't continue to dream about lace. That was pretty weird!

As far as the rest of you reading this, do you collect lace fabric and trims, and if so, how do you use it in your art? I'd be interested to know.

Fabric Postcard

Yes, this is actually made out of fabric, although it doesn't really appear that way. Here is how I made it. This was made by taking a 4x6 inch piece of muslin fabric, Mod Podging (matte) it to a piece of plastic bag, then spreading MP on the front and gluing down various fabric pieces. Such as ribbon, pieces of fluffy yarn, pieces of jean pants seam, and fibers from fraying fabric. The one thing that is not fabric is the piece of veggie mesh, the mesh bags veggies come in. Then I Mod Podged over all of the front again, let that dry, then painted it with acrylic paints. I used purple, violet, light blue, and citrus green. I sealed it with Future Floor Finish, which gives it a nice glossy finish and makes the colors pop. Then I peeled the whole postcard away from the piece of plastic. No other base was used for this, other than the muslin fabric. So gluing it to the plastic bag seemed to make the difference, and increase the strength of the fabric, as opposed to brushing Modge Podge on the fabric alone.

I would love to say this is a recent piece of art, but I can't say that. No, this was a postcard I made for a technic swap last year, and is no longer in my possession. I feel kind of bad for posting "old art" as opposed to new creations, but my goal is to keep my blog updated and fresh, with new posts. Ideally new posts twice a week, at minimum once a week, and I'm rather upset with myself that it's been over two weeks now since I posted some art. So even though this isn't new art, it's art that all or most of you haven't seen before, so it's new to you.

I did actually get some new art done just yesterday, a piece I really like and am happy with, but I haven't had time to take a digital picture of it yet, and it's too dimensional to scan on my computer. And the batteries for my digital camera need to be recharged, so I can't take a picture of it now, today. And yet I feel compelled to post on my blog, since it's been a while, so I chose to post this art piece. Hope you don't mind it's not a new art piece, but chances are, it's something you haven't seen before.

Ahhh, I feel better already! Just getting a new post on my blog, and being honest about my situation. Hopefully I'll get a picture taken of my new art soon, and get that posted within a week.

I've been tagged again

Ahhh yes, my art friend, Mary Schweitzer, caught me. I got tagged back in April, and listed six things about myself. I'm supposed to list six more things now, but I'm going to arbitrarily change the rules, (because I have an independent streak in me) and list only three things about myself, and pick only three, rather than six, other art friends/bloggers to tag. I think listing six things and tagging six other people is too time consuming, and I'd rather be working on art. Hope you all understand, and maybe some of you even agree with me. Thanks Mary, for tagging me, ( I think). It was sweet of you to think of me.

Three Things about Me
1. I love pens, I'm a pen nut. I used to make pens out of polymer clay, and made myself some really cool ones that I got a lot of compliments on. I also used to sell my pens.
2. I have a phobia of using pens that the general public uses. At work, I won't let anyone else use my pen, and it freaks me out if they pick it up to use. My phobia has to do with germs. I used to get sick a lot, when I let other people use my pen. After I stopped doing that, I rarely got sick. I mean gee, you never know where a person's hands have been, right?
3. I also have a phobia of using stair hand rails and public restroom doorknobs, for the same reasons mentioned above.

Here are the three bloggers I'm tagging. Have fun gals!
Marva at Purple Paint's Muse
Susan at Art Angelix
Linda at Lindart's Art

Click on each blogger's name to go to their blogs.

Adding on to last post about bubble painting

The recipe for the bubble paint mixture I put in my last post was one I got online, not the one we used at our meeting for the background papers I posted. Here is that recipe.
1/4 cup liquid tempera paint
2 teaspoons clear dish soap (if you can't find clear, colored is okay)
mix those together in a wide mouthed plastic cup, then add 3 Tablespoons of water

So it appears this recipe has more paint in it than the one I posted below. However, I think one could experiment with the amount of paint in the recipe, if one chose. It seems to me, the more paint used, the darker it would show up on the paper. One person at our meeting did try using acrylic paint rather than tempera, and the results were much lighter on the paper. So tempera seems to work better, but you can experiment with different paints, and maybe even liquid inks, if you're inclined to. I always say, experimentation is good!

There was a question about how to get the paint bubbles onto the paper from a cup. Well, here's how. When you blow into the mixture, blow long enough to get the bubbles to rise 2 - 3 inches above the rim of the cup. Then touch your paper to the bubbles. You'll have to do lots of bubble blowing and lots of paper touching to fill the paper with paint. It takes a while to do one piece this way, but also gives you more control over the process. Try not to touch the paper to the rim of the cup, but if you do, it's okay, no big deal.

Of course there is the option to put the paint mixture in a pan, and do it that way. But you'll have to use a lot more paint and water to fill even a shallow pan. That's why we chose to do it in the cups, and we thought it worked out well. It was really fun doing it that way, in fact.

Soap Bubble - O - Rama Backgrounds

Okay, so here's a new technic I've read about, in art books and online, but never tried before, until today. Today, our local book arts group met, which we do once a month, and this was the technic taught and tried. It was loads of fun, and actually quite addictive. We met for four hours of art fun and play, and when the four hours were up, I didn't want to stop playing and making cool backgrounds.

Actually, these pieces could be framed as they are, and be great art. Or several framed as a set, and be great art. And like, who knew??? I sure didn't....until today. And am so glad I was introduced to this technic -- a very easy, simple, and cheap technic. Thank you so very much Laurie, for introducing me to this technic.

It involved a recipe of water, dish soap, and tempera paint. We used wide mouth plastic cups for the paint, and basic straws with which to blow the bubbles. And then, once the bubbles are blown, you take your paper and touch it to them, and this is the amazing result. Not terribly difficult, eh? And loads of FUN, that harkens back to childhood play. It's no more difficult or involved than that.

So, here is the recipe, as I'm sure you'd like to know it.
Materials:

1–2 tbsps. Tempera Paint

1 tbsp. Dishwashing Liquid

½ cup Water

So, you mix it all up, and then insert the straw, and start blowing bubbles. What we found was as time went by today, the result kind of changed, to where there were tiny bubbles around the rim of the the plastic cups, and the paint on the background papers got darker. Also, it seemed to me the bubbles got larger, except for around the rim, the longer we used the paint/mixture.

I'm very happy with how these turned out. It was really great, and fun, trying a new technic. I can see me using these backgrounds in various ways. If you're inspired to try this, good for you. I love being a source of inspiration to other artists, as I appreciate being inspired myself by other artists. So go to it, and try this out yourself. You'll be happy you did.

(Scroll down to my last post on Nature Art with a Twist to see how I used caulk and a real leaf. I posted that yesterday.)

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!!!