"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!!!

Using paper casts in art

This is a spread I did in my first Altered Book, back in the spring of 2004. The main reason I'm posting it now is because I'm entering a blog give-away on GPP Network Street Team, having to do with paper casts in art, and so I need to post this piece on my blog. And also because I haven't been making much new art lately, due to increased work days and hours. I did create a spread in the AB of a friend from my local book arts group this week, but I haven't taken a digital picture of it yet, so I can't post that. And I haven't been posting much on my blog lately, so I figure at least posting something is better than not posting at all.

Thank you, Michelle Ward, for your great tutorial on paper casts on your blog, and for the give-away you are having. You have a great blog! I didn't know about it until recently, when an art friend pointed me to it. I'm so glad she did.

Okay, so now a bit about this particular piece. I was a total "newbie" to altered books and altered art, when I made this. However, I like it -- although my art today is different and not what it was four years ago. And that's a good thing, because hopefully, as artists, we are constantly learning and growing, right?

On this piece, I used a sheet of my handmade paper that I made on the left page. I used purple copy paper and coffee filters for this handmade paper. I made the paper pulp in a blender, and didn't blend it very long, so the white coffee filters would show up in the paper sheet. I used the border of a woven table place mat, and yarn unraveled from a sweater, on that page also, along with a button and some flowers cut from a necklace.

On the right page, the main background is a piece of sheer fabric from a fabric sample book, and of course the painted strips of corrugated cardboard. Those are more buttons at the bottom of the page. The women's faces are the paper casts, painted with metallic purple paint. I lucked out and found the plaster mold for these at a thrift store. I've never seen another mold like it, and I really like these faces.

So that's how I made this piece, a conglomeration of "things" I had on hand. I still have the plaster mold, as well as two others I bought that day, and I'm thinking maybe I should get busy and make some more paper casts. I have lots of different molds, some I've never used. Most are the plastic candy molds, but I also have some flexible molds for polymer clay, and some terra cotta cookie molds. And I have lots of unmounted stamps that would work for paper casting, as shown on the blog mentioned above.

I wouldn't say this piece ranks in the best art I've ever done, I know it doesn't, but I think it's not bad for when I was a total newbie to altered art. And it does speak well to using what I had on hand when I made this piece. And lately, I've been thinking about using paper pulp in my art, or at least experimenting with that. I haven't made handmade paper in years, mostly because I still have piles of it left over from several major marathon paper-making sessions I did years ago. I haven't used my handmade paper much in my art, and I think I need to do that too.

So in closing, if this post encourages any of you to make handmade paper or paper casts, that's great. I hope it does. I know it has caused me to reconsider using them more in my own art. Whether or not that actually happens, I'll let you know.

Regarding my beeswax collage (posted below)

I thought I would mention what I used for the base in this piece. (And no, it's wasn't frozen pizza cardboard, amazingly enough -- since I use that so often as a base for my work. I doubt that would've worked well for this kind of collage.) I used a flat piece of styrofoam, which was packing material for something I bought. I think it was a half inch thick, or maybe 3/4 inch thick. I cut it to the size I wanted, and then frosted wallboard joint compound over the top and let that completely dry. I tried to make it as smooth as I could, but it did have some minimal texture to it. That's what I took to our group meeting for this project.

I wasn't totally sure it would work, but I thought, why wouldn't it work?, and took a chance. I think all the other members who made collages that day used either stretched canvas or canvas board. But I know no one else used what I used for a base.

Thankfully, it worked just fine. The technic we used is featured in one of Claudine Hellmuth's books, I think her first book. We used melted beeswax, melted in potpourri pots, and then quilting mini irons (with the long handles) to keep melting the wax when we needed to, after it was painted onto the base and over what we put on our collages. Basically, it was a simple technic, not too difficult, and a great technic. Thank you, Claudine!

I was very happy with how my collage turned out, but as I said before, I got some much needed help from other group members. Had I been left alone to do this, I doubt it would've turned out as well. That's why working in a group can be advantageous, and also lots of fun, and I love my local group.

Memorial Day Remembrance

Memorial Day is coming up soon. An important day to me....one that honors those who have served in our fine Military, over years and decades and even centuries, and have risked their lives, even sacrificed their lives, the absolute ultimate one can give, to protect us and our freedom and our country. This is dear to my heart, because I'm an American Patriot, and am proud of my country and the military that has fought for our freedom. I thank God, often and sincerely, that I was blessed to be born in this country, blessed to be a citizen of this fine country, blessed to be an American. Because the fact is, millions and even billions of people out there were not blessed in this same way. And I did nothing to deserve this amazing blessing, but I'm grateful to my very core for it.

This artwork is not something recent, but was done 3 1/2 years ago at my local art group meeting. It's a collage done with beeswax, the first and only time I've used this technic. It just came together rather easily, surprising me a lot. But I happened to have the right supplies and items at the right time, and some help and input from other group members also. So in the span of four hours, this is what I created.

I gave it to a dear friend of mine, Donna, as a gift. She's in the Navy Reserve, and I felt she would appreciate this and relate to it, on a level maybe other people wouldn't or couldn't. I didn't start out making this for her, but once it was completed, I knew I wanted to give it to her, and was meant to be hers. She then took it to be framed, and it's hanging in her livingroom. So even though I no longer own it, I do get to see it when I visit her, and that makes me feel good.

I'm grateful and proud to be an American, to my very core, and my heartfelt and sincere thanks go out to all members of the military and their families, for the honorable and incredible sacrifices they make for my country, and for me personally. God bless America and please keep us safe, and God bless our troops and please keep them safe. Amen, and amen.

Doodle-a-Shape

Sheesh, where does the time go??? My goal, related to my blog, was to post at least twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays. And I did that consistently -- for a while -- but.....then I slacked off. Well, life doesn't always go as planned. I've had to work more days and hours in the past five weeks, because my work schedule suddenly changed. And I'm not sure how long I'll have to work this new schedule. But one thing I do know is that it has limited my time, for making art and posting to my blog, and doing other things as well. Grrrrr! Oh well, such is life, I guess.

Regarding this Doodle Page, it's my first real attempt at doodling, from start to finish. I've never had the urge to doodle, quite honestly. But I had a few very slow days at work, and I was getting bored out of my gourd. Normally, I do paperwork when it's slow. When I finish that, I generally read, mostly non-fiction. I love perusing art books, for ideas and inspiration, that I mostly check out from the library. And I did that, looked through five art books, and still had time on my hands. So I grabbed a piece of green cardstock, a black ink gel pen, and just started doodling, mostly out of boredom and frustration that it was so slow at work.

However, once I started this page, and it started to take "shape", (pun intended), I kind of got "into" it, and it helped relieve the boredom and frustration. I would estimate that it took me at least 10 hours to make this page, probably more. Which hardly seems worth that amount of time, but since I was bored, and it gave me something creative to do, in that sense, maybe it was worth the time. I would've preferred to invest that time in the kind of art I normally do, but that wouldn't be possible at work.

So anyway, I tried my hand at doodling, in a serious way here. And I must admit, I'm happy with the end result. Although I have no idea what I'll do with this piece. I did scan it, and could always use it as a background for other art pieces. Whether or not I'll attempt to do any more doodling during slow times at work remains to be seen. I don't know about that, I'm hoping I'll be busier at work so I won't have to make that choice. For all you serious doodlers out there, who love to doodle, I can now appreciate just how much time it takes!

I have been working on some new art lately, at home, of course. But I can't post it on my blog, because it's a collaborative project that will be submitted for publishing. I've never had my art published, nor submitted any of it for publishing, so I'm excited about this project. Hopefully, it will be accepted for publishing -- I'd really love that. There's no guarantee, of course, but the other two artists I'm collaborating with do great art work, so hopefully our work will be accepted for publishing.

Meanwhile, it's a beautiful spring day here in the Denver metro (CO) area. And yet, it snowed here Thursday, and was very cold and windy yesterday. I'm loving the weather today!!! And debating with myself about making a run to Hobby Lobby and to Joann's with some coupons in hand. Like yeah right, I need more "art stuff".

Two More Attempts with Gesso

Well okay, I don't give up easily. I wasn't happy with my first try (the post below), so I tried again. I like these better. And once I pretty much accepted that I wouldn't get much, if any, dimensional texture with the brand of gesso I used, I was reluctantly okay with that. On these I sponged the gesso onto the stamps, and stamped onto the surface. Which I had also gessoed, and let dry, before I stamped. I think one reason my first piece, Doodle Bird Haunting, seemed so washed out was because I stamped onto the brown side of the pizza cardboard, then painted over it. It didn't allow for much contrast with the paints, I think. I'm glad I learned from that.

I did use straight caulk sponged onto stamps, then stamped onto another piece. That gave me the dimensional texture I wanted and expected. I love that stuff!!! However, it didn't show up well at all in the scan. But I like that piece, and will most likely use it for the postcard swap.

So, I guess all is well that ends well, and I learned some things along the way about gesso. Thanks for all the info about gesso people gave me, in comments, and also in yahoo groups.

Doodle Bird Haunting

What a strange title for this art piece, no? I agree. After all, doodle birds are supposed to be whimsical and cute, not haunting at all. So why did I name this piece that? Well, first of all, because it just popped into my head, second of all I'm not very good at naming my art, and thirdly, I named it that because this piece seems rather washed out to me, and nothing like my idea of what I wanted it to look like when I started.

This was supposed to be for a postcard swap using gesso as the technic. Using gesso for the texture. And I'm a big texture nut, as some of you know, so I was excited to use gesso for great texture. So I sponged the gesso on the stamps I used for this, and gee, it didn't produce texture at all, it was like using white acrylic paint. And I used wooden mounted stamps, so I couldn't re-stamp over what I'd stamped. The gesso is supposed to work as a resist and for texture.

Well, it worked pretty well as a resist, but not well at all for texture. After I stamped, I sponged glazes in violet, yellow, and blue, and then rubbed them partially off with a paper towel. Oh, and I also used gold glaze on the very top, the last glaze I used. Then I sealed with Future Floor Finish, which gives a glossy effect and makes colors pop. Which it did. But I was very disappointed in the texture, or lack thereof. So I brushed gel medium over it, in different directions, to get some real texture. And that worked, but then it was so glossy, it was glaring with reflective light. So I tried to tone down the gloss and glare by sealing with Acrylic Floor Finish (Family Dollar Brand), which gives a satin effect.

So that's what I did with this piece, but I'm not very happy with it. I don't intend to use it for the swap, I plan to make a new postcard for that. I may, however, use this piece in another piece of art, in some way. I'm also considering using diluted caulk, instead of gesso, for the stamping and texture on my swap piece, because the gesso I used just didn't do the job for creating texture. Or maybe not even diluted caulk, but just caulk, to get the kind of texture I'd like to get.

So, this is a piece I'm not thrilled with at all, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Just to show that I sometimes make art that I'm not satisfied with. However, I learn from that, which is a good thing.

I've been tagged

by my online friend, Darlene. Here's her blog. Thanks Darlene.

Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

These are the things/habits/quirks about me.
1. I've completed only two altered books in four years. I have four that I started on, but are still works in progress, and not completed. It took me four months to start and finish my first one.
2. I love doing altered/mixed media art, but the downside is all the STUFF I've accumulated to use in my art. I have pack-rat tendencies anyway, (it's in my genes thanks to my father), and getting into altered/mixed media art has only escalated my pack-rat tendencies and made them far worse. That part doesn't thrill me!
3. My computer room/work room/studio is a total mess, and that bothers me a lot. It's a rather small bedroom, and it's overflowing with STUFF!!! I yearn for and long for a real, decent room for a studio, where things are organized and can be easily found.
4. I have oodles and oodles of rubber stamps, (although not nearly as many as Karen Campbell), and yet I'm sure that more than half of them I haven't even used yet. What's up with that???
5. I have lots of ink pads in different colors, and yet more often than not, when I do stamping, I use acrylic paint rather than ink pads. I'm even guilty of ink pads drying up before I ever get around to using them, grrrrrr! Again, what's up with that???
6. I feel honored and humbled by the people who visit my blog, and by those who leave comments, and by what you say about my art and blog. A huge thanks to all of you!

These are people I now tag.
Heather Robinson at Creative Solace
Jenny at Craft Test Dummies
Kim at Ruined Art
Debbie Mihalick at Senses Engaged
Lori Roberts at Altered Art Expression
Stacie Williams at Creative Junque

Pink Silk

The title Pink Silk may seem strange for this piece, but let me explain. This is a 5x5 for a book project, In the Pink, by Jo Anne Owens. So that's why this piece is pink, pink, pink. Hot pink as a matter of fact. I titled it Pink Silk, because this is actually made from approximately one inch strips of silk fabric. Yes indeed, I pulled out an old silk blouse that didn't fit me anymore, and cut it up to use in my art. This blouse was made out of teal smooth silk. After I cut the strips, I frayed the edges, then Mod Podged them down onto my usual -- frozen pizza cardboard -- in different directions, with some overlapping going on. I tried to glue them on with lots of wrinkling for good texture. I let it dry overnight, and when dry, the surface almost felt like plastic.

Then I did the painting with Anita's Acrylic Paint, first fuschia, then baby pink rubbed over the elevated parts. After painting, I glued down pink cheese cloth, dyed in beet juice, on the right side. (Although it's kind of hard to tell it's cheese cloth in this photo, but up close it's easy to tell.) The vertical pieces on the cheese cloth are painted large, flat toothpicks, and the horizontal pieces are seeds from my yard, painted with the baby pink. The heart was punched out of a paint sample, then painted fuschia. Underneath it is a pink feather, that got rather segmented when I applied gel medium, but I decided to leave it that way.

The most amazing part to me about this piece is how using the silk came out, and provided such great, different looking texture. This is with using one inch strips. Next time I think I'll cut one large piece, and scrunch it up as I glue it on, and see what that looks like. It might look very similar to this piece....or maybe not. Maybe it will have a different effect. Well, one thing is for sure. Experimentation is FUN!