Ebony and Ivory -- textured caulk abstract

This is a piece I made recently.  One I really like and am proud of.  I didn't post it on my blog because I planned to enter it into a juried open show at a local art gallery.  I've never done that before, so I was excited about it....but also a bit fearful about how it would feel if this piece didn't get juried into the show.  I had no idea what to expect, although I was hopeful.  Sad to say, it did not get juried in, which I must admit hurt and wounded my art ego.  I was sad and upset for that day, after I got the email.  Well, for more than that day, to be honest.  But after a few days, I got over it and am okay now.  The theme of the show was "Abstract", which I felt was right up my alley.  So I made this piece especially for the show.  

There was only one juror, who has his own art gallery, which mostly features abstract art.  I wasn't able to find out why this piece was rejected, but the lady who was at the gallery when I went to pick it up, who's also an artist although she didn't enter the show, gave me some feedback.  She said she really liked this piece, but that perhaps it should've been framed, to give it a more professional look.  And that makes sense to me, although even if  it had been framed, who knows if it would've been accepted?  But I'm sure it would've looked better and more professional if I'd had it framed.

I used a cabinet card for the base of my art, and glued it onto a 12x16 inch canvas board.  Silly me, I thought that would be professional enough.  I mean hey, at least I didn't use frozen pizza box or chipboard, which I most often use.  But when it comes to submitting art to a real art gallery, I'm a total newbie and novice.  Hopefully I learned my lesson on that.

Anyway, I mounted the cabinet card vertically, which I thought was interesting and different.  On the top part, I spread a layer of caulk and impressed into it with a foam circle stamp, a soda bottle lid, a drinking straw, and the end of a paint brush.  I also used a circle cut out of a vinyl rug runner, that has swirls on one side of it.  My main theme was circles, which I've done a number of times before. My initial intention was to make this a black and white piece, so once the caulk dried I painted over it with black acrylic paint.  I planned to rub over that with white acrylic paint, but then the idea came to me to use metallic pearl white instead of regular white.  So I did that, and was rather surprised that it ended up looking more like silver than white.  At first that bothered me, but then I came to like it, so I left it that way.

On the bottom part I used micro beads in gel medium on the frame part for a different texture, and painted over it with black.  I used a sample piece of fabric wallpaper, with the white lines, inside the frame.  Then I found the cool twig in my yard, which was the perfect size to fit inside the frame.  I painted it black, then rubbed the metallic pearl over it with my finger.  Then I made a caulk circle (on frozen pizza box) with my vinyl rug runner stamp.  And painted it black and rubbed on the metallic pearl.

I wrapped thick black quilting thread around the canvas board before gluing down the cabinet card, to repeat the lines in the frame.  (That idea was suggested to me by someone in my local art group, Terry.  Thank you Terry, I think it was a great idea.)  Then I painted some flat, round wooden beads black, and glued those on to repeat the circle theme.

So that's how this piece came together.  I'm sad that it didn't get accepted into the show, but even so, I really like this piece a lot.  And yes, I think it would look better and more professional if I had it framed, which I may do at some point.  Right now, the cost of doing that is a problem, but it would look better and more finished if I had it framed.

 

Linearity -- Caulk Squares and Rectangles

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another piece of Nature Art

;Ahhh yes, another piece of nature art.  I love making nature art, and keep coming back to it often.  Why, I'm not totally sure....except that it's so, well, natural.  I think when I do nature art, I go into a different art zone, a free and easy art zone, with no pain or angst or planning.  It just kind of happens easily and spontaneously.  Beyond that, which is totally great, I can pick up nature items from my yard and use them in my art.  As in, gee, I don't have to make a run to Hobby Lobby or Joann's and buy something to use in my art.  Now, don't get me wrong -- I love buying art tools and supplies, when I'm in the mood to do so.  But I think I love even more using nature items, or natural items found outdoors, to use in my art.

I made this piece a few weeks ago.  I was in the mood to make art, but had no clue what I wanted to make.  So I took a stroll through my yard, and picked up the leaf and the seed items.  I don't know what to call them, but found them in my yard.  And thought great, I like these, I'm going to use them in my art.  Then I pulled out a piece of chip board, and got busy on this piece.

I also used fabric and threads that were on my work table, just because they were there.    I guess I made this piece because I wanted to make some art, felt the need to make some art, and for no other reason.  I had no plan, and wanted to keep it simple and easy.  I also chose to use a cool stencil I bought online, of various sized circles.  I just love that stencil, and I love using circles in my art.  I frosted over it with caulk, which I also love to use in my art.  It's so simple and easy to do that, and yet it creates great texture.  And I'm always about texture in my art.  Sometimes I think that's my main focus, above and beyond anything else.  I hope I don't overdo it, but I can't seem to help myself, when it comes to texture.

I mostly just glued various things down on this piece.  And the key  -- I love the key -- was a last minute thing -- I added it last.  I was on a vintage key quest for several months, wanting the old regular keys, the old unique flat keys, the old skeleton keys, and if they were rusted, the better.  So I bid on a number of ebay key lot auctions.  I learned that buying old key lots on ebay isn't cheap, and isn't easy to win.  I lost a lot of them, but also won a few of them.  And now, I have a fantastic stash of old vintage keys.  I mean now, I have over 100 of them, maybe over 200 of them, I lost count.  I've used them in my art before, on a number of pieces.  And then kind of forgot I had them, like duh!  So I remembered them when I made this piece, and chose to add one.

So anyway, this is what I ended up with, and I'm happy with it.  And I'm wondering, regarding art, what do YOU love making the most???  Do you have a special theme, dear to your heart, that you love making?  A theme you may keep coming back to, time and time again?  Do you love it when you make art spontaneously, with no real plan, or do you prefer to plan your art and stick to the plan?  And what is easier and more comfortable for you -- spontaneous art or planned art?  What kind of art causes you fear, pain, or angst, and what comes so naturally?  For me spontaneous unplanned art seems to come the easiest, and allow me the most enjoyment.  So what say all you artists out there?  Please chime in.

Solitary Leaf (another caulk-art piece)

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

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

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

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

Caulk for texture blowout-- a circle abstract piece

Well, once again it's been too long since I posted some new art.  My blog seems to be getting away from me, which definitely bothers me.  Lately, my blog hits have dwindled significantly, which hurts a lot.  Then again, I have to keep reminding myself that my blog, although it's very important to me, is only one part of my life.  A big part yes....but only one part.    The same thing with making art.

I've been in a mini-slump lately, meaning I've worked on some art but not to the extent I wanted.  I've been in much worse slumps, so in comparison, this one hasn't been that bad or frustrating, or even guilt producing.  So....that being said, here is my latest work of art, started and completed yesterday.

Well, as I've written before, I do love using caulk as an art medium, especially for texture.  And since most of the time, I tend to put a lot of emphasis on texture, caulk is right up my alley.  I love it, because it works, it's easily accessible and available, and it's cheap and economical.  It can be bought an any home improvement store for just a few dollars.  It has also been available at Family Dollar stores for a buck for the kind of tube that needs a caulk gun.  That's where I've been buying it as long as they sell it there.  I hope they keep selling it there, but I've stocked up on it, just in case.

Referring to this art piece, I used a thick piece of chipboard for the base.  Well, a few months ago, I bought 75 pieces of this chipboard on ebay, and am so glad I did.  The price was great, the shipping was not so great, but the overall price was reasonable.  It works for me on this kind of piece, which is 8 1/2 x 11 inches.  I used a non-serrated vintage butter knife to spread the white acrylic caulk.  I tried to spread it fairly thin.  Then I used the knife to texturize it in a somewhat random way.  Then I used foam circle stamps, a larger one and a smaller one, to impress on the caulk and swirl it around and pull it up.  And also a drinking straw to make smaller circles, and  then a sharp awl to draw lines in it.  Once I was done with it, I was satisified.  So then I let it dry.

Then I painted it with coffee acrylic paint, and then rubbed over it with brown shoe polish.  I've done this many times before in my art, but not so much lately, since I've been more into using bold color.  After that, I used gold and coffee metallic paint diluted with water to roll down the piece in a random way, based on the texture.  And then painted it with Future Floor Finish (FFF) for a gloss effect, and used splattered copper and gold Pearl-Ex over that.  I wanted a random paint effect, which I think I achieved.

So anyway, this is the abstract texture piece I ended up with.  I like it a lot.  And it just reminds me how much I like using caulk, the poor man's molding paste.  I think, even if I could afford to spend money on the most artistic/expensive supplies and tools, I'd much prefer to use other things, cheaper things, for basically the same effect and result.   I'm a lot more about that approach, at least whenever I can be.  I love using things not purposed for art in my art.  I love pushing the envelope that way, and also saving money.  

But then again, I think there needs to be a balance regarding that.  Because some art supplies can't be easily substituted by something else.  However, as for me, I'm always game to try!!!

My first "killed catalog"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A dream come true....and my 100th blog post!

 

Yes indeed, this is my 100th blog post. When I started this blog on February 10th of 2008, I never envisioned making my 100th post. At that time, as a newbie blogger, I was concerned about making my first few posts, and doing it right. And here it is, 14 months later, and I'm up to posting for the 100th time. So for me, this is kind of a milestone of sorts, and one I'm happy to celebrate.

But even better yet, I have some very exciting news to post about on this special 100th post. I'm marveling at the "timing" of this, and thinking perhaps it was meant to be. My exciting news is that my art work has been published! Yes, a dream and goal of mine has come true. And I'm thrilled about it, even bouncing off the walls.  The new book in which my work is published is Collaborative Art Journals and Shared Visions in Mixed Media by L.K. Ludwig. It's supposed to be available in June, but can be pre-ordered on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/reader/1592535208?%5Fencoding=UTF8&ref%5F=sib%5Fdp%5Fpop%5Fidx&page=139#reader-link.

This is the first and only time I've submitted my art for publishing. It came about this way. Over a year ago, I joined a very cool yahoo art group, one of my favorites, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ExpressionStudio/. I became acquainted with, and friends with, two wonderful artists in that group, Darlene Wilkinson and Gail Pierce. Darlene saw the call for art for this book, and invited Gail and myself to participate in a collaborative effort to make a book for submission. She chose the theme for the book as "Circles". Gail and I enthusiastically accepted her invitation, and got busy making eight pages each on manilla folders, and sent them to Darlene, who made her eight pages and then compiled our book and sent it in. We heard back that our book was being considered for being included in L.K. Ludwig's book, and of course we were thrilled. Then for the next year, we didn't hear another thing about it, or receive any communication. 

So we've been in the dark about this for over a year, and didn't know until a few days ago when her book was coming out or that our Circles book was included. But now we know, and we're all so excited about it. We are each supposed to receive a complimentary copy of the book, but we don't know when it will arrive. I'm chomping at the bit to get mine, because I don't know which pages of our book were published. And beyond that, I'd love to see and read her book.

So, that's the story on this "adventure", this dream come true for me. When we submitted this book, I was so, so hoping it would be accepted for publishing. And yet, I was wary of having too high expectations, and then possibly being disappointed. I tried not to put too much importance on this, or obsess about it. So yes, it was a dream and goal, but one I tried to keep in perspective. And it's so wonderful to end up achieving this goal, rather than end up disappointed. 

I want to give a lot of credit and thanks to my friend Darlene, who initiated this whole idea and our book. Because without her, and if she hadn't so kindly invited me to take part in this....well, this never would've happened for me. Thank you so much Darlene! This book was my first collaborative effort, and it encouraged me to persue other collab efforts with other artists, although those weren't for the purpose of submission for publishing. 

The five photos in my last post and the three in this post are of my eight pages in our collaborative Circle book. I've wanted to post these on my blog for over a year, but wasn't able to do that due to the rules of submitting for publication. Now, I can finally post these, which makes me happy. I'm a very happy lady today, for a number of reasons. Today is a good day for me.

My pages in a collaborative Circle book

Read the next post about this Circle Book.

Starkness of Winter

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

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

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

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

Winter in Color and Texture

Oh my gosh, I'm so pleased with this piece and how it turned out. Actually more than pleased....I'm somewhat shocked that this came from me, and that I made it. More so knowing that it was a very easy, simple piece to make. I don't know, perhaps sometimes the simplest pieces of art can turn out the best. I've never been a big believer in "less is more" with my art, but now I'm inclined to believe that can be true in some cases.

This is a piece I made two days ago. In the span of a few hours. No pain, no angst, no false starts. And no, I didn't fly by the seat of my pants on this one. This one was planned ahead of time for entry into an art contest on a cool art website I signed up on recently. The theme of this particular contest is "Let it Snow". I looked at all the entries so far just to get an idea of what was being entered, and discovered the theme is wide open in how it can be interpreted. I was happy to learn that. So I knew I wanted to enter this online contest, and just sat back and let some ideas percolate in my mind for a few days until I had an idea I could start with.

I thought well, I should have some white in this piece, but it doesn't have to be all white or only white. It mainly has to evoke the idea of winter in some way. Then I thought, what evokes winter but bare trees? Trees with no leaves on them. So I cut some twigs off a tree in my yard. Then I thought I should paint them white. Regarding the background, I thought of using caulk, since it's white to start with, and I wanted lots of texture on this piece. (Well like duh....when do I not want lots of texture in my art?)

I always get excited when I use caulk in my art. It's one of my favorite media to use. So I spread wonderful caulk over this 5x7 inch piece with abandon. The base here is chip board. I used a vintage butter knife (with no serrations) to spread the caulk to get the kind of texture I wanted. That was easy enough and only took a few minutes to accomplish. The hard part was waiting for the caulk to dry, which I helped along with my hair dryer. I waited a few hours, and then proceeded.

Then I thought about painting it, and the colors I wanted to use. My first thought was using blue (acrylic) paint, because to me, blue is a winter color. Then it occurred to me to dilute the paint with water, to make it thin enough to run over the textured caulk in a totally random manner. It was fun to watch it run down this piece, to see the effect of randomness. I liked the way it looked with just the blue and white at that point. I had some cheese cloth dyed blue, so I glued that over the piece on which the twigs are glued. After I glued down the cheese cloth, I painted Matte Mod Podge on and sprinkled with very, very fine purple glitter. I wanted even more texture on the base piece, so I glued down some white and blue synthetic fibers I had. They were in a package I had bought a long time ago, and totally forgot about, but happened upon for this piece.

I liked it, but felt it needed another color, and purple is one of my favorite colors. I also felt it needed more white, but chose to use metallic platinum instead, and also metallic purple. I diluted those with glaze, and once again let them run down the piece. With the fibers on there, the diluted paint ran even more randomly. Then I glued on the twig piece, and outlined it with permanent blue marker. And voila, it was done and finished.

A part of me started thinking maybe I could add something more, but my muse adamantly put her foot down, and said NO, this piece is done!!! I had to agree with her, because I wanted this piece to be simple and organic. And I felt adding anything more would be too much, and ruin the organic effect. And I'm so glad I listened to my muse, and didn't argue. I'm not always that cooperative with my muse.

I haven't used caulk in my art for quite a while, and now I realize I've missed using it. It provides such fantastic texture, and is so easy to use, and what makes it even better is how cheap and accessible it is!!!

So in closing, I'm VERY happy with how this piece turned out, it's like how I pictured it in my mind when I started. And believe me, not much of my art turns out how I envision it when I start. Which is fine and okay, different approaches at different times to different pieces of art is okay, it's the "artist's way" I believe. For most of my art, I have no plans and fly by the seat of my pants. But sometimes, I settle down with a plan, and actually make it happen. I like making art both ways, and don't necessarily think one way is better than the other.

As an addendum here, I'm submitting this piece to the Mixed Media Monday (MMM) challenge. Here's the link. http://mixedmediamonday.wordpress.com/

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.

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!!!

More Texture!!! With Caulk this time!

Well, Sunday is a good day to do blog posting. I've gotten some requests to post about using caulk in my art, so that's what I'm posting about today. These six pieces are all made with caulk, and again, my main goal was lots of texture and dimension. I use latex or acrylic caulk that you can buy in the tubes (used with a caulk gun) at home improvement and hardware stores. They are easily accessible and also cheap, around a few dollars. Family Dollar stores also sell it for a buck. You don't want to get the kind of caulk that has silicone in it, because that kind is stickier and messier, and I've heard that it can ruin rubber stamps.

This technic is basically very simple. I spread the caulk in a thin layer over the base. I want the layer thick enough to imprint, but not too thick. For the base, I often use frozen pizza cardboard, my old stand-by. However, it can and does curl after the caulk is applied, so I apply water to the back with a paint brush before I spread the caulk to minimize curling. I apply caulk to the image side of the cardboard, after sanding it down to give it tooth. When I want a stiffer base, I generally use box (corrugated) cardboard, but the pizza cardboard works fine for smaller pieces. Even if they are slightly curled when the caulk is dry, it's very flexible, so the piece can be flattened out. After the caulk is spread, I take an old credit card to smooth it out evenly.

I use WD-40 as a release agent on the edge of the credit card, and on the stamps and tools I use for texture, so they don't pull up the caulk. Also, it's better to use sparingly, so I spray it on waxed paper and use my finger or a foam brush to spread it on stamps and tools. It works well, but smells bad. NOTE: on thinner unmounted rubber stamps, it can cause the edges to flute. On the thicker unmounted rubber stamps, it has no effect (that I know of). I've also used it with clear stamps, and haven't noticed any detrimental effects. However, long term, I don't know if it could damage stamps. I always wash off the WD-40 right after I use the stamps. There might be other, better, release agents to use. I'm thinking that vaseline would probably work, and need to try it next time I use caulk.

Once the caulk is spread, I give it 4 or 5 minutes to "set up", and then I start stamping and texturizing with various tools. Any tool can work, so be creative, because what you're doing is imprinting into the layer of caulk. You don't want to press too hard though and smoosh the caulk, you just want to get a good imprint. If you make a mistake, no problem. You can just smooth it over with the credit card and start over. But you have to work fairly quickly while the caulk is still wet enough, so it's a good idea to have all your stamps and tools out on the table for ready access. If you're doing a large piece, it would be better to work on small areas at a time.

Not only can you stamp and texturize the caulk, but you can also embed things into it, because it acts as an adhesive, whereas spackle and joint compound don't. In the bird postcard, you'll notice I embedded a puzzle piece into the caulk. So, use your imagination!

Once your piece is the way you want it, set it aside to dry. Caulk can dry in a few hours, but I generally let it dry overnight. Once it's dry, you can paint it, or not. Or rub brown shoe polish over it for a more vintage effect, over the white or painted caulk. That's what I did on the patriotic piece, and I really like the effect. I used the shoe polish as an afterthought, so now I know shoe polish works well on caulk.

So, that's pretty much the whole technic. Pretty simple and easy, right? And very inexpensive to boot. Caulk can also be used for neat dimension with stencils. Just frost it over a stencil, let it dry, and voila, you have instant dimension. When dry, it's very flexible and doesn't crack or flake off, which spackle and wallboard joint compound tend to do. I use both products for different effects. Sometimes, I want cracking and flaking, sometimes not.

For the caulk inchies, I do the stamping/texturizing on a larger piece and then cut it up into inchies when dry. I draw a one inch grid on the back of the piece before I start, and use a utility knife and a metal ruler to cut them out. I make up a bunch ahead of time, and then just pull them out and paint them when I use them in art pieces. I paint the inchie first with a brush, then use my finger to rub a different color over the elevated parts.

So there you have it. Now....run, don't walk, to your nearest store to buy some caulk, and start caulking. Have fun and please let me know how it works out for you. BTW, caulk also comes in clear, so there are possibilities for that too. I'm trying to come up with some.