Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Third tile and a fibre experiment.

OK, today's ATC is the third in the tile adhesive series.
On this one, I laid on some plastic netting from a fruit bag while the tile adhesive was still wet.  Then I dripped the watercolours and gold acrylic, and liked the way the spreading was contained by the netting.  I stamped with a clear stamp and added some embossing powder when it was really dry, however the surface was too rough for the stamp, although you can see it in places.  When I heated the embossing powder, the fruit bag netting started to shrivel up and as it did, I saw these great grid lines left behind, so I took it away and continuedheating.  I like the textures in this one.

Now, yesterday, I said I was going to try to create the digital ATC I showed.  I forgot to say that it was made from the natural breeze collection from digidesignresort.
So here is the digital design.
to make the real one, I started with a piece of thick interfacing and a piece of muslin.
I used a little bit of black and white acrylic pain and a straw, to make the background, because that's what it looked like to me.
On the right above you can see that I had a bit of trouble when opening the tube of black, lol
 I used the straw to make little circles all over the fabric in grey, but it looked a bit too stark, so I blurred it a bit with my fingers and a bit of water.
The next layer I decided looked a bit like some sequin waste, so I cut two pieces, however, I toned the shine down with a brush over of white paint (or I could have used gesso)
Next were the leaves.  I decided to uses some velvety artificial leaves I had had lying around for ever and cut them down out of that.
I arranged the leaves where I thought thet should go.  I left the stems out.
I cut a little tag out of cream card and roughed up the edges.  I had a few gos at this and a few pictures did not get taken,  but I went around the edges with a sepia marker and added some sepia smudges and pretend writing.  I added a small suare of brown card and threaded through some twine coloured crochet cotton and loosely draped it, then stapled it.
 I found some pieces of silk carnations I had had out a few days ago and cut them down to the size and shape I needed, which was quite a bit, if you count the grid squares in both pics.  It is the same board.
I coloured the flowers with a bay blue marker (water soluble, not permanent), then went over this with a darker blue (not shown here) at the edges.  It looked a bit harsh, so since the markers were water soluble, I just wet them to let the colours bleed a little and scrunched them at the same time to give them more shape.
I placed the flowers and thought about the centre.  It looked like wax to me.
So I got out a cheap brown crayon and my soldering iron and got a piece of loosely knotted thread ready.
I melted bits of the wax crayon into the centre and pushed the knot into it.  Voila! 
For the little glittery embellishment, I put a piece of acetate under the flower etc and wrote on it with a blue marker.  I tried a glitter glue pen, but it just ended up a gluey mess.
I am not happy with this part and intend to change it, as;
  •  I remembered I have some glittery blue madeira metallic thread that  I had out yesterday to embroider some fireworks.  
  • The sequin waste is still too bright and I realized a layer of organza would fix that and also provide a better base for the glittery embellishment
  •  the brown wax needs a bit of gold shine
 and then it would work out perfectly, but much as I want to reassemble it now, it is 11pm, and I won't be doing it tonight or my hubby will not be pleased with me!.
Here they are together.  My picture is a bit dull, due to being under fluorescent lights at night.  Not quite right yet, I think.  I will repost when I have made the changes I thought of.


It was fun having a go - and that's what art should be about, what you love and enjoy doing.  If you are not enjoying it, then you will find it hard to create beauty.


Tuesday, February 28, 2012

a spiral and a gift

Today's ATC is one of the ones I made yesterday with the tile adhesive.  You know me, I always use what ever is about.
On this one I added some texture with the spatula while the tile adhesive was still wet, then after it had hardened alittle, added some drops of watercolour and gold acrylic, glitter and a home made stamp.  I like the colour and texture in this one.

I have been working on a birthday present for a friend who lives nearby and is a devoted mother and artist.
I saw a challenge on club creating keepsakes (Club CK, a scrapbooking site) and the inspiration photo hit me like a truck  here.
I don't know if what I created is quite what they were looking for, because there is no scrapbooking in it.

I got a piece of mattboard that had marks on it and wasn't going to be used and covered it with tile adhesive with a scraper.
Then I used various things, like a skewer to draw lines in it to look like old distressed boards.
Below, you can see the lines more easily
Then I got two small precut matt boards, from a box full that I bought at a market really cheap.
I painted them with a thick layer of acrylic paint.
It is a bit fiddly, as the frames can slide around, but sas you can see, at the top right, I am using a skewer to hold the frame as I paint.  It hardly leaves a mark.
Here's one painted.  I let them dry totally, which took ages, because after the extremely hot weekend, we have had two days of rain - go figure.

Here I have added a very thick layer of PVA/white glue.  Up at the top, you can see some shapes I cut from plastic lids.  A train, a car and a dinosaur.  You'll see what I did with them later.
This time I added the top coat a little earlier, and it didn't crack as well, but streaked nicely.  I am learning.  I needs to be not quite tacky, but not really liquid.
Here's a close up.  As you can see, it didn't crack as well as yesterday's post.
Meanwhile, I painted the ackground with a creamy yellow acrylic, very watered down.
Then, when everything was ready (but not quite dry, because I couldn't wait and the weather was so wet), I put the layout together.
I added the frames, then used pinboard pins in red green and blue to pin them down as well as a piece of twine.  I used tiny little mini pegs I found at a 2 dollar store to clip photos, each in a little acetate leaflet for protection, in place (Obviously, these are not the photos I used, I have digitally altered them since they were not my children in the photos).  The children concerned are mad about trains, cars and dinosaurs, so I added the platic cut outs, then I added some coloured dots with bingo markers.  Last, I actually scratched into the background, some stick figures and words, as if the kids had done it.

It still needs to be framed, but my friend likes it, and that is all that matters, isn't it.

Just a last little peek at something.
Here's another Digital ATC I made.  I thought tomorrow, I might have a go at putting this one together in two different ways.  That is- make a real one!  I think I can just about manage this one.

Have fun creating!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Growing and cracking

Today's ATC is part of an experiment I did in my laboratory, lol.
You won't believe the ingredients I used.
Mattboard, Tile adhesive, smoothed with a spatula, pigment solution (like liquid watercolour) and diluted gold acrylic dropped with a dropper while the tile adhesve was still damp, glitter,  distress ink, rub on word, white gel pen.
The white gel pen was an afterthought, when the rub on 'R' didn't adhere properly, so I made it into a feature instead!

The other day, I finally got around to doing some experimentation with making PVA/white glue crackle (only because I had a project I needed to finished, which also needed it!)  I had watched lots of videos and looked at lots of blogs and decided to just to do it.
This is one of my altered books, which I often use to try out new ideas in.  I have painted both sides of a spread with blue acrylic paint (You might recognise that there are two ATCs included in the photo and one of these - the dud, became the fishy business ATC)
I treated the two pages separately.  Here I have covered the left one with a thick layer of PVA.  I didn't wait wery long before the next step, no more than five minutes and it was still wet.
I forgot to photograph this step, but on the top half of the page, I used watered down lumiere gold and on the bottom watered down white acrylic.  I used my heat gun to hasten the process a bit, but if you hold it too long or too close, the PVA will bubble and this is not really what we want.
The lumiere did not crack at all in this experiment, but what I did here was brush over the dry surface and move some of the top skin of dried paint around.  It made an interesting textural effect.  Perhaps I just didn't wait long enough, but even now, days later after the page has been turned and flexed, there are no cracks.
The watered down white acrylic, however made gorgeous cracks!
On the right hand page, instead of PVA, I used Paste.  In Australia, we call it Clag, but it's really just a cooked cornflour paste, like we used as kids.  I often make my own, but had a jar on the shelf which had been given to me, so used that.  I thought this would work well, and still think I can make it work, because when this stuff dries, it tends to crack anyway.  I used the Lumiere, which was probably a bad move - so two wrongs don't make a right in this case.
Here are the two ATC backgrounds.  The one on the left is the same as the blue and white sample - neat PVA and watered down acrylic, and it cracked really well.  In the one on the right (which became this ATC), used watered down PVA and this just did not work.  You need lots of gooey stuff, so when It dries it will cause the cracking.

Being an artist is a process of continually making something out of nothing.
(me)

No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences - so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes.
Alfred Adler

Sunday, February 26, 2012

only a card, she says.....

Today, I only have an atc to post, mainly because it took quite a while to construct it.
Here is the front, it is mattboard, painted with acrylic.  The butterflies are die cut from melted wax on paper, and acrylic painted paper.
Here is the back.  More of the same.
As you can see here, it can stand up on it's own.
when it is standing up, you can peek inside.
And outside.
I'ts a 3-D atc!
It is based on a design I saw on youtube.
I also looked on the author's blog, but the instructions were a bit scanty.  You will find it in the archives under december 2010.

So I made most of it up myself.  Of course, now I know all the pitfalls, I can make one which is a bit nicer!

It has been really hot again, here and I am not taking it well, since being sick (do I ever?), so mostly this weekend I have been researching folded embellishments and mini books on youtube.
Here is my lap pad with a few of the thinks I have played with.
It was a lovely way to spend a few hot days, but deadlines are loooooooming again.

I think a bit of sewing is going to have to happen!


Be creative!