Glittery book

I made this book for a swap with the theme of 'glitter'.  I wanted to use glitter in a subtle way, rather than in an 'in-your-face' way.

I created the book by tearing 5 sheets of watercolour paper for the inside, and a slightly larger sheet for the cover. I painted the cover with a mixture of matte medium, turquoise, jenkins green and titan buff fluid acrylic paints and dabbed a crumpled piece of paper on it to add texture.

Once the paint was dry, I used a Basic Grey laser cut 'doily' as a stencil, and dabbed on Stewart Gill Metamica paints in 'brass' and 'verdigris'.  Once dry, I added glitter  by dabbing on 3 colours of Stickles, and spreading it around with my finger. It doesn't show that well on this photo, but you can see more of it on the second photo.

To finish the book off, I did a very simple binding using some tubular variegated embroidery thread, and a polymer clay. The pear was made by rolling Premo Accents clay until thin, creating texture using a rubber stamp, and baking until cured. This is the first time I've used Premo Accents and I was very disappointed because the gold isn't shiny, it's very matte.  And I needed shiny. Very shiny. So, after a generous application of Treasure Gold, my pear is beautifully shiny!

Maple leaves book page

More maple leaves. This is my page in a collaborative hanging book, where each player was given a colour of the rainbow. We had an extra player, so we needed an extra colour, I added crimson to the rainbow :-)

As I'd drawn a maple leaf shape to use to draw around for my textured acrylic panel, I thought I'd use it again. I layered up some autumnal colours of organza with snippets of organza between the layers, then used my special Margaret Beal soldering iron to trace around the maple leaves. As I had spare layered organza left, I created more shapes to finish the bottom of the page off.

I painted a piece of canvas with quinacridone crimson fluid acrylic paint, then I sewed the maple leaves on using variegated threads. I finished the piece by adding dots of iridescent gold fluid acrylic, using the end of a a bamboo skewer.

I have everybody else's pages now, they were all gorgeous - I really must get around to binding them into the hanging book, and put them all on display.

Textured acrylic canvas panel

This was an experiment, following the instructions given by Lisa Kesler, in an article called ' Texture and layers with acrylic paint and stencils', published in Cloth Paper Scissors.

The first step was to cover your substrate (I used a canvas panel) with masking tape. 

Next step was to come up with a design which was a combination of a main focal image, and background shapes or images. I drew my background shapes onto the masking tape. As I'd be cutting around the shapes, I didn't choose anything complicated!

Next, I cut around my shapes using a sharp craft knife, then peeled off the masking tape from around them.

I added a layer of moulding paste, and textured it using bottle tops and pieces of netting.

Once dry, I peeled off my masking tape shapes, and painted the whole piece with watered down fluid acrylics in two or three colours, letting the colours pool in places.

Once dry, I added a warm ochre colour all over to bring it together.

Then I added green, using a baby wipe, so it didn't go into my shapes. It's not looking brilliant at this point, but I know my next layers will really help.

More layers, getting darker and warmer.

The final layer, quite a bright orange, I s added all over, including in my shapes. I'm quite liking it now.  The colours in this photo are a bit brighter than real life.

For the next stage, we're back to the masking tape.  Once you've covered your canvas with masking tape again, you draw your main image on the tape.

Using a craft knife, cut around your image again, but this time lift the image rather than the tape around it.

Add more moulding paste, and remove masking tape.

Once the moulding paste is dry, add more paint layers.

Paint your main image carefully, making sure you don't get any on your background.

I added several layers of crimson, then used an iridescent gold oil pastel to draw the veins on the leaf, before adding a final layer of paint. The finished piece.... which took all day on and off, 10 minutes here and there with lots of drying time in between layers.

Eagle eyed readers will have spotted that my background circles aren't all in the same place.  I made several of these at the same time, and didn't always photograph the same one!

Textured pot

In April, I went to Shropshire for a few days with a group of friends. We'd each agreed to give a half day class, and here is the textured pot that Liz Welch taught us to make.

We made little faces from cloud clay, each face is about an inch tall. I coloured my clay blue, using mica powders, and added more colour with a little acrylic paint when I'd finished them.

These were fun to make, each has his own little character! 

Next, we set about decorating a cardboard pot - this one had contained sanitary products but apparently they are no longer packaged this way, which is a shame as the container was sturdy and a useful size! Liz had kindly paint the pots for us before the class, but this is easy to do, a coat of gesso then acrylic paint in  a strong colour or two, then dry brushed with metallic paint.

We took some scrim and dipped it into a mixture of ink and Paverpol fabric stiffener until it was really well coloured and very sticky! Next, we draped and otherwise artfully arranged the scrim onto our pots, sticking it to itself and the pot, and trying to leave some suitable gaps to put faces into. Once the scrim was dry, we rubbed Treasure Gold gilding wax onto the high points. I rather like the look of it just as it is!

The next step was to stick our little faces onto our pots. I thought my faces stood out too much, the colour didn't blend in well enough for me. I added some more Treasure Gold to see if that would help, but it didn't.

So I left the pot to sit for a week or two.  Finally, I decided to paint the faces with some fluid acrylic paint - a mixture of turquoise and green, as close to the colour tones of the background as I could manage.

Suddenly my faces look as if they belong on the pot! 

I added some Treasure Gold to finish them off.

(a bit too much, it is easy to be heavy handed with this stuff)

Now I really like my little faces pot, and it is in my studio holding pens, pencils and other tools!

Colourful tags

Oh, a whole month and a half has slipped past since my last post.  I was away for a couple of weeks and then I've been unwell enough not to feel like posting.  So today I will post a few things to make up for it!

I'm taking part in an monthly 'colourful tags' swap, the colour scheme is set for each month but otherwise the swap is pretty open.  For my 

'green with a touch of blue' tags I layered fluid acrylic paint until it started to look leathery, then collaged on some painted and stamped paper across the centre of the tag. 

I used the Gelli plate to print on both sides of the tag, then stamped the top half of one side using Stazon and on of my favourite Stampers Anonymous stamps.

I stamped the bird and egg images (Invoke Arts) onto green paper, and mounted the images in painted slide mounts. The touch of blue was dots of Jacquard Lumiere paint.

For the 'white with a touch of gold' tags, I used moulding paste and a lettering stencil to give texture to the top of one side of the tag,and some stencil waste and moulding paste to add texture to the bottom. I  then sewed some scrim around the tag using long straight stitches and french knots, and painted everything with gesso, then white acrylic paint. I stamped a series of circles across the back (Stewart Gill), and added some lace trim stickers.  Finally I used a W stencil with gel medium to add the W, and when it was dry I painted it gold. To finish the tag, I gently rubbed all the scrim and embroidery stitches with Treasure Gold.

Fantasy Film canvas

 So, a Fantasy Film themed swap.  I've used Fantasy Film many times, right? So why did I prevaricate for a month?  Who knows, but today the inspiration finally arrived - in the nick of time, it's the deadline for posting.

I painted a thin canvas with a mixture of micaceous iron oxide and purple fluid acrylic paint.  I coated it with PVA glue, and stuck two pieces of Fantasy Film down. Then I hit it with the heat gun, until it bubbled and changed colours, and started to become holey. It's hard to photograph, but the 3 images below give you some idea.

This is taken at an angle where no reflected light is visible.

This is taken at an angle where all you can see is reflected light.

I used impasto paste and a stencil to add texture down the left hand side.

I made a keyhole using air dry clay, painted with black gesso, coated with interference violet fluid acrylic. I rubbed copper Treasure Gold over the impasto and the keyhole.

I made a key from friendly plastic, painted to match the keyhole. I added a sticker ribbon, then used Brilliance inks to colour some paper, and stamped the words onto it with black Stazon. Hope my partner likes it!

Doors ATCs

The theme for my monthly ATC swap was "doors and what's behind them."

Here is the front of the ATC I created:

The front of the ATC, the door itself, is made from scraps and odds and ends of sticks of friendly plastic.  I just cut all my scraps into smallish pieces and laid them all out onto a craft sheet, as close together as I could get them. I took another craft sheet and laid it on top, and ironed them until they melted together into a an A4 sheet approximately half the thickness of a friendly plastic stick .  I guess you could use a skillet for this if you have one, but your sheet would be thicker.  There were small gaps, so I added some more pieces of friendy plastic and ironed again. 

I then used a Spellbinders ATC die and my Wizard to cut ATCs form the sheet of friendly plastic. I rubbed the ATCs all over with olive bronze Treasure Gold, to hide most of the mixture of colours of friendly plastic. Each ATC was then laid onto the craft sheet, heated with a heat gun, and stamped into with the diamond patterned stamp (Invoke Arts).  I allowed the friendly plastic to completely cool before removing the stamp, and added more olive bronze Treasure Gold to give good coverage, then used renaissance gold Treasure Gold to highlight some of the raised areas. I punched a hole, then added a bead cap and brad to make the door handle.

Here is the what's behind the door:

The door is hinged with organza - the friendly plastic was carefully heated down one side and the organza was pressed into the warm plastic.  I then cut pieces of very thin wood sheet (maybe this is marquetry veneer?) to size, inked them to age them, and stamped them using the same stamp as the front of the door, before sticking them to the friendly plastic with red liner tape. The other part of the organza hinge was trapped between two layers of card stuck together with red liner tape.

The backgrounds of the inside were created using the layered paint technique as detailed in a previous blog post.

I cut this background into ATC sized pieces, stamped the words onto some paper from a very old book and glued them onto the background with gel medium.

Why 'Pieces of History'? Well, all the elements of the ATC are pieces of my history.  The friendly plastic was all left over from other projects.  The layered paint technique was learnt at Art & Soul during a fantastic trip to the USA back in 2007, which is part of my history.  It was painted onto a base of cardboard bpxes which used to contain one of my favourite smoothie ice lollies, and the book pages used for the words are from an old book which I have had for a long time, again part of my history.

Alphabetica Y - layered paint tutorial

About 5 years ago I took a class 

with Ann Baldwin at Art & Soul, in Portland. Ann has been moving from painting to photography, and her photography is interesting but I prefer her paintings. Perhaps when she's been doing photography for as long as she's been painting, I'll like the photography as much as I like the painting!

Ann paints beautiful paintings by layering acrylics - sometimes 45 or more layers. She adds texture by adding papers and other media and textured elements between the layers. I decided on a simple version of what I learnt for Y.

I took some scrap cardboard, and painted in with a thin layer of gesso. 

I gave it a second thin coat.

I got out some gloss gel medium, and a palette knife

Once I'd coated the card with gel medium, I added texture with cookie cutters, a rubber stamp, the wrong end of a pencil and a mini mister cap.

I let it dry.  You can only tell if it's dry by touching it.

I got my paints out - these, and every yellow I have. I love these paints, the colour is still strong, even when thinned with water, or applied in thin layers.

Using my brightest yellow, I painted the hearts. This may look a bit like fried eggs at the moment but it will improve, honest!

I gave it a coat of Nickel Azo Yellow. Transparent colours are best for this technique, but you apply the paint so thinly that you can get away with less a transparent layer every now and then.

I gave it a coat of Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide..

I took my paintbrush and went around the hearts with a thin layer of Yellow Ochre. This was still a very thin layer of paint, but I added some uneven-ness by painting some areas more than once.

I added a touch of red for contrast - I made a mask then stamped each heart with a dotty stamp and red Stazon.

Doesn't look like fried eggs any more, I'm starting to like it now.

Next, I stamped some words over the spots - big improvement - and then painted some of the circles with Iridescent Bronze. This is very bright, but it will mellow when there are some layers of transparent paint on top.

I added a layer of Nickel Azo Yellow. See how those bronze circles have warmed up?

Another layer of Nickel Azo Yellow. I like this - it could get much richer with more layers and the introduction of other colours, but this peice has to be Y for Yellow, so I'd better stop. There are about 10 layers of paint here.

The back, though, well that's another matter.  I'd done everything so far (apart from the red spots)  to another piece of card to be the back of the piece.

I added layers of Nickel Azo Gold, Transparent Burnt Orange, and Transparent Iron Oxide Red.  I painted some of the gold hearts with Turquoise, very thinly. I layered in Iridescent bronze at different points so there would be different colours of gold in the piece. It looks like rich leather.

This is similar, but more deep colours added - about 17 layers of paint here.

You can make it brighter, depending on which colours you use.  Somewhere in the middle of this, there was a Turquoise layer, which turned the yellowy areas green, and the reddish areas slightly greeny browny.

This is a really easy technique which produces really rich surfaces with lots of depth and deep shine.  The trick is just to have patience, and take the time to paint many layers but keep the layers really thin, and to make sure each layer is completely dry before adding the next (use a heat gun if you're as impatient as me!).