Interactive art needs your input - updated

This has been an experiment with texture and colour. I am making a canvas as a gift for Maggi. She wanted the gift to be inspired by literature, music, or film. So many choices....

After being completely stuck, I looked at the books on my bookshelf today, and saw one by Sheri Tepper, called 'Beauty'. Inspired, I decided to try and create a piece of art which represented beauty. I took a 6 x 6 inch canvas, and stuck some torn and crumpled deli paper at the top left quarter and bottom right quarter. I added fibre gel medium at the top right quarter, then added fine and coarse garnet gels everywhere else - these are the brown dots you can see. It doesn't look very inspiring, but I'm hoping I've made great texture!



Next, I added a butterfly shaped area of fibre gel medium in the top left quarter, on top of the garnet gel and deli paper. I let it dry a little, then wet and unmounted stamp and stamped into the fibre gel.

The butterfly's not that easy to see on the picture above, but you get a better idea from the close up below.

Once everything had dried, I began to add colour. I added crimson, orange, turquoise and violet. It was too bright, even for me, so I went over the crimson and orange with transparent yellow to tone them down just a little. I put a couple of coats of cobalt turquoise on the butterfly, as I wanted it to be bolder to stand out from such a bright background. It's still way too bright, but I need it to be bold to show through the next step.


I added liming wax to the whole canvas. Liming wax is used on wood to make it look weathered and old. Here, it integrates all the colours and tone s the whole canvas down into a more subtle colour mix. I really like the effect. But, the butterfly doesn't stand out enough.


I've added Treasure Gold to the butterfly. It still didn't stand out enough, and the liming wax had integrated the colour just a tad too much. I took some turquoise pthalo and painted around the butterfly to give more contrast, and added a little at the top right and bottom right corners of the canvas to balance it a little.


I'm really pleased with this so far. It might even be finished. But I am undecided, which is where YOU come in. Do I leave it like this? Or do I add one of the embellishments below????? Please look, and leave a comment with your choice.

Do I add a butterfly stamped onto acetate, with the wings bent up so it looks as if it has just landed on the canvas?


Do I add a spirit of the forest?


Or a green man?


Or a bronze plaque inscribed with script? (this was the embellishment I had planned to use at the outset)


Or, can you think of an embellishment which would look even better on this canvas?

Please let me know which version you prefer, and why. If you have a different idea, please suggest it.

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts.

UPDATE

Those of you who know me won't be surprised to find I did something completely different to the trial pieces above. I didn't look at the canvas for 15 hours, and I read all your comments. By the way, putting the butterfly transpaency was the first thing I did when I made it - and it looked awful LOL.

The comments which made the most impact on me were the ones about odd numbers and adding more turquoise pthalo (a girl can never have too much turquoise in her life!). And somebody mentioned size. And somebody mentioned dimension, lifting things off the canvas. When I looked at my assorted embellishments I realised that half the problem was that they were too large for the canvas.

So, I made some smaller gold butterfly themed embellishments. I tried them on the canvas and they didn't work either.


Eventually, I fished out a tiny butterfly mould, and used some air dry clay to make two small butterflies. I painted them and added Treasure Gold, and adhered them onto the canvas with heavy gel. I painted around them. I think it's FINISHED!!!!


Thank you all for your comments, ideas, and input.

Canvas for Fiona

I made a canvas for Fiona's birthday. I found a square canvas with sloping sides, and used a small palette knife to apply regular gel medium all over to add texture. I think this is the original purpose gel medium was designed for! I also used the gel to adhere and embed the main focal point of the canvas - a paper casting of a rubber stamp.

Once the gel had dried, I began adding very thin layers of fluid acrylic paint in Paynes Grey, and Turquois (pthalo) plus a little Cobalt Turquoise (that was a mistake, it's not transparent enough!). I built up and added the paint layers, then added some violet around the bottom of the sides.


I added some gold oil pastel to the high points of the texture, then added 2 more layers of paint. The gold didn't show through enough, so I touched the high points with Treasure Gold to highlight them. It was difficult to get a good image of this canvas. The image above was scanned and shows the detail well, the image below is a photograph which shows the colour much more accurately but doesn't show the detail so well!


Anyway, Happy Birthday Fiona!

Fantasy film canvas

Apologies in advance for the picture quality - this stuff isn't easy to get good pictures of! I am hosting a fantasy film swap on CC Swaps. We each made an 'item of choice' for our partner. I decided to try making a fantasy film canvas, and this is the result:


I fused several layers of the palest colour of fantasy film onmto the canvas, wrapping it arouind the edges and back, and using an iron to shrink and fuse. I took 2 more layers of the same colour and inked up a large stamp (Stamp Camp) with Stazon, then laid the fantasy film on top, covered with some paper (just to protect the iron) and fused the layers together on the sytamp. I peeled the image off the stamp, trimmed it, and decided the body of the angel needed t stand out a little more. I painted a layer of gold paint on the back, then fused it onto the canvas with the iron.

I hope my swap partner likes it!

Angelina ATC

I am making some ATCs without paper for a swap on CC Swaps. I decided to use a range of fantasy film and angelina fibre colours. I inked up a leaf and a flower stamp with black Stazon, then laid 2 layers of fantasy film/fusible film/angelina film on top, a layer of silicone paper on top of that, and ironed for a few seconds on the silk setting of my dry iron to use the layers together and heat set the image onto the film. I cut around the images and found myself the pleased owner of some very shimmery flowers and leaves.


I cut some fantasy film out, and layered 2 pieces with a thin layer of angelina fibres between them. I laid the silicone paper back on top, and ironed it all together to fuse it into one sheet. I ran the sheet through my Wizard, using the ATC die cutter. Finally, I laid my leaves and flowers onto the ATC shapes, put the silicone paper back on top, and gave another few seconds with the iron to fuse the leaves and flowers onto the ATC background.


I like the way the angelina fibres give texture to the background, while the different colours of fantasy film stand out from each other.

Fantasy canvas

Jean's theme for this Girl of the Month gift was 'fantasy'. I did think about making something using fantasy film, but decided to paint a canvas instead! This was one big learning curve of experimentation for me - and the reason it fits the fantasy theme is that I have fantasized about painting a textured rich canvas that I like!


The canvas is about 7 inches by 9.5 inches. I layered torn book pages onto the canvas, then a wash of watered down gesso, and a quick coat of Opals Dust (this gives deep down sparkle at some angles). I then added many coats of fluid acrylics and gel mediums.

I added texture to the background by stamping a texture stamp into one layer of half dry gel medium, and then added the focal points by stamping into gel medium and highlighting it with Treasure Gold (yes, I think I do use this stuff on everything I make!). The colour reminds me of the deep ocean, and the canvas has a deep rich polish. I'm really pleased with this and may make something like it for my own wall!!!

Friendly plastic art

I am taking part in a swap where I had to make something incorporating Friendly Plastic, and this is what my partner will be getting:


I used a Krafty Lady mould and lots of small pieces of Friendly Plastic left over from other projects. I put them all in the mould, heated with a heat gun, dipped my fingers in cold water and pushed the plastic into all the nooks and crannies in the mould. I didn't fill the mould - the piece is about 1/8th of an inch thick all over. Once it had cooled, I pushed it out of the mould and gave it a thorough rubbing with Treasure Gold, then set about making the background to set it off.

I took a 5 inch by 7 inch canvas, and covered it with scraps of paper form an old Welsh language book. I gave this a thin coat of Titan Buff fluid acrylic, then several very thin coats each of 3 or 4 colours of fluid acrylic - paynes grey, transparent orange and yellow and a crimson.

I took a fleur-de-lys stencil and a gold oil pastel crayon, and stencilled half motifs down each side before giving the canvas a final coat of the crimson paint. The canvas probably has about 20 coats of paint on it, and this gives a lovely rich polished sheen. I stuck the Friendly Plastic body on using extra heavy gel medium.

House chunky book

I decided I liked the covers enough not to do any more to them, so I just named my house the 'House of Fun' - because fun is what I get from making and receiving art. I punched four holes in each page and tied them to each other using a fancy white yarn, to make a concertina style book.


Here are half of the fronts of the pages:


and here are the rest:


Here are half the backs:


and here are the rest:

The book looks lovely on my art shelf. You can see the post about my own page for this book here.

Gesso and Quink

I bought a very inspiring book earlier this year - Textile Translations by Maggie Grey - and have been drooling over it ever since. Maggie also did some supplementary online lessons for those people who have bought the book, making the cover price very good value indeed.

I have worked mostly with paper, card and objects over the last few years, and seem to have a mental block about fabric. I don't know why, I have made many pairs of curtains through my life, and lots of my own and my children's clothes. But textile art is another matter... When I got the book, I didn't have the supplies needed, and now I have the supplies I also have the mental block!

Anyway, to get over my block, I thought I'd try one of the techniques on mount board, instead of craft vilene. I was in a chunky book swap last August, where we all made house shaped pages, and I needed to make some covers for the book.

I glued a selection of torn and crumpled papers onto the mountboard, brushed and stamped with gesso, added a moulded focal piece made form air dry clay in an Enchanted Gallery mould, and sprayed with Quink black ink, and blue-black ink. I also sprayed with a gold color wash spray from Outside the Margins, this doesn't add colour, just very fine gold glimmer. I added another layer of Quink, and finished with a quick light rub of Treasure Gold. Here are the outsides of the book covers:


And here are the insides, the one on the left sprayed with blue-black ink, the one on the right sprayed with black ink:

I need to add some elements to the covers, and bind them to the pages - I may post another picture once the book is bound.

Citrasolv

Citrasolv, an orange oil based cleaner, dissolves the ink in National Geographic magazines to great effect:

http://adriennegoodenough.blogspot.com/search/label/Citrasolv

and there are at least 3 UK suppliers of the product:

http://www.greenhealthwatch.com/goodslifeworks/goodspollutionbusters/pblaun21ccit.htm

http://www.21stcenturyhealth.co.uk/productdetail.asp?category=&prodid=30

http://www.ecohip.org/product.php/659/citra-solv-concentrated-multi-purpose-cleaner-32oz

Why not find some old National Geographic magazines and have a play?

And now for something completely different

This piece is a gift for somebody who set their theme as 'botanical'. I have tried to use muted natural colours, to bring a feeling of a botanical illustration book page to the piece.


I gathered the flowers and leaves from my garden, and used the microwave to 'press' them, or dry them. I used a sandwich of ceramic tile, kitchen paper, plant matter, kitchen paper and another ceramic tile, and 'cooked' it on full power for 2 minutes, then 15 second bursts until the plants were dry.

The background is made from pages from an old Welsh language book, with the flowers and leaves adhered using gel medium, and white gesso painted over the whole thing. The stone carved image is an image transfer, with the 'missing sections' drawn in pencil. I finished the piece with a quote by Keats - 'the poetry of the earth is never dead', and mounted it onto some green mount board which had been stamped with Versamark ink.

Queen of the extreme

I made a gift for a friend who set the theme as 'queenly'. So, here is the 'queen of the extreme' paper quilt, which will be whizzing round the world as soon as I can work out how to package it safely (thinking it might be packed with foamboard as a lightweight stiffener).

The paper was torn and sprayed with several purple colorwash sprays, and I added gold embossing powder down the torn edges. Some paper was cut into fancy shapes and run through the Wizard in cuttlebug folders, and applied some Treasure Gold to highlight the pattern, and some self adhesive gems before adding these pieces to the very top and bottom of the quilt.


I ironed some fantasy film onto dark cardstock, then cut that into squares and ran those through the Wizard in the cuttlebug folder, and highlighted the pattern with Treasure Gold. I mounted those onto larger plain squares with buttons, and added them to the top and bottom, layered over some purple organza ribbon. I added some punched flowers between the squares.

I sprayed some small tags, and added brads and embellishments, then layered those over some chiffon down the right hand side, with punched flowers in between.

The main image is a transfer onto fabric, and the 'frame' is lutradur, with puff paint stamping, sprayed with colorwashes, and foiled on the high points, before small holes being amde with a fine soldering iron. the little crowns are brass charms, the larger crown is german scrap.

Ironing and recycling

Household chores are getting to be more and more fun! I recycled this soup tin into a pencil holder using fantasy film and my iron.... I used about 3 layers of fantasy film, just dabbed some white glue onto the can to hold the first layer in place while I ironed it, the other layers just bond to the first layer.


The Green Man embellishment is a moulded piece, made from Friendly Plastic in an Enchanted Gallery mould, and rubbed over with Treasure Gold to take some of the glitz off.

Doing the ironing

Have you ever ironed a pear??? I have!

I was inspired by Zeborah's fantasy gourd and 'dragon eggs', so decided to try my hand at 3-D fantasy film.

Using a combination of a fake pear, pva glue, fantasy film, an iron and a heat gun, I transformed this life sized fake pear into a shimmery other-worldly fruit! It took a little patience, but I got there in the end.


I did try stamping & embossing the pear, but I foolishly chose an interference embossing powder which didn't show (and I thought it was going to show in a deep iridescent green!!!). All this process did was take a lot of the shine away, and I didn't like the pear quite as much. So I ironed on some angelina fibres:



It's still not quite as pretty as it was with just the fantasy film, and you can't really see the texture or colours very well in the photograph, but I rather like it!!

Friendly Plastic suppliers

I've been asked where on earth people can buy Friendly Plastic!

If you live in the US or Canada, I am led to believe Sunshine Crafts is a reliable supplier, and very reasonable in terms of price ($1.49 per stick). They also sell some books and tools.

If you live in the UK, I know Liz Welch at Rare Bird is a world expert who uses Friendly Plastic in some unique ways, and who sells Friendly Plastic and all the tools, DVDs and more that you might need to use with it. Liz also ships internationally, so if you live elsewhere you can still buy your supplies from this webstore.

Hidden Friendly Plastic

I am making a metallic item for Annie. I knew I wanted to have some letters under the metal, to make the words appear in relief, but didn't have any letters to use. I decided to make them myself using Friendly Plastic! I heated the FP on the craft mat with the heat gun, and stamped into the pieces firmly with a texture stamp. Once cooled, I peeled the stamp off, and re-heated the FP. When it was shiny and soft, but hadn't lost it's texture, I used some small letter cutters that I found in Tesco last year. I pushed the cutters in hard, and left them there until the FP was cold.


So, lots of letters! It doesn't matter that they are different colours, nobody will see that. Sorry my pictures are blurry - the macro button on my new camera doesnt work as well as I expect it to!

I cut a piece of thick cardboard, then covered it with several layers of metal tape (from the DIY store, intended for pipe & roof repairs). I added the letters, and more tape over the top. I used a range of tools (Ten Seconds Studio) to make patterns in the metal, and ensure it was well burnished. I coated it with Paynes Grey fluid acrylic paint, and then rubbed mosyt of it off. This takes the 'shiny new' look away.


I added several colours and coats of Treasure Gold, as I know Annie likes blues and greens. I buffed with a soft cloth between colours and coats.

I added green amber Treasure Gold to the tops of the letters, to highlight them.

Added some cord to hang it, and it is done! Hope Annie likes it.

More friendly plastic

Hmmmmn. I am starting to like this stuff. I have been playing a little with ways to use it other than in moulds. Here are some early examples.

1. Friendly Plastic heated with a heat gun (on a craft sheet) until shiny and soft. Lay some punchinella on top, push from behind the craft sheet (use a cloth to protect your fingers) to extrude Friendly Plastic through the punchinella. Picture shows small hole, medium hole and starry hole punchinella.


2. Friendly Plastic, heated with a heat gun on a craft sheet and stamped into - I used a texture stamp, inked up with versamark, and held it down - pressing quite hard - until the FP had cooled some. Leave till completely cold and peel off stamp. In the 2 samples below, I have added Treasure Gold to the left hand half of each sample to bring out the pattern.


3. Stamping into the Friendly Plastic like this leaves you with very thin FP - about 1-2 millimetres or 1/16th of an inch or thereabouts. So I thought it might die cut - I ran some pieces through my Wizard with Cuttlebug dies, and it worked reasonably well. If I stamp harder to make the pieces thinner, and use a sheet of paper or very thin card as an extra shim, I think it will work even better (I had to cut these with scissors in places to get the die cut pieces out).


4. Getting more ambitious. I cut some thin strips of Friendly Plastic and laid them all next to each other on the craft mat, then heated until they all went shiny and soft and stuck to each other. While it was all still hot, I pushed a circle cutter into the Friendly Plastic, then left it to cool. Once cool, I took the cutter and circle out. I took two other colours of Friendly Plastic, heated them, and used the cutter again. Once cool, I had 3 circles and 3 'backgrounds'. I wish I'd taken a pic at this point because they were very pretty. Anyway, I put the circles in the other colours of FP, then re-heated to join them together. And then I spoilt them by stamping into them! They were definitely prettier before I did that. However, this is what I ended up with, I think they can be reheated and used in moulds, or maybe I can cut shapes from them to make pendants.

No doubt I'll play some more today, and share the results later! The only thing I don't like is the waiting for it to cool bit - for some things you can drop it into cold water and cool/set it instantly, but not when it's on a large craft mat. Maybe I'll cut my craft mat into small pieces, so I can just drop each small piece into water as I work. It would certainly speed things up!

Working with colour

Do you ever struggle with colour? Which colours go with which, or which tones to use? Do you know the difference between a warm blue and a cold blue? Or pink? Or a hue and ? Or what a value is?

My friend Beverly Gilbert, in addition to being a wonderful teacher and beader, has a fantastic eye for colour, and has started sharing her expertise on her blog. She has some simple exercises to help people think about colour, and work through colour combinations.

It's well worth a look!

http://beverlygilbert.blogspot.com/

Enjoy - I always do! And looking at all those colour combinations inspires me to go off and make art!

Friendly plastic play

I've been playing with Friendly Plastic in readiness for a swap. I like using FP with silicone moulds as the resulting embellishments are very lightweight and survive the worlds postal systems incredibly well (unlike heavy embossing powder embellishments, which are often shattered by the experience!). You can also make the FP very thin, and sometimes 'partial' moulds are more interesting than complete ones.

I have a bowl of cold water by my side, lay the Friendly Plastic into my mould (foil side down) and heat it with my heat gun until it gets shiny and slumps into the mould. I dip my fingers into the cold water, then use them to push the FP into the mould, making sure it's pushed into all the nooks and crannies. Fingers don't burn if there is water between them and the Friendly Plastic, but they do burn if there isn't - so be careful!

When I have finished pushing the FP into the corners, I drop the mould and FP into the cold water and leave it there for as long as I can bear to. If it has any flat shiny bits when I unmould it, it means that particular bit of FP didn't get hot enough to melt into the mould properly, so I just repeat the process, focussing on that area of the piece.

I find the Friendly Plastic colours a little bright, so always tone down or add other colour by rubbing gently with Treasure Gold wax. Here are a selection of pieces, some made using scraps, some using just one piece of FP. Remember that you can enlarge the picture by clicking on it.


As you can see from the mermaid, you can use more than one colour in the mould - she was made using scraps of turquoise and gold. The green man at the front of the picture was made using lots of small scraps of various colours, the Treasure gold brings them all together into one piece.

I use Krafty Lady moulds, Enchanted Gallery moulds, and some I've made myself using 2 part silicone mould compound, which you can buy very reasonably at Polymer Clay Expess. I am looking at experimenting with different methods of working with Friendly Plastic, and trying to create some lovely things without ending up with a sticky grey mess (which is what many of my efforts were like before I discovered using it in moulds!).

Metal tape ATCs

I made these metal tape ATCs for a swap. I scanned them and took a photograph and neither came out very clearly! The backgrounds were several layers of metal tape, applied to cardstock, then the whole was run through the Wizard in a cuttlebug folder. I ran round the edges with a herringbone Ten Seconds Studio roller tool.


They looked rather too bright and silvery, and rather than use alcohol inks to colour them as I have in the past, I had a 'grunge' moment and decided to use patina solutions. I painted 2 of the bases with blackened bronze base solution and the other with blonde bronze. While they were still damp, I added the top coat of green patina solution, and... not much happened!

I did get an aged metal look, but nothing remotely like bronze, which is what I'd been hoping for. In the past, I've had lovely distressed metal effects, but in the past I have been applying the solutions to cardstock. I don't know whether my solutions have gotten too old and are not working, or whether they just don't like the metal tape!


Anyway, I sanded over the backgrounds to bring the raised areas out in shiny metal, then added the embellishments. The embellishments are made by heating fun foam until it begins to curl and is slightly shiny, and stamping into it. Hold the stamp down firmly until the foam has cooled, and cut round the image. I coloured these pieces with Treasure Gold waxes in pewter (the outside ATCs) and with a combination of Onyxite and Indigo (the cente ATC), and added keys, hearts and Dymo lettering.

No paper no card ATCs

A challenging swap - make a set of 3 ATCs without using paper or card. I did consider fabric, but working with fabric never goes smoothly for me (not even if I iron it!!!), so I went for plastic. The bases of these ATCs are thin translucent frosted plastic.


I daubed some micaceous iron oxide onto the plastic, then put 2 ATCs together, squidged the paint around and pulled them apart, to create a textured, organic look. I painted the backs with gesso so that you could see the textured iron oxide more clearly, then coated the front with some transparent fluid acrylic paint.

I added small gold mica flakes in a random stripe down one side, and a couple of spots on the other side. The images are made by inking up stamps with Stazon ink, laying 2 layers of fantasy film on top, covering with baking paper (to protect the iron) and ironing for a moment or two on a medium to high heat. Trim, and adhere. The 'frames' are cream dimensional paint, highlighted with Treasure Gold once dry.