Beads, beads, beads

During Beverly Gilbert's 'Wander with Colour' class, I almost finished one necklace in freeform netting, but I also wanted to learn how to do freeform peyote, so I began a freeform peyote necklace too. The first necklace wanders from turquoise through teal and green to chocolate brown, but I chose autumnal colours to wander through for this one.


I have been beading for days, and have finally finished it (I think! My beading needle broke and I took that as a sign!). I reckon it's been about 25 hours of beading, and I will not be giving it away or selling it - this is a heirloom piece as far as I am concerned! You can see more detail in this picture.


I would never have picked up a beading needle if I hadn't seen Beverly's wonderful work, and been inspired to take her classes, so - THANKS Beverly (I think!).

Cory Celaya

I took a fabulous class with Cory Celaya in Arizona today.

We began by making collage papers:


Next, we painted a canvas:

Then we collaged our handmade and other papers onto our painted canvas, and painted over the collaged papers. We stamped and doodled a bit. This is how mine turned out:


I really like it. I'm not sure yet whether it will become a handbag, a wall hanging, a book cover, or something else entirely!

Wandering with Colour

Wander with colour is a two to three day beading class with Beverly Gilbert. The first half day explores colour theory, and includes collage exercises which reinforce the colour theory, but which also give participants a couple of colour schemes for future use with beads, or even interior design! Beverly then explains how she creates her wonderful bead soups, and evrybody begins to think about the colour scheme for their pieces, and blend beads to make new bead soups which work as transitions between the bead soups in the colours chosen for the piece. That's probably as clear as mud, hopefully the photo below makes it clearer. I worked with the 5 main colours in the photo, but made blends so that the transitions between colours were not abrupt.


Next, I began beading, making a freeform netting, moving through the colours as I went.


After about 4 rows, I began to incorporate bigger beads.


I then began to strengthen, stiffen, and cross over, to bring the piece togeehr and also bulk out some areas.


This is the piece at the end of the two days. It is almost finished, but needs a little work here and there, and will need a clasp. I will finish this when I get home to Wales at the end of the month.

Beverly really is a wonderful teacher. This is the first wholly beaded piece I have ever made, and I love it already!

More beads on metal

I am halfway through making a pendant and earrings to match the bracelet I made. I probably won't be able to finish these for a few weeks, but will try to remember to post a picture of the whole set when they are done.

Beverly Gilbert is such a good teacher, and a wonderful hostess. I have had a great few days learning more about beading and metalwork. I highly recommend taking a class with her if you are able to!!!

Beads on Metal bracelet

I took a class with Beverly Gilbert yesterday. If you ever get the chance to do this - grab it with both hands! Beverly is a fantastic teacher, has a wonderful eye for colour, and makes gorgeous samples. We were very lucky to take the class at Beverly's home, and were also provided with a wonderful lunch, plus teas, coffees, seriously good chocolate, salted almonds and olives a part of the day.

I decided to make a bracelet. This meant cutting ten pieces of copper, filing the edges of each, hammering the edges of each, and hammering five of them to give surface texture. Below you can see one of Beverly's finished bracelets, with the beginnings of my bracelet.


The next step was to create 'anchors' for the beadwork, by punching holes in the smaller 'front' metal pieces, and threading wire through the holes. I stamped words onto the back pieces, using metal punches.

Finally, I created some rivets from copper wire, and joined the pieces together, then 'antiqued' them by bathing them in liver of sulphur. Once the metal was dry, I beaded on top, you can see several stages below.


Once all the beading was done, I joined the links together with hand made jump rings, and made a clasp and link.


A closer view on my wrist:


And then I turned the bracelet over. Spot the deliberate mistake!!!


I will be taking the links apart and turning some around sometime soon!

Friendly plastic play

Carol and I have been playing with Friendly Plastic today. One thing we did was make some decorated Friendly Plastic strips.

Take a pale coloured strip of FP - white, mother of pearl, pale gold. Drip alcohol inks onto it - the brights work well. Move the inks around with some kind of tool - I used the end of a fine straw. I dripped more ink on and blew some of it around.



The colours I used were POOL, CLOVER, and PURPLE TWILIGHT. The finished strip looks pretty just covered in the inks.


If you want to go a step further, take a Sakura Souffle pen, and doodle all over the inked strip.
You can now use the decorated strip in your projects.


We also made some beads out of scrap FP - some of the pieces we had managed to turn into grey mush during earlier failed experiments! Drop the bits into the warm water (60-70 degrees C or 140-160 degrees F) for a few moments until they soften. Lift out, and roll together between the palms of your hands. Voila, a very quick and easy bead.


Drop the bead into the cold water bath, and after 30 seconds or so, pierce it with a needle tool to make the hole through the middle (you can also drill the beads once they are fully cold if you prefer).


Give the bead a quick blast of a heat gun, just until the surface turns shiny, then roll it in a box of foil flakes.


Lift the bead out of the flakes, leave for a while, then gently rub the loose flakes off. Enjoy using your glitzy metallic bead. You could seal it if you like.


You can use the same decorative technique, but rolling the bead in PearlEx instead of foil flakes - gives a completely different but equally yummy effect!

Etching metal

I've been etching some metal blanks. I learned to do this in a class I took with Jane Wynn in the US in October 2007, and it is really easy to do, but I didn't find the supplies here in the UK until recently. All you need is metal blanks or charms - brass or copper, some PCB (printed circuit board) etching solution, also known as ferric chloride solution, some Stazon ink, a rubber stamp, a heat gun, some Bicarbonate of Soda/Baking Soda and a small shallow flat bottomed glass or plastic dish. Oh, and tweezers and a bowl of water. And maybe some patina solution, or acrylic paint in a darkish turquoise.

I bought some metal blanks from Fred Aldous, but Beaducation sell them in the US. I prefer the look of etched brass, but could only find copper blanks here in the UK. There are bound to be other places that sell these in both countries, but those are the places I found. You could of course cut your own shapes from sheet metal, you need 18 gauge if possible.

Once you have your metal blanks or shapes, stamp your design on them with Stazon, and heat set. You can stamp on one side, or both. If you only stamp on one side, coat the other side with Stazon, or some sticky tape. This is what my metal blanks looked like after stamping:



Pour about 1/4 inch of the PCB etching solution into your dish, and drop the metal in. Swish it around a little, then leave it in there for ages, checking every couple of hours. It could take anywhere between 2 and 8 hours for you to get the depth of etching you want. I usually find 4 hours is enough. Agitation helps, so give it a swish around every time you pass by. The Stazon acts as a resist, the etching fluid only attacke the areas which aren't stamped. This is what my metal blanks looked like after 4 hours:



When you think they are done, use the tweezers to remove the metal from the etching solution. Dry them on some kitchen towel, then drop in water. Make sure you rinse thoroughly, also rinse your tweezers. Dump a couple of teaspoons of baking soda into the etching solution in your container. It will bubble up and froth, but this neutralises the etching solution to a great extent. Wait till it's done, then scrape the mess onto an old newspaper, wrap and put in the bin. Don't dump it down a drain, it's poisinous. It's worth checking if your local council has specialist disposal solutions for ferric chloride.

Rinse your container out with plenty of water. Now, you can coat your etched metal in patina solution, and leave it to patinate and dry overnight, or if you are impatient, like me, you can give them a thin coat of deep turquoise acrylic paint, wait for it to dry, and then use a sanding block to remove the Stazon, showing the shiny metal. The acrylic paint will have coloured the etched metal, looking like patina. See below, don't forget that you can click on the images to enlarge them.


It took all day to make these, but the actual time you spend actually doing anything is about 5 minutes!

Here's another picture which shows some of the stages -
the charm on the left is etched and sanded but not patinated. The second from left is etched and patinated with Modern Options patina solution, then sanded. The third from the left shows what happens if you stamp and etch both sides of the metal and leave it in the etching solution too long! The one at the right is just as it came out of the etching solution - I haven't coloured the etched metal or sanded the Stazon off yet.

Lutradur book

I decided to use lutradur to create a quick folded book.I also had an uncharacteristic romantic moment!

I painted some lutradur with crimson fluid acrylic paint. Once dry, I stamped all over it with white gesso, and left that to dry. I then gave a coat of nickel azo yellow fluid acrylic to tone it down a little and blend the stamped gesso into the background. I folded the lutradur in half lengthways, then in half, then folded the halves back on themselves. I slit the lutradur down the between the middle two sets of 'pages'. That's probably as clear as mud but you can work it out from the picture below!


I painted some Crafty Individuals images with matte gel medium to dull down the shine and give a kind of 'canvas' effect, then glued them onto the lutradur with more gel medium. I took some more lutradur, printed it with the same colours, then laid it onto a ceramic tile and used a versamark tool with soldering tip to 'cut' it into strips with wiggly edges. I sewed these strips around the pictures to make 'frames'. After gluing a few heart shaped sequins on, and punching two holes and threading fibres through to hold the book together, I just glued the pages together for a bit of strength. Voila, a quick folded book!





For the cover, I made a cupid using air dry clay and a mould. I painted it with white gesso, then the same crimson paint I'd used on the lutradur. Once dry, I rubbed it all over with Treasure Gold in 'ruby' and just touched the high points with Treasure Gold in 'whitefire'.


I hope Claudia likes it!

I am playing with Lutradur

No pictures yet, but I can tell you that colouring Lutradur with watered down Golden fluid acrylics works very well. Adding a second colour after the first has dried adds depth.

Stamping with gesso after colouring looks lovely. I'll post pics and a 'how to' for my project when it's finished!

Bookmark

I am in a bookmark swap and have been pondering about how to make the bookmark - too many choices - paper, fabric, pelmet vilene, grungepaper, fabric paper....

Eventually I decided to try making some fabric paper using Pattie's method. Pattie starts with a layer of organza fabric, which will become the top layer once the fabric paper's made. I then used pva glue and water (50/50) to stick my scraps of printed tissue down, with the images facing downwards, then layered crumpled tissue paper all over the top, added more glue, then painted with watered down Lumieres and Golden fluid acrylic paints. The finished paper was much thinner and more delicate than the fabric paper I've made before, and the organza layer makes it a little shimmery. On the whole, I prefer the fabric paper I usually make, but there are occasions when this will be more suitable for projects, so I'm glad I tried it out.


You can enlarge the image by clicking on it.

I layered two pieces of fabric paper with felt, and machine stitched the edges. I added Stewart Gill paint to a wooden paisley fabric stamp using a colorbox sponge tool, then printed the fabric on both sides. The pale gold colour makes it look very luxurious. I machine stitched some sari ribbon down the middle of the front, and hand sewed two Prima flowers on, using sequins and seed beads to hold them in place. Finally, I hand sewed some sheer gold striped ribbon down the back to cover the stitching from sewing the ribbon down the front!

I hope my swap partner likes it.

Friendly Plastic wall art

I signed up for a Friendly Plastic swap on CCSwaps. I decided to create a piece of wall art, so began with a 6 inch square stretched canvas. I drew some curvy lines in pencil, and painted dots of Xpandaprint between the lines (see left of pic below) then heated it with my heat gun to make it bubble up. I painted fine garnet gel around the Xpandaprint, and between the lines (see right of picture below).


Next, I painted the areas between the fine garnet gel and the canvas edges with coarse garnet gel.


I used a palette knife to add some gold mica flakes to the inner edges of the curvy lines.


When the garnet gels and mica flakes had dried, I filled the space between with clear granular gel (below).


I add some clear tar gel to the edges of some areas, then painted the fine garnet gel with Golden iridescent bronze fluid acrylic, and the coarse garnet gel with Golden fine iridescent gold. These colours will not show in the final piece, but they will add a sort of glow to the final colour.


Once the clear granular gel was dry, I added more dribbles of clear tar gel, and when that dried, I painted the whole piece with watered down Golden raw umber fluid acrylic paint. I then took some of the paint off with a damp paintbrush.


Once the canvas was dry, I added some aqua Treasure Gold to the clear tar gel and the central texture panel. It is a little brighter than the picture below shows, there is more contrast between the aqua and the background colour.


Finally, I dusted a Krafty Lady lizard mould with PearlEx, and made a lizards by melting gold coloured Friendly Plastic pieces into the mould. I pressed the melted plastic into the mould firmly with wet fingers (don't try it with dry fingers, it will stick to you and burn!) and kept wetting my fingers and pressing the plastic into the mould until I was happy that all the detail would be visible on the moulded piece. I dropped the mould and Friendly Plastic into the water, left it for a few moments, then unmoulded it under the water. I made a second lizard and toned the colour of the lizards down a little with aqua Treasure Gold.

Finally, I adhered the lizards to the canvas with gel medium. I hope Trish likes it!

Beryl Taylor style wedding album

The young man who helps me at work is getting married. He and his wife-to-be have been planning the wedding for a long time and I know they both want it to be a really special day. I really appreciate all David's help, but I probably don't show or tell him that enough, so thought I'd make them an album as a wedding gift. They can choose whether to send the album around for their guests to write in during the wedding reception, or whether to use it as a photograph album.

I made the covers from mount board covered in felt, and fabric paper. The mount board is in one piece for the back cover, but the front cover consists of one piece about an inch wide and another which is the rest of the cover. Once covered with fabric, the joint between these two pieces will allow the front cover to be opened easily.

The fabric paper is simple to make - take a piece of woven cotton fabric, and glue pieces of printed tissue paper and thin gift wrap onto it, using watered down PVA glue (about half water, half glue). Leave small gaps between the papers so that the fabric isn't too stiff when it dries. Although I usually use random pieces of gift wrap and printed tissue, I chose both the colours and the images of the gift wrap quite carefully for this project - they are all birds, cupids, medieval patterns, romantic quotes, or abstract gold and white patterns. This way, whatever shows through after decorating the covers, will be appropriately romantic.

Next, cover the printed papers with strips of plain cheap white tissue, using the same glue mixture. It doesn't matter if they overlap, or crinkle, this will add to the overall texture. Before this layer dries, paint the whole piece with a wash of very diluted acrylic paint. I like to use Golden fluid acrylics, as they are so heavily pigmented that there is still quite a depth of colour even when diluted. I used a turquoise and a violet on the fabric paper. Leave paper to dry - I hung mine on a washing line and left it overnight.

I cut the covers to size, allowing an inch all around for finishing. I decided it needed a touch of glimmer, so gave it a wash of watered down Jaquard Lumiere paint in purple gold. Once dry, I used the sewing machine to add gold organza ribbon, and patterned satin ribbon which I had dyed lilac. I added some frilly turquoise ribbon down the side where the album hinges. I then sewed and glued the remaining elements onto the cover by hand. Each square sequin has a bead and 4 stitches holding it in place, the satin ribbon is decorated with seed beads, there are bugle beads forming vertical interest, a polymer clay key, a heart plaque made using water soluble paper to cast a stamp, punched paper hearts, stamped and embellished with small flowers, fabric flowers attached with gold brads, and the names of the happy couple stamped above and below the heart plaque. The areas where there is no added embellishment are where I have allowed background elements to be seen - there are two quotes - Love conquers all and My heart for ever more, and the birds on the nest in the centre.


The back cover is much plainer, I just added gold organza ribbon around the edge.


There are 15 pages inside the album. My scanner isn't showing the detail too well, but both sides of each page was washed with delicate pink and blue watercolour dyes, and the right hand edge was stamped with Colorbox lavender pigment ink. Finally, each page has part of a text called 'The Art of Marriage' stamped onto it.



The whole text reads:

The Art of Marriage

A good marriage must be created
In the marriage, the little things are the big things.
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
it is standing together and facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It i speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is a common search for good and the beautiful.
It is not only marrying the right person, it is being the right partner.

I wish David & Laura a long and happy marriage.

Woo Hoo

I entered the After Midnight art clock challenge and came second! Doing the happy dance....

Beryl Taylor inspired art

I made this piece for a swap Sweetpea is running on CC Swaps. The swap requirement was that whatever we made had to be inspired by or in the style of Beryl Taylor. I love Beryl's work and have made several paper quilts in the style of her work. I decided to be a bit more ambitious and adventurous this time, and go for a fabric paper and embroidery project.

Fabric paper is a fabulous base for mixed media - and very simple to make (although it does take a long time to dry). You just take a piece of fabric - gauze or fine cotton - and paint it with watered down PVA white glue (the cheaper the better). Lay some scraps of tissue paper or thin gift wrap down onto the fabric and paint with more glue. Leave gaps between the scraps. Add torn strips of white tissue paper along with more glue, to cover the whole thing. While the glue is still wet, add a wash of watered down fluid acrylic paints in 2 or 3 colours. Leave to dry overnight.

I glued my fabric paper to a layer of felt, then cut nine 2 inch squares from the sheet. I machine stitched around the edges of each square, using gold thread. I stamped some medieval text onto the squares using Stewart Gill Metallica bright gold paint applied to the stamp with a colorbox sponge tool. I edged the squares with more paint. I took a square of mount board and covered it with velvet, then mounted my squares onto it with gel medium.



Having created a background, I needed to add the decorative focal point to the piece. I wanted this to stand out from the background, so applied a thin layer of white gesso over my fabric paper. I hand drew a design copied from a medieval tile from Strata Florida Abbey, the resting place of several Welsh Princes, and cut it out from the fabric paper. I layered it onto some deep blue-green fine netting, machine embroidered the centre, and the outer ring, then hand embroidered the cut out using gold thread, and added some beading. The photo below shows the piece with the gold thread work almost complete but not yet beaded.


I cut small diamonds from fabric paper and painted them with a coat of transparent iron oxide, then added them to the circle around the design, with a bead in the centre of each. Finally, I mounted the circular piece onto the squares background. The background squares are much more vivid than the picture shows, and I'm really pleased with the finished piece.


I hope Sweetpea likes it too!

Canvases

I've been playing with texture on canvas. I've learnt that working on two at a time is a good thing - while you are working on one, the other is drying and vice versa.

I added texture using a range of Golden products - coarse & fine garnet gel, light moulding paste, clear granular gel, pumice gel, fibre gel medium and clear tar gel dribbled on last - that's what makes the raised 'veins' you can see on both canvases. I am learning that as well as adding texture, each of these products takes the paint slightly differently, adding to the textured effects.


Once the canvases have all the textures added, and all the products have dried (several hours, leaving them overnight is easiest for impatient artists!), I added 2 thin coats of raw umber fluid acrylic paint. For the canvas above, I then added interference oxide violet and interference oxide green fluid acrylics. For the one below, I just dabbed a little bronze here and there. The final touch for the backgrounds was to add a little Treasure Gold to the high points - I used Amethyst on the canvas above, and Onyxite and Classic Gold on the one below.


The images on these canvases are made of Friendly Plastic - the top one was made using scraps in a mould I made from a milagro ornament, then given a rub of Treasure Gold Amethyst and highlighted with Classic Gold. The bottom canvas has a 'shrine' made from Perfect Paper and a rubber stamp, coloured in the same way as the background, with an art nouveau head made in a mould, coloured the same way as the background.