Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Box me up

I want to talk about cardboard for a minute. Here is another chance to pretend I am more of a recycler than I am. As I have said before I do recycle the usual stuff – plastics, cans, bottles, cardboard, paper. However, I would pay for cardboard if I had to – it’s a miracle that you can get it for free just about any place! Altering cardboard gives amazing effects – my favorite of which is something I’ll call the grunge wall effect for lack of a better term.

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This is where you paint the cardboard and then strip and tear off random swatches of the cardboard’s “cover” paper - thereby exposing some of the ridges beneath. You can then either paint the ridges a different color or decoupage them with printed tissue, or spray them with ink – there are tons of things you can do with a piece like this. It always reminds me of an old broken down bit of wall that has had layers of billboards come off over the years – or that has had plaster over brick over those wooden slats and is all falling apart at different speeds of time.

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In addition to making a fine altered surface, cardboard also provides a sturdy substrate for all kinds of things that need it, like beeswax collages for example – or works made in tissue paper.

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On my way to the recycling bins over by my library, I might have to stop by the store for some more white acrylic and........well whatever is on sale of course.

For the love of newspaper

I would like to say that the reason my studio is full of newspapers is because I am a recycler – an upcycler – and that this is why so many projects I do have altered newspaper in them. I do try – and I do recycle the usual suspects – but I am afraid I would buy newspaper (and pay dearly for) if it were not free from a recycling bin. I am not using old newspapers to save the planet. While I am happy to help – the fact is that newspaper is one of the most versatile and amazing substrates that any paper artist could ever alter. First – there is the scale of it!
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Newspaper pages are larger than other papers we can typically get our hands on – large enough to wrap things in! Large enough to make whole booklets from a single sheet – large enough to braid or weave – large enough to cover whole canvases – it’s luscious!
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Next – the way it takes gesso and ink is not to be believed! Color saturation is like no other paper. If you have not seen the gesso/ink technique – please see my you tube – you’ll be up all night. And paint! It LOVES paint – watered down, inked up, as a glaze – you name it. Then there is the thinness! You can collage layers and layers of it without creating too much height! It collages into beeswax like a dream – lies flat and becomes translucent.
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I could go on and on but I will end with the fact that it comes “pre-prepared” with words all over it so that whatever you put on next already has delicious depth behind it. I have altered sheets and strips of it hung from clothespins on hangers and bound by large binder clips all about the place – stunning. When I begin a project, I go to the nearest wall and pick some – like succulent fruit from a tree.......and away I go.clip_image008

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Chinese Calligraphy Brush for Good Whacking

Today it was time to clean up the studio because I have a class coming in tomorrow. I love having classes here – I love to share my space and my students can check put products they have seen but never used before. I hate having classes here.......cause I have to clean up. When you are in your studio – and you are spending time cleaning instead of working on things, sometimes it’s just frustrating. It seems like the minute I start cleaning, I always know exactly what to do with the bits and pieces that are laying all over the place as I am putting them away – except that I don’t have the time to do any of it cause I have to clean! Anyway....I am throwing things into boxes and bins – getting ready to teach the gessoed newspaper class. I am moving around way too quickly considering the amount of stuff that is precariously piled up on top of more stuff all over around here – and sure enough – BAM - ....down comes a big can of soaking bamboo Chinese calligraphy brushes right on top of some of the newspaper sheets I had made as samples for the class (which were drying out by laying on the floor).

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I just stood there and stared down at the papers while time stood still for a moment – I was just kind of dazed..... then......I noticed the pattern..... It was kind of a spray of the perfectly sized droplets. I had tried before to apply paint splotches by bending back and releasing painted bristles on a toothbrush – but the droplets were too small for the scale of the newspaper. I had tried whacking paint brushes of all sizes but the droplets were more like splotches...they were either too big or too watery. The droplets I was looking at were perfect! I grabbed one of the Chinese brushes and my sunset gold Lumiere paint.

clip_image004I mixed ½ paint with ½ water into a small dish – and then using the calligraphy brush - I flung and whacked beautiful perfectly round and perfectly sized random golden nuggets over my newspaper samples. It was so beautiful I decided to get a handful of background cards I had made the other day – and I whacked those as well.

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Everything looked like it had just a breath of gold on it – in some places jeweled and in other spots just barely a hue..........including the black pants I was wearing.....and as it turns out, my tennis shoes. Oh well.....who can’t use more “art” clothes? I am sure these are appropriate attire for my trip to the store – which I have to go to right now......to get more Lumiere....

Monday, December 12, 2011

Painting and Flattening Texture Fades

Today I found out the coolest thing! OK....you know how you can paint over the texture fades (or as some know them....embossing plastic folder thingys) to create a grunge or shabby chic look? Well if you don’t know the painting trick you can go watch my you tube on it – it’s a guaranteed way to turn any crazy background you made that you don’t like, into something spectacular! clip_image002
Anyway – there is a certain look you get with that technique; it doesn’t look like stamping. I bring that up because there are texture fades that are exact replicas of stamps (for example Tim Holtz – from back when he was with Stamper’s Anonymous – V4-1096 stamp otherwise known as “Carte Postale,” and the texture fade that is the same image and size from the Sizzix Alterations collection).
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Since one habit is to “emboss” with the folder and then run an ink pad over the raised areas to bring out the image – one might argue – if you are going to do that why not just use the stamp of the image to begin with? Well with the paint technique it is an entirely different look – a look you can’t get with a stamp and ink. However, if you want to then use it in a collage – you kind of have to accept and enjoy the fact that it is extremely textured with bits and pieces raised up everywhere.....until now! I figured out today that you can texture fade (dry emboss) and then do whatever you want to it using the raised areas to grab paint a certain way or ink a certain way etc. Then you can run it back through the embossing machine (I have the big shot) with both plates and a paper shim and take away all the embossing – it will be flat again! This is too cool! I have so many backgrounds I have made that I could not use for certain things because they did not lie flat – now they do! The best example of why you would want it to lie flat again is in the case where you want to decoupage (collage) an image to it – you can’t do that when there are raised areas. I’m gonna have to go buy the rest of the texture fades collection – I just saw that there is a new one out by Tim Holtz....

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Future Floor Finish Magic

Today found out how to save a good piece of work that I thought I had destroyed. I had over worked a piece of card stock that I had collaged – I mean I sanded it, tore it, scraped at it, wet it, sprayed it – I basically beat it to death. I don’t know what the heck I was trying to do – age it more I guess or something. What to do – what to do...?. Then I spotted the Future Floor Finish I had been working with just the other night.....hmmmm.......I was day dreaming about the commercial I used to see as a kid – the one where you are in a kitchen and the floor looks like it is under scratched up Plexiglas, scratched up so bad you can’t see through it. Then a very well groomed woman in a 1950’s party dress comes out with a mop and the Future – where ever the mop swipes the floor with the Future – voila! – shiny cleaness.
I snapped out of it and grabbed the bottle and squirted some onto my work table – I dipped my finger in and began to rub the future over my scraped up, scratched up and ruined collage. clip_image002
    HOLY COW! It came back to life!! I couldn’t believe it!! Then – I went crazy – I started beating the crap out of a bunch of things and experimenting with what the Future Floor Finish could do. The BEST thing I figured out was that you can squirt out about a quarter sized amount of FFF and then put a drop of ink into it! That creates a glass-like but completely transparent colored finish over your work! clip_image004clip_image006
Yellow ink really wakes things up – green, blue, pink – what fun!! I need to go get another bottle of Future.....before they stop making it.


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Monday, December 13, 2010

stationary box for those who asked

Here are the links to parts 1 & 2 for the staionary box for those who watched painted paper magic and wat to do the box project :-) Part 1 can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMaAvARpTs and part 2 can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xxrYttgDo&feature=related ENJOY!