Finishing Tins with Mini Scrolls

I am finally finishing up a project started a couple of months ago. One item has been done since then, but the other one gave me materials issues. These are a present for a family friend who got married earlier in the year--one for her & her husband, and a companion piece for her parents.

The bride's wedding was very elegant--colors were silver, pearl, cream--no actual color. So I did her tin with glass spheres and silver mini marbles, and the scrolls were edged with silver leafing. For her parents' piece, I wanted something with bold colors, so I thought I'd use Lava Red Roxs, iridescent glass spheres, and gold mini marbles. To my great dismay, the Lava Red Roxs were not colorfast! When I coated the whole thing in Glossy Accents to seal the mini marbles on and provide a finished look, the red ran and tinted everything a shade of orange that I did not find particularly appealing. The folks at Judikins, which makes the Roxs, were very helpful, but basically I was out of luck if I wanted to use red or pink Roxs (all other colors are apparently colorfast). So it was back to the drawing board, but I was at a loss for what to use. Then the holiday card orders went into full swing and the month of October went by just like that.

The good thing about the delay, however, is that I discovered two gels from Golden that I hadn't used before. One was the Clear Granular Gel, and the other the Extra Coarse Pumice Gel. Neat stuff! In the end, this is what I ended up doing:

--coated lid with Perfect Medium and applied a couple of layers of Frozen Opals, then filled in spaces with Kaleidoscope embossing powder; when cool, I poured a thick layer of Diamond Glaze over the entire (top of the) lid

--made a mix of Extra Coarse Pumice Gel, 22 drops Quinacridone Red Fluid Acrylic and 3 drops Quinacridone Crimson Fluid Acrylic, then applied this to the sides of the bottom and the lid

--when dry, I applied some Interference Gold (Coarse) Heavy Body Acrylic over it, leaving plenty of the underneath to show through

--I realized it was too pinkish for my taste, so I applied some Cadmium Red Medium Hue Fluid Acrylic, then another layer of the Interference Gold

--I think after that I mixed up some Interference Red Fluid Acrylic with the Cadmium Red and applied that in patches over the whole thing, sprinkling with gold mini marbles as I went

--finally I was happy with that and let it dry over night. Then I applied Diamond Glaze over the sides and stuck some iridescent glass spheres on as I went. I also used Glossy Accents (a little less runny than DG) around the edge of the lid to place the glass spheres around it.

The scrolls inside are edged with gold leafing. I think I'm almost done! Now just have to wait for it to dry so I can mail it off.

Making backgrounds for a snowflake Xmas card

I didn't have the same cards that I did last year to produce a snowflake Christmas card this year, so I tried using the Creative Cards by Swarthmore that I'd picked up at Jerry's Artarama. I couldn't reproduce what I had done on the smoother cards, of course, and the ink didn't look the same either. So I ended up doing lots of paint with Cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue Deep, and Titanium White. One I used bubble wrap on, but most of them I just painted.

When dry, they still seemed too dark, too bold, so I added yet another a layer, this one composed of 10 parts Titanium White, 3 parts Cobalt Blue, and 1 part Cerulean Blue Deep. I brushed some on with a paintbrush then quickly took a wipe (the Inkadinkado Crafters Cleanups) and smeared it all over the card, then waited a moment and wiped again to remove some of it. I think I finally ended up with some good backgrounds. Got messy though!

Notes on Pumice & Clear Granular Gels

Just taking notes in preparation for my "Bathtime" piece as well as documenting in general. Not a terribly interesting post for anyone but me, I'm afraid . . . all products used are Golden unless otherwise specified.

Yesterday I mixed Clear Granular Gel (CGG) with heavy body Mars Black + Dioxazine Purple and painted over 1/3 of a gold gessoed mini canvas. I then mixed the Mars Black with Anthraquinone Blue and did the next third. The last bit I painted with untinted gel. Might as well not have used the purple or blue--I couldn't see any evidence of it, so use less next time (or don't bother and put it on top).

Today I painted over the untinted clear gel with fluid Carbon Black. Laying down the untinted CGG and then painting on top of it once dry is good if one wants what is underneath to peek through in places. If full coverage is desired, it's best to mix the paint in with the gel before applying. And remember that although it's named *clear* granular gel, the parts where the granules are does dry snowy white, just as Patti Brady says in her book Rethinking Acrylics.

Over the top of the two-thirds of the canvas that had been painted with tinted CGG, I first brushed fluid Interference Violet, then Interference Blue (Liquitex--Jerry's was out of the Golden). After letting that dry a few minutes, I brushed over all of it with the fluid Carbon Black that was now on the paintbrush I was using. This toned the interference back down and brought the black back up. I think this is going to work for my piece. The purple is quite purple, though; the blue is more subtle.

I also mixed some Extra Coarse Pumice Gel (ECPG) with Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) and applied to a couple of mini canvases, one that had white gesso and one that had a wash of fluid Transparent Yellow Oxide on it. It looks so cool! Putting Interference Violet over this looks pretty neat. I'm not sure about the Interference Blue, but I may not have shaken it enough before applying--it looks milky white, and I don't think it's supposed to be that way.

Getting Personal & Playing

Last night around midnight I gave in to the pull I'd felt towards drawing all evening (too tired to act on it before), and I finally just sat with my journal and a Koh-i-noor Magic pencil and played. I colored on things that were already in there, and I also did some of the doodling I used to do as a child over a whole page. On yet another page I made marks on it guided by what the song I was listening to at the time was doing ("My Father's Face", by Leo Kottke). I had a great time!

One thing I found had a very interesting effect indeed was using the multicolored pencil over a stamped image (one of Stamp Zia's nudes) that had been partially painted with Micaceous Iron Oxide (Golden fluid acrylics). Great texture and look, and I discovered that when I rubbed my finger over it all, I created a glow around the figure from the pencil particles that had been deposited on the iron oxide.

Also got a very nice look rubbing the pencil over the onionskin paper. The raised veins picked up the color, and it's a more subtle effect than using ink.

Book Idea for a Christmas Present; Personal Challenge

Recently I found Book + Art: Handcrafting Artists' Books, by Dorothy Simpson Krause, on the shelf at Borders and had to get it. It is beautiful, lovely, and filled with inspiration. I read it at a time that I was wondering exactly what I thought I was doing, and this helped everything to coalesce in my mind. I love books, I have always loved books, and nearly everything I have learned over the last three years is all useful in creating books. I am still going to do other things, because I don't think I'm made such that I could do only one thing, but I can embrace the idea of being a book artist.

I really liked Stepan's blog posts about their trip to the Czech Republic this summer, and along with his pictures I think they would make a beautiful book--and a great Xmas present. Been thinking about how to do it. Would love the images and words to overlap. Wouldn't it be neat to do it on glass pages, and use the nifty Keith Smith Coptic sewing to attach? I think that's beyond my abilities to execute for this Xmas though, with everything else I have to do. Maybe I could print the pictures onto canvas, or do image transfers onto Claudine's sticky back canvas (reverse before printing), and then have the text on paper? Could I use plexiglass pages instead of glass? More durable is better. Then I could put images and text on and have it all look like it's floating. Would it be too hard to read, and would that matter? Or could put the text on a translucent paper, like onionskin or vellum, and have the images printed on transparencies. Ooh, that sounds like it has possibilities. Will keep ruminating on the matter.

One of my biggest challenges is to take my art to a personal level. I still have a very large barrier between me and what I make, and I think if I can surmount that, what I make will have more power. That is going to require me to slow down my thinking a bit and also focus it more. There are just so many things I want to try! And the quote by Lily Tomlin quote about her teenage diaries that I read on Dorinda Fox's blog recently does express one of my biggest fears, I'm sorry to admit. ("What if it's boring . . . or if it's not boring, it might be too revealing, or worse, it might be too revealing and still be boring.")

What do you make for someone who is grieving?

The father of a good friend recently died, on the day she was to leave and fly back home (an overseas trip). This was not unexpected, yet I had not prepared anything to give my friend that in any way acknowledged her loss. Objectively speaking, that seemed rather foolish, yet another friend reassured me that it wasn't. I guess neither of us would do well in the print media world where obituaries of famous people are on file and updated continually. Just in case.

Anyway. I bought a card at a bookstore for my friend, wondering if she would be offended or feel let down that I didn't take the time to make something personally. Two chances came and went to give her the card; I signed & addressed it before leaving to go to her house, then left it on the kitchen counter. A day or two later, I neglected to take it with me to a place where I knew I'd see her (although I did know we would not be able to speak privately). Perhaps I was purposely forgetting on some level.

So today, while walking around or driving or something, I was struck with the idea of using something I had done months ago--had stamped a sunset image on thin paper and colored it with pencils blended with mineral spirits. Didn't know what to do with it so just kept it in my box. I thought I could use that as the image on my card and combine it with something I'd read on a card in the bookstore that moved me deeply: "The world is but a resting place." (Apparently a Japanese Buddhist proverb.)

I got out my box of scrap papers and nearly immediately just went into a very focused state of being. Unusually for me, I was quite decisive, didn't need to seek anyone else's opinion or let anything sit for a few days to make sure I was happy. And I am pleased with the final result, and I hope it will contribute to some sense of peace in my friend's heart.

Details: I wrote the proverb on matte black paper with an Inkssentials opaque white pen--beautiful pen, very white. The image had been stamped with permanent ink on a thin drawing paper, colored with Derwent Inktense pencils, and blended with Gamblin mineral spirits. The image and proverb were mounted onto black sparkly paper using a Xyron. I had a piece of watercolor paper that I had sprayed with Stamp Zia spray watercolors; I cut the appropriate size and mounted it to black illustration board using 3M Super 77 multipurpose adhesive (at 5-1/2" wide, it wouldn't fit in my largest Xyron--will have to consider getting the 9" one on sale sometime). Then I ran a piece of white posterboard through the Xyron and mounted it on top of the watercolor paper, and finally I ran the black sparkle paper through the Xyron and stuck it over all. The image looked a little raw, so I used a 6B charcoal pencil and a tortillon around the edge of the paper to blend it into the black paper.

A Most Productive Evening

My son and I lazed around all day, and then my daughter when she came home from school, but it paid off this evening once they were in bed. I had a few things that had arrived this week that needed putting away (Santa Claus stamp, stuff from Alpha Stamps, papers from Finchley Paper Arts, etc.), so I sat down to take care of that. I stamped in my Moleskin journal with the new stamps I'd gotten to see what they looked like and also tried one of them on red Mylar tissue with StazOn ink (looked good).

The thing I am most pleased with is that I FINALLY finished covering a Moleskin journal that I started last year sometime. I figured out that if I were careful, i could attach these exceedingly delicate laser-cut tissue peacocks (gotten at a craft store in Wickford, Essex) to something with gel medium. I did that but then didn't know where to go from there.

I tried filling in the blank area with Oriental character stamps, which was okay (but not great) until I did it with Perfect Pearls--then it was too bright and I couldn't figure out how to tone it down. I'd already decided to cover over the whole thing with magenta gauzy paper, but the PP were just too bright.

Tonight I had the brilliant idea (if I do say so myself) to blend everything together by putting a page of sequinette (sequin waste) over the cover and then putting the magenta gauze over all. And when I checked that out, I realized that even better was to cut away the sequinette from the peacock in the lower right corner of the cover, so that it could be clearly seen and the top one was more obscured. I was pleased with that.

Also, it worked great to run the sequinette through the Xyron, lay it carefully on the cover, and then lay the magenta over it--the adhesive from the Xyron came through the holes in the sequinette and grabbed the magenta. Only problem is that on the back the sequinette wrinkled a little in one area and didn't get adhesive--I used a Tombow glue stick over that spot, but I'm not sure it's going to dry clear. Will check it in the morning.

I also successfully added the string of pearls around the edge of my water nymphs piece using Ranger's Matte Accents. I am coming to adore that stuff! Hopefully this weekend I can get the glass spheres adhered, and then it will be done.

Trying Something New--Matte Gel Image Transfers; Xmas Cards

All right, I am continuing to force myself to do something, anything, just don't get bogged down in choices and decisions. Thus I have two mini canvases drying now that I have followed the directions on this project from QuietFire Design to the letter (except that I had already gessoed the canvases--we'll see if that makes any difference).

When I was in England last summer, I saw some lovely 3D stickers of Oriental scenes, and I thought it would be nice to put them on small canvases and hang as a set. So I'm doing one image transfer for that project, and the other one is just a fairy on a 2x2 canvas. When it's done--if it's all right--maybe I'll hang in in Kayleigh's room, or I guess I could keep it and give it to her for a Xmas present.

********************

I'm still trying to decide if I want to give the full court press to making Xmas cards this year (and possibly selling some of them). I'm going to have time during the day, and if I spend maybe a week being very clear with myself about the designs I'd offer, I think I could do it. Need to look into Google shops and etsy shops again since it's been a year and policies/procedures may have changed.

I do feel a distressingly familiar feeling coming up again, which is that I have all these techniques in my bag now but I don't know exactly what I want to do with them. The fact that Kayleigh lost the Bunsen burner for my mini-chemistry set is extremely annoying, because I was getting to a point where I knew what to do with it but I don't want to finish it without that, nor do I really want to spend another $16 on a replacement. Anyway, I may be coming up to a hurdle to deal with again, because I still think that much of what I do is not very personal for me. The things I've done that were it's very clear to see--the Magic challenge was definitely all me, and I was pleased with the war piece even though I wouldn't give it to anyone. But there seems to be a large gulf, or maybe more properly an abyss, that I am going to have jump sooner or later. What am I afraid of, that I have nothing interesting inside me, or that I have no taste? I *must* be willing to experiment and accept that not everything will work out. It's only by doing that I'm going to really get anywhere, and I can't give this up.

Rummikub pendant

I began by using Red Pepper and Butterscotch alcohol inks pounced on the back and sides of the tile with the Ranger felt applicator pad. I dried with a heat gun (learning not to hold the heat gun too close or it begins to melt the tile).

Then I used StazOn Jet Black to stamp the head of The Calligraphy Robe on the tile. It was much harder to see than I thought it would be--think I used too much Red Pepper. Blending Solution removed the StazOn as well as the alcohol ink, so I applied more and wiped the whole off to start again.

Starting again, I applied Butterscotch and Latte inks directly to the tile and angled it to move the inks around before they dried. Then I pounced Red Pepper on with the felt applicator. Finally I put four small drops of Butterscotch on the felt applicator and pounced those all over. I dried a little with a heat gun but am now setting it aside to dry for a bit while I work on something else. I am going to stamp the lady's head again but this time in gold ink and emboss it with mirror gold EP--so I need to make sure the EP won't stick to the alcohol ink!

A little later on . . .

Hmm, I am thinking that what I should have done was to stamp & emboss first, then apply the alcohol inks. Guess I'll try it, but I'm pretty sure this tile is headed for the bin (or my daugher's playthings).

Well, the EP did work out all right (used Ultra Detail Mirror Gold), but then when I tried to use some alcohol blending solution on a tortillon to lighten the face, I discovered that it removes EP as well--didn't expect that. I was able to restore it with some Krylon Gold Leafing Pen applied with a (different) thin tortillon. The face looks odd, though. My daughter will get to play with it after all.

How to Finish the Water Nymphs Piece?

The water nymphs piece is not done. I could clearly see that when I took a picture of it. But what does it need, and where does it need it?

Maybe something more, something 3D along the lower lefthand and bottom sides. Could add necklace of small glass spheres from Alpha Stamps to main nymph? Put iridescent wash over all but nymphs, so they remain clear and glossy? Seems to need to be under some kind of layer--looks too raw to me. But I want to keep the difference of the women from the rest of the piece. Maybe put glaze over the nautilus and matte gel over the rest excepting women? Include an interference blue in the nautilus glaze?

Also could experiment with circles of white paint--it occurs to me the white of the water & foam on the nymphs isn't carried through the piece. Not sure where to put the circles, though, because I really want to preserve some of the open space between the nymphs and the cameo. Maybe larger ones over the lower area and a few smaller ones in upper area? Will have to experiment on a duplicate image.

And still would like edges to look a bit more finished. What if I glued small mosaic tiles in blue shades all along edges? That might be quite nice and actually be in keeping with the whole water theme, since I associate mosaics with baths.