Dark Side Embossing

For a long while now I've promised my card making friend, Debie, that I'd show her some mixed media techniques and yesterday was the day I finally came good. Debies's craft room is an enviable delight, a sun room really. It has plenty of space with lots of natural light. We didn't need artificial lighting when we started at 1pm, but when the sun went down we turned up all the lights. It was well after dark when we finished.

Below, we have just begun painting over foiled papers, which we adhered to cover stock, using spray glue. Win's invention is to use black gesso, but we thought why not experiment with white gesso too? 



Here I am giving my rebel student heck - she marches to her own drum, but she's a keen learner!

Both ladies are in the business of beauty. Lynda is a hair stylist and Debie does manicures so they have access to wholesale beauty supply places. Each of them brought hair foil papers to our day, and not just the usual silver ones.

God love them, they got right into it!

These gals didn't want paint under their finger nails, or the wildly colourful, potent alcohol inks staining their hands so, wisely, they wore rubber gloves. I must say that I came over to their side after the first go around with the black gesso!



Lynda about glue down some of the exotic coloured foils

Debie really got into the alcohol inks

So much so her hand was a blur wiping and dabbing 

My collection at the end of our day

Thanks to Debie for hosting supper in the midst of our mad, creative binge of over eight hours. To her and to Lynda for being such good sports. They displayed much bravery in crossing over to the dark side. It was most precious when Lynda asked "What will you teach us next?"  

Scratchboard Frustration

My good buddy, Win Dinn, had occasion to be in Calgary last week. I was so pleased she extended her whirlwind trip to include a couple of days and nights with me/us. We met in Calgary for some serious shopping, where we hit five art and/or craft stores, interspersed with an amazing, two hour lunch at the Black Pig Bistro ...
 

 

We spent only one morning in The Anne Frank Room experimenting with a scratchboard technique. At The Queen's Ink I was permitted to photograph the image below and while there, I promptly bought what the sales lady told me I would need to create something like this ...

Scratchboard art by Chris Hinds, a local Maryland artist/teacher gives workshops at
The Queen's Ink.  Sadly, she has no web presence

Before Win and I began, I telephoned The Queen's Ink to inquire (again) about the image.  The kind gal on the other end of the line gave me helpful suggestions (a mini tutorial really) about what was used and how the piece was created.    

 

It all began so well, having too much fun dripping alcohol inks and spraying them with isopropyl (99%) alcohol onto the recommended Ampersand encausticbord 5" x 7" panels.
 

 

Note the opposite end of the spectrum colour choices each of us made!

 

When dry, we rubber stamped our chosen motif onto this. Then, using the new nibs purchased on our shopping spree, of the day before, we began to "scratch" away the stamped image.   

 

We noticed that the white was hard to reveal where we had applied a lot of alcohol ink

I was so annoyed with the way I butchered mine that I didn't (and won't) photograph
the state it is in after this stage!

The aforementioned nibs, and the little "rake" tool I purchased at The Queen's Ink were not as effective, a scratching tool, as my Slice knife, seen in my hand above. This delightful instrument was a gift from my friend and artist extraordinaire Sharlene Stushnow-Lee.

 

The encausticbord panels may have been our downfall. That and perhaps being to heavy handed with the scratching tools? In some places we gouged right down to the board itself. We ran out of steam or else we may have tried the Ampersand claybord, which does say "Thinly apply paint or ink, remove it, reapply it, and even scratch though it to add contrast, texture and fine details".

 

Hello fellow artists out there ... does anyone have suggestions about what substrate to use or ideas on how to make a scratchboard piece of art that isn't scratched through a black layer?

 

Mixed Media Journal

Recently our daughter, Laura, achieved her yoga teacher training certificate. Knowing she likes to keep notes on her yogic journey I purchased a ready-made, lined journal (because I couldn't find any craft covered journals) to alter for her birthday ...



Altered cover of the journal, mixed media, 9" x 6" 



Now that it has been gifted I can describe the trials and joys of creating this journal! Not wanting to change the back of it, I opted to go with its colour scheme. On the front, I masked off a border and covered the centre area with white gesso ... 

Start number one

On the gessoed area I created texture using a cell stencil. Once dry, I painted it to match the colours of the back.



The foreground shows the embellishments I coloured with assorted alcohol inks  

When I peeled away the frog tape (masking the border) the textured panel lifted too! In pieces! Had it come off intact, in one large piece, I'd have been able to secure it back down - once the original surface had been sanded that is. I hadn't thought to sand first and without sanding there is no tooth for adhesion.

 

A sad looking mess!



After I had coloured it, I felt the cell stencil pattern was too busy, too dense. Having to begin again gave me the opportunity to change stencils.

This time I used the petite pods stencil.

Second background adhered and finished!

Toying with the placement of the embellishments

The embellishments were a wild array of materials in different colours, none of which (except some of the tiny roses) were right for the journal. When it comes to colouring anything - metal, plastic, wood - alcohol inks work magically! All these trinkets could not be adhered at once. It took a lot of heavy gel gloss medium, slowly building multiple layers (with plenty of drying time between them) to secure them all down.

The idea for Laura's journal was inspired by this one ...

Together Laura and I saw this beauty at The Queens Ink near to where she lives in Maryland

     HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURA!



On News Years Day 1978, at 11:17am, Laura Anne Marshall was born

And now our baby has a baby of her own ...

Laura and Amira, who turned two, December 9th, 2013

Mixed Media Rocks Claresholm

On May 4th and 5th, 2013, Win Dinn was back in Claresholm giving her Mixed Media II workshop. You know the community is embracing mixed media madness when enrollment was up 50% over her workshop last spring, that all 15 spots were filled before the end of February and the couple of cancellations were filled immediately!

Win demonstrating a texture technique using drywall compound with an assortment of household objects as stencils

We are very fortunate to have the use of the expansive, brightly-lit Senior's Drop-In Centre. All weekend long the room was vibrating with busy participants wielding paint, embellishments and assorted tools. Win's infectious energy sustained us through all of the 20 techniques she presented!

Using mulberry paper, laid out on butcher paper, we made painted papers ...

With alcohol inks we coloured textured white wallpaper and using acrylic paints we tinted and scrubbed over the dried drywall stenciled pieces (the two on the right) ...

Win invited me to do a cob webbing technique demonstration, on watercolour paper, which I learned in an Ursula Reynolds workshop last fall.

Below Sherry and Cathy show me theirs ...

At Sally's table, full of colourful "starts", she peels her music sheet "skin" off a piece of palette paper ...

Meg demonstrated how to apply gold leaf and other metallic leaves to our pieces ...

Art was made with the usual, the imaginable and the inconceivable! Items/products employed included bubble wrap, fabric, string or elastic band wrapped paint rollers, dishwasher rise aid and nail polish remover! There was scraping, splattering, smearing and finger painting .. a ton of fun! 

Still smiling, at the end of Sunday, here are the happily exhausted participants ... 

Back: Meg, Jean, Dorrit, Brydon, Linda, Dominique, Betty and Sherry
Middle:  Jeanne, Marikka and Glenda
Front: Kerry, Sally, Billie, Judy and Cathy
And, out in front, our illustrious leader takes a moment to lie down!
(missing are Saturday participants Kari and Susan)

I'm thrilled to announce that we have just confirmed Win's return to do her next mixed media workshop, here in Claresholm, on November 2nd and 3rd, 2013.  There will only be 12 spots this time and taking one day will not be an option. The registration forms will be ready early in June. Please contact me, Alice, to be put on the mailing list.