Red Tree Collage

 I liked my felted red trees so much that I decided to do a collage of them.

I wanted it to have a layered look so I spray painted these stencils with the general color scheme using Liquitex Acrylic spray paints.

I then started collaging papers on my wood substrate. I would only need paper where the substrate would be visible through the stencils.

Here is the finished paper collage before attaching the stencils.

Here it is right before I glued the stencils down. 

I did add more paint over the collaged papers to help them blend with the stencils (and added a tree trunk and branches on the left tree, blue sky showing through some of the leaf areas). I showed it to my husband and he kept asking what the letters spelled. They were still too prominent, not just a texture or layer like I had originally planned. This definitely was not what I had in mind and decided the stencils had to come off.

I decided to paper collage over the whole surface after the stencils were removed. Here is a progress photo.

The collage part is mainly done. I want to use some washes of paint to darken the sky and make the grass greener. I will use paint and some more paper bits to help the trees look like trees instead of red balloons.  This is way better than when it had the stencils on it and I think it will be great in the end. Which is a good thing, since I have another one with yellow trees and a purple sky that still has the stencils on it and will need work as well.

Better pictures next time, I was in the basement studio and my good camera's battery was dead.

Skeleton Tshirts

Using a plastic Halloween skeleton as a stencil/mask, I made some Tshirts with glow in the dark fabric paint.

I put the skeleton on one Tshirt and sprayed the paint.

Then I lifted the skeleton and pressed it paint side down onto another Tshirt.  (The skeleton is hinged at the joints so it's not the same pose every time).

I put these in the sun, then went in a dark room, and the "glow" is very faint. The directions said it works better on lighter colors, so the black Tshirt may be too dark to let the paint glow correctly.

I plan to put these on Etsy next week, GingerWilsonStudio on Etsy

Silver globe

I really liked how my chalkboard globes turned out, see this post.  I scored another globe recently and decided to spray paint it silver. I think it looks great.

Denver Modernism show this weekend, come visit!

Please visit fellow artist Simone Maxwell and myself at our booth (#98) at the Modernism show. We will have mod-inspired art as well as vintage finds, chalkboard globes, and many other items.

Hope to see you there! Friday is VIP night for $50 a person, and Saturday and Sunday general admission is $8.

Hearts from recycled fence pickets

I really love the shape of the Mexican heart milagros, with a decorative edge and flames above. I had seen a cool mirror shaped like one at the Cherry Creek Art festival and thought it would be cool to make some artistic ones.

Recently, we replaced a small portion of our wood fence due to structural issues (a strong wind almost took a portion down). We had put the leftover wood in a pile until we had time to cut it down and put it in the trash. The longer it sat there, the more I thought this would be great for my hearts. It is great to re-use the wood and will give my hearts a rustic feel. So I took five boards and was able to get three hearts from it. The larger ones are about 21".

Here is my first set of boards. I glued (and eventually) screwed the wood strip to them to hold them together.  Usually it took more than one strip to keep the assembly from being kind of wobbly.

I used a hand held jigsaw to cut my shapes. When I planned my design, I made sure I didn't make any tight curves that this saw couldn't handle. Having made three of these, there are some things I would do differently. Make sure the wood strip on the back is not going to get in the way of the saw. I also think cutting the end pieces separately, before assembly, would be best as the saw vibrates so much that these pieces sometimes came unattached. Even with the glue and screws, the wood is old and these pieces would just fall off.

Here is the backside. I then spray painted the back and edges black.

 Front side:

Heart 2:

Heart 3:

I gessoed the fronts with white gesso in the center, and black gesso around the edges and flames.

I painted the smaller heart turquoise in the middle. I plan to leave some black details, but most of the black gets covered with metal leaf.

I painted details with gold paint to give me a road map for the metal leaf and the black details.

I knew I wanted this heart to have two types of metal leaf. I applied glue only where I wanted the gold leaf.  I used a glue that dries tacky which allows the leaf to adhere.

I use a stiff painting brush to first press the leaf into the glue, then brush the excess leaf away. I then used a rainbow (oil-slick looking) metal leaf for the other part of the frame area. I always put any scrap foil pieces I brush off into a plastic container to use later on another project.

 I then mixed some black paint with some glazing medium to paint some shadows on the heart center and on the gold frame.

 Red Heart 1, before adding black shadows. Foil was from my mixed container of foils, some copper, gold, rainbow, etc.

 Red Heart 1, finished.

 Detail, Red Heart 1

Red Heart 2, before adding black shadows.

Red Heart 2, finished. Gold foil was used.

Red Heart 2, detail

I really like how these turned out!

Mosaic tile picture frame

For my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, my sister and I decided to make a mosaic tile picture frame. My sister made a lot of the tiles and did the assembling, but I made and mailed her some tiles to use. I used either Sculpey III or Fimo Soft polymer clay, depending on the tile.

These were white tiles stamped with rubber stamps, then painted with acrylic after they were baked. Some of the details I painted a darker color first, then "dry brushed" with paint on my finger to apply the light color to the raised sections. I did do a lot of touch up with a small brush afterwards.

These were gold clay stamped with a rubber stamp, then "dry brushed" with metallic blue paint on top after they were baked, then dusted with gold powder (similar to Pearl Ex, but mine are called Fairie Dust).

I am not too fond of these pink flower tiles. Mod Podge makes hot melt glue sticks and molds to be used with these glue sticks.  I found it hard to get the molds filled well. I glued them to already baked polymer clay tiles and painted them with acrylic paint and applied a russet colored shimmer powder.  The backs of the flowers are somewhat lumpy so they are not completely flat with the face of the tile. I do think these flowers would work well on some of my  Day of the Dead skulls.

If you decide to try the Mod Podge glue sticks, please note the following, these are hot melt glue sticks. They really need to be used with silicone molds. There are other brands of low temp glue sticks that can be used with rubber stamps and other molds, but do not use the Mod Podge glue sticks with these.

For these, I embossed copper and brass metal sheets with embossing folders and my Wizard (similar to a Cuttlebug). I then used double stick tape to attach each to a piece of mat board, then folded the edges around to the back of the board.

All of the polymer clay tiles (not the embossed metal ones) were given a coat of Galaxy Gloss to give them a shiny finish.

I also made the alphabet tiles and some gold "grout" sticks, but forgot to take pictures before I mailed them.

I love the Laurie Mika book "Mixed Media Mosaics", which is what I used as a reference for my polymer clay tile making.

Here are some progress photos my sister sent.

And the framed almost completed.

Finished! Happy 50th Mom and Dad!

Paper Collage with CO Mixed Media Club

For this month's meeting, our group did painting/collage similar to Elizabeth St.Hilaire Nelson. Her website is here. 

First, we did a basic painting so we had a guide for where to put the colored papers.

Here is Sabyl's example she had made earlier in the week.  She did not completely cover the background painting with collaged papers, but let the painting show through.

Here is Sabyl's work in progress on her new piece. She is collaging over more of the painting on this one.

This is Simone's. I love the sewing pattern showing through on the lower right corner.

 Gayla's is bright and cheerful.

Sue Clarke's little birdie is the cutest.

Enid has a fun hedgehog.

Trish has her underpainting done. So happy!

I am working on a sunset and it looks horrible right now but I have high hopes. I collaged the lower landscape and top sky with citrasolv papers, but still have most of the sky to complete.

This was a piece I had colllaged with rice paper previously and it looked pretty bad. I have done an underpainting of trees reflected in a lake, but haven't started the paper collage yet.

We agreed to bring these back to our next meeting, so I will post update photos then!

Day of the Dead skull with metal tape

I cut a bunch of masonite skull shapes using a friend's scroll saw and here is the first completed one.

I used Thickers brand stickers for the 3D elements, then covered the surface with aluminum tape from the hardware store.  I have quite a few metal tools for embossing so I used these for outlining the embellishments and adding pattern and details to the flat areas.  After all of my embossing was complete, I put on a coat of waterproof black ink. While it was still a little damp, I rubbed the majority of it off with a paper towel, so it would be darkest in the textured areas.  There were places where the ink didn't want to rub off, so I put a bit of rubbing alcohol on the paper towel and that worked well. It's been 24 hours and the ink is still a little sticky, but I hope it will be completely dry in a few days. Otherwise, I will give it a spray of clear coat to seal it. This would also be great with colored alcohol inks, I may have to give that a try.

Heart mosaic with beads

I bought these cool metal tins that I think are supposed to be flower pots, but I decided to make them frames for some mosaics. The opening is about 4" square and about 2" deep, but I think the tins frame the mosaic well. I made the heart with wings out of paper clay using a mold I made. The mosaic include buttons, sequins, beads and mosaic tiles. I put the heart on a wood block to make it higher than the background mosaic. It looks fabulous and I plan to make some more as I have five more of these tin "frames".