Finnabair classes

The week before last, I took some classes with Finnabair at Imagine That in Columbus, NE. I was thrilled that an internationally known instructor came to Nebraska.  I was also thrilled that my sister decided to visit and attend some of the classes as well.

Myself, Finnabair, and my sister Cinda

My friend Karen, from Denver, also came to Nebraska for these classes. It was great to see her as we haven't had a chance to hang out for quite some time.

Finnabair demoing

My finished piece

My sister's finished piece

My piece from class two (it needs a bit of work still)

Cinda's piece from class two

There was an article in the local paper about Finnabair's visit and classes, here is a link.  I was in the background of the photo they included in the article. Art is very serious...

After class, my sister and I both worked on some other pieces in Imagine That's cropping room, and then some more at home.

Here is Cinda's piece.

 

And here is my piece.

I did not include any progress photos of these pieces, since the techniques are Finnabair's and teaching them is how she makes a living. I highly recommend taking a class from her, she really keeps everyone on track so you can finish the projects in class.

Gelli print collaged deer head

I bought a paper mache deer head at Hobby Lobby in the spring. I have a farm/western themed bathroom and thought it would be fun.

I decided to collage gelli prints on it, because I have a ton of gelli prints. I gessoed it first, before collaging, since many of my prints are on translucent deli paper. I had no idea that collaging this would take so long. I got about halfway done back in May, then it got shoved in the closet for a while. I pulled it out a few weeks ago and got it finished. 

I love the flowers on his cheeks.

Mixed media canvas with artificial flowers

The other day I was cruising YouTube and saw this awesome video by Donna Downey using fake flowers and paint, etc. Here is the link to her You Tube video.

I thought this was a fun project and easily done in 10 minute sections of time over a few days, since there is drying time involved.

I am painting over this painting/collage on canvas, as I never liked it much. You can see I started putting some modeling paste for texture over it.

I cut four artificial flowers off their stems. Sometimes they fall apart into individual pieces/layers when I do this, so it's good to put a dab of glue between the layers to hold it together. It looks like Donna used flowers meant for scrapbooking so she didn't seem to have this issue. I used  Beacon's 3n1 glue to glue the flowers down. I added some texture paste, and let it dry.

 A day later, I covered it all with gesso.

And let it dry.

Donna smeared on acrylic paints at this stage, but I just sprayed mine with glimmer mist type sprays. And let it dry.

I came back in with some more gesso and a touch more spray. 

While the gesso was wet, I sprinkled some UTEE (clear embossing powder) over top, and heated it with a heat gun.

I thought this was awesome and easy!  I wish I got a bit more gunky and heavy with gels to add more texture and make the flowers look more artsy, and I may skip the last layer of gesso and embossing powder if I try this again.

Adding color to copper using heat

I am working on a project and I want to include some metal in the piece.  I decided to add some copper mesh and strapping but wanted to change the color of it, which can be done by using heat.

Here I have two pieces of copper mesh, a piece of copper strapping, my pliers with rubber coated handles, and my embossing gun. I don't know if they still make copper strapping. It is used for plumbing and it seems like all I ever see now is galvanized steel strapping, which will not work for this technique.

(Note:  heating metal can be dangerous and the tools and metal can get very hot. Never touch the metal while heating. Let it cool before you pick it up.  If you need to pick up the metal during or after heating, use pliers with rubber coated handles, so the heat won't transfer to the tool.  When heating metal, do it on a flame resistance surface. Also, work in a well ventilated area. I do this on my concrete driveway.)

I used my embossing tool to heat this piece. You can see it is much more orange at the top. At this area, I moved my tool continuously and slowly.  At the bottom where it is turning purple and white, I went much slower and did stop briefly in spots before moving on.

It took a while to color that piece. I decided to use my tiny butane torch for the other pieces.

(Note: If you decide to use a butane torch, please read all the safety instructions that come with it. I am not going to go into how to use a butane torch, because I don't want to be liable if you catch your pants on fire!).

Here are my results using the torch. The embossing gun does allow a bit more control regarding color changes.  With the torch, it is easy to go from slightly purple to spotty white very quickly. I did like that I could sort of make a pattern while moving the torch around.

Here is the strapping. It was hard to make it the red-orange color and it went to purple-white very quickly.

This is the back side of the strapping, it had a lot more of the orange color and a lot more color variation. I guess I should look at the back sides of the copper mesh, maybe their back sides are interesting as well.

I then cut circles out of the metal mesh. I tried to use my die cutter, but the mesh was too strong so I had to cut them by hand. I then used E6000 to glue the circles to some gears.

Here are a bunch of items I am going to add to my project.  It's quite a handsome collection.

Core Art Show, WOW

I have a piece in the WOW show at the Core Gallery.  If you've ever thought about visiting this gallery, the WOW show is a great one to see.  WOW stands for Wide Open Whatever. There is no theme so it is an eclectic mix of art, and they try to exhibit as many pieces as they can. The walls are filled to bursting. 

I will be at the Artist Reception Friday the 9th, around 6 or 6:30.

Fly Away

Embrace the Orange

One of the things that Cas did on the first day of the workshop, was to give each person a color chip and we were to use this color in our work.  She made sure not to give us our favorite color.  I got orange (liquid amber  - a nice yellow orange).  I rarely use orange in my work, but actually like it and was up for the challenge. 

The first few pieces I worked on were orange and a purply-blue, but I found the contrast too strong.  My other problem was that we were working small, and I just made them too busy.  I created four small ones and my favorite one disappeared. I think it fell out of my bag in the parking lot. I guess I am practicing (accidental) art abandonment.

This one is lost:

This one I added some hand embroidery:

I worked on some bigger pieces the next day, one almost completely orange and another almost completely blue-purple.  I think they are a nice start, but I need to work on finishing them.

I also started three other panels in a cream/green color scheme and look forward to working on them as well.

I really liked pushing my boundaries with the orange color.  I know I have some orange in my stash so I will try to include it in other work.  I loved working with the techniques I learned in the workshop and look forward to using it more.  Unfortunately I have a large stack of work-in-progress that needs to be addressed before I continue with these or start other pieces.

layered fabric and paper collage

I decided to try my hand at some layered fabric and paper collages.  I've been re-reading Cas Holmes book. She typically uses wall paper paste to glue down the layers, but said watered down PVA would work so that is what I used. I think she is more experimental with her layers. I really planned out my layers and what-goes-where. 

I am not happy with the wrinkliness (is that a word? there are too many wrinkles) of some of the materials. This is probably due to the wateriness of the glue. I felt I may have been better off with using matte medium (my current favorite adhesive with paper), but still like the way they look. Some of these I could have just sewn, but not all of them.

Coral is cut from red painted kraft paper that I had in my stash. There is Setacolor sunprinted fabric, dyed linen, gelli print on map, blue tissue paper and some shiny mylar bits (the yellow parts).

Red fabric with some gold paint smears, foam stamped coral on gold fabric, Gelli print, and dyed silk. Wrinkle wrinkle. I can probably pull up the fabrics at the top and just stitch them down.

Coral foam stamped sheer overlaid on blue dyed shibori, red silk (?). wood block stamp print, and lace.

Setacolor sunprinted fabric, painted cotton trim, Setacolor painted mesh on top of metallic painted deli paper, coral foam stamp on blue sheer.

I plan to do some machine and hand stitching on them as well. They will be cut down a little and mounted to 10" x 10" canvas.

4/7/2014: To see some of these pieces finished and mounted, please see this post.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I wanted to make some hearts that look like heart milagros, but they are not quite finished.

The first set I took these wood angels (left) and cut the bottom of them to look like fire or a crown. I then glued it to the back of a paper mache heart.

Here is the front side.

And I might well make a handful.

The other set, I used wood appliques and cut them each into two pieces. I cut them with a bit of a curve so they would fit to the top of the heart. I just used a dremel with a circular blade.

Here they are with the wood pieces attached. I used regular gel to attach the two and have a thin piece of paper on the backside to help hold them together.

I've gessoed all of these, but still need to paint them and add gold leaf.

Resin Hearts

I made a bunch of resin hearts this past week. Here is my collection.

I use plastic hearts that come with candy inside as my molds. I cut a hole in the back using my dremel, to pour the resin in. I tinted my resin with red alcohol ink.

The one on the left has broken red glass in it. The one on the right has Christmas tinsel in it.  I had to tap the mold quite a bit to get the resin to go through all the tinsel.

The one on the left has a magnifying lens, clock spring, some kind of gear that I threaded with a wire.  The one on the right has a heart shaped cooking tin.

The one on the left has pink coated wire, the one on the right has plastic star garland.

This one has rusty wire inside. It is hard to see so I took another picture with it back lit. I attached the nails with Epoxy clay, and painted the clay and nails bronze when the clay was dry.