Hand sculptures

I had been struggling with how to accomplish the art I wanted to make, using a hand shape as the focus.  I was thinking I would do some on fabric and some of paper, but I wanted them to be at least slightly three dimensional. First I though I would make a hand outline out of metal wire and then attach the fabric or paper to it. My first wire hand shape was too stiff and wouldn't make the curves correctly. The 2nd one was too flimsy and would not hold it's shape.  I did try try cutting a hand shape out of matboard. It was tough on my hands and it took a long time to cut just one.  I felt very stuck for weeks and then had this hand-smack-forehead moment, when I figured out that I could make it even more three dimensional if I did it the same way I made my cat sculpture.

Here is my cat sculpture. I made it a few years ago and had planned to make more, but then moved on to other projects. (I just realized I never posted this on my blog previously. I was going to submit it to a craft magazine, but never did).

I only wanted a basic hand shape so it could be two pieces of fabric. I had a hand shape I had been using for the wire, so I just used that for my first try. And here is the lovely claw hand that is my first attempt.

Surprisingly, attempt two was almost perfect. I decided I didn't like the machine stitching to make the fingers, so I did hand stitching for my new ones.

I meant to take a picture of these final ones when they were still white, but I forgot. So here is an unfinished one in blue, just to show the shape.

Here is the first finished piece. I have ideas for a bunch of these, including some with free-motion stitching, some with 3D items attached.  I plan to make some stamped fabrics, and use some hand-dyed fabrics, some felt, etc for some of the others as well. The hand shape turned out very nice, although there are a few things I will tweak in the next set.

Snow dyed fabrics

We had a big snow storm a few weeks ago, so that meant a bit of snow dyeing was in order.

I did not iron these prior to photographing them.

This was folded in half and put on a PVC pole and scrunched, like for shibori. Then I laid the pipe flat on my rack, for snow, then sprinkled powdered Procion dye.

I used hotel key cards clamped to either side of a folded piece of fabric.

I used empty yogurt cups and rubberbanded the fabric on them. I was hoping the circles would be more distinct.

The rest were just scrunched and layered "parfait" style with snow and powdered dyes in big buckets.

There were quite a few more small ones. I bought a bunch of linen and cotton napkins at the thrift store a while ago, so threw a bunch of them in as well.

I am working on some new mixed media pieces and hope to have at least one finished so I can post pictures next week.

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.

black and white gelli prints

Just because I started one project on Sunday, doesn't mean I won't work on a different one on Tuesday. I made a bunch of colored gelli prints for a project on Sunday, and yesterday I did a bunch of new prints that are black and white.

I got an instructional art DVD of Anne Bagby's, the link to it is here, and the first step is to make black and white patterned papers. Anne uses painted backgrounds, stamps, and stencils. I decided to use my gelli plate since it is so fast to make multiple prints. 

Black prints on white background.

White prints on a  black background.

Black prints on translucent deli paper.

White prints on translucent deli paper (I put them on a black piece of fabric so you can see the white paint on white translucent deli paper).

I cannot tell you how many unfinished projects I have, let's hope neither of these projects end up in the permanent UFO pile!

Gelli printing play

I have a project in mind that includes gelli prints, so I made some this weekend specifically for this project.  I hope to have some finished pieces to show next week, if this works like I want it to.

These prints are on deli paper or tissue paper.  The tissue paper I used was meant to be applied to walls to give a textured wrinkled look to them (which I bought cheap at the thrift store, it's probably from decades ago).  It seems a bit more sturdy than the average tissue paper, I didn't have a single tear.

I bought quite a few new stencils over Thanksgiving weekend, as I was visiting family in Greensboro, NC and Betty's has a great selection. There is a severe lack of cool art and craft supply stores in the vicinity of Kearney, so I go a bit overboard when I travel. I really like the giant flower stencil (left and right in the 2nd row), and it was on clearance for $3.50.  I wasn't too crazy about it when I bought it, but I love how it prints.

 More prints on deli and tissue paper.

 These prints are on interfacing. My plan is to layer some of them, free-motion sew them with cotton thread, then use a heat tool (embossing gun) to burn through some of the layers.  The colors are more subtle when printing on the interfacing. I should have probably used more paint. This interfacing is pretty thick and opaque. I really liked the thinner interfacing that I had printed previously, as you could somewhat see the underlayer through it. (That post is here).

I am looking forward to making progress on these and will post next week. I hope everything works out as expected!

Documented Life Project, The Unplanner 2016, colorful inserts

I have signed up each year for Documented Life Project (since it started in 2014), but have not been very good about working on all the prompts. This coming year they are putting more of a focus on the "planner" aspect of it, and I am motivated to keep up with it. 

They provided some forms we can include in our planners. I wanted mine to be colorful, instead of white, so I used sprays (mainly Glimmer Mists) to color white cardstock and used some stencils and masks to add patterns. 

After they were dry, I put them under some weights to flatten them out overnight, then ran them through my inkjet printer. (Please note that my printer is old and has been used to print artsy stuff before, so I wasn't too worried about putting painted papers through it. If you have a lovely nice expensive printer, you may not want to put painted papers through it). Then I used my paper cutter to cut them. 

 

To fit all three inserts on one page, one of them does not have much space for paper-punched holes for the 3 ring binder. I plan to add a washi tape edge for the holes.

I know that sometimes doing stuff ahead of the start in January may be a bad idea, but it looks like the Art to the 5th sample shows these as white, and I want to start with some happy color!

Gelatin monoprint workshop

A few weeks ago, I did a gelatin printing workshop for Becca and Laura, and wanted to share some photos.

Here is our work table with lots of paints, papers, stencils, etc.

Here are some prints. I believe both of these are Laura's. These have two or three printed layers on them.

Becca, working on her final layer.

Laura, also working on her final layer

And here are some finished pieces.

Becca's

Laura's

 

 

It was a very snowy day, which makes for a great art day, and we had a great time! I am so glad they were able to make it through the snow and play with monoprinting. Thanks Laura and Becca!