Side Trip

So, I have taken a side trip to play a bit with polymer clay. Mostly because I want to add some relief to my work and think that this is a way to create it. I am in the learning stages right now but have created some wonderful slabs to us later in my work. Next I'm going to try stamping designs into the clay and then painting on it. These will be cut up and added to my first mixed media piece. Stay tuned for more.

Inspiration at the Georgia Aquarium

I saw some of the most amazing sights at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta Georgia. They made me want to come home and try to recreate them in cloth. Nothing to post yet but keep watching. I just know that there is a piece of art here someplace.

The jellyfish are my favorite and I have tried for years to decide what fabrics would work best for replicating them. Any suggestions would be great.

Lawrenceville Dyeworks

We have been at it again. Today we tried dye painting and discovered a new passion. The blue one was painted and then laid flat to dry. The yellow one was painted and the folded up and put in a baggie to set. The pastel blue one is a trade secret but I love the results.

The second page-the niche

OK, so for my second page I was trying the niche and using the using the gel medium. Needless to say I learned a couple of lesson's. First, let me apologize for the photo, the gel medium I used was gloss and not matte, Now I see the difference. The niche was not so neat, I will have to work on that. The labels were cut out of a cocktail napkin and I really liked them. Nothing was planned, it just sort of came together as I worked and I like that about it.

My first journey into the world of Altered books

The first spread in my test book. I wanted to try the Olfa circle cutter to cut circles. I found that the cross bar of the circle cutter made it hard to cut the circle. I had to make sure the book was completely flat and that wasn't easy. I should have put the circles out closer to the edge. The circles on the right are cut out of two pages each glued together. The circles on the right are the cutouts.
I was glad that I cut the circles where I did since I ended up cutting the edges with a pair of those little scissors that makes a nice edging.
I kind of just did the painting on each page, let it sit a day. Then decided on the circles, let it sit another couple of days and so on. Nothing was planned. It all came together with the stamping last night.
I have so many different types of paint that I wanted to try a bit of all of them. I used an old Readers Digest condensed version book and found that the pages were a bit dry and when I painted on the gesso I got a fuzzy affect. Hopefully that was caused by the old pages. They are a bit yellowed and I noticed that they rip easily. From this point on I am only going to try base tests with this book and not waste time doing complete pages in it.
Next will be to test doing a front for the book.