Metal Time Arch

We were all meant to be making a canvas incorporating different metal techniques that Lin Brown was going to show us over the weekend, but Lesley had managed to source us some mdf arches, so I decided I wanted to do an arch instead. This is the said arch.

I don't have any close ups of the arch in it's primary stages, but here it is, perched on the edge of the table as I was working on the individual pieces. After I'd used molds and tools to create the shapes and patterns I cut them out and stuck them to the mdf with red liner tape being careful not to squash the individual pieces.

You can see how shiny the metal was in the photo above, once I'd placed all the pieces I covered the whole arch in black paint and wiped back to create the above effect.

I hand wrote the word and used metal tools to create the embossed effect and refine the letters. It's quite tricky as you have to write the word backwards on the back of the metal.

Close up of the embossed lettering using the mold.

A close up of the cogs mold.

And the fancy pattern, again a mold.

And the final section, the grid of squares.

Using a piece of previously printed fabric from a gelli plate I stamped a collage of images using black stazon and various stamps.

I put the fabric in the aperture and placed some metal embellishments.

I know this doesn't look much different from the one above, but it now has the fabric secure in the aperture, the wadding and the back on the arch. So the fabric is now padded.

And the arch is clamped with clips to help the front and back pieces to stick together being careful not to squish any of the metal embossed sections. I left it clipped up over night to ensure it had stuck properly.

 

I painted the edges and added some metal embellishments.

I was still pondering whether to add the clock face and the corner pieces but then had a little brain wave. I rubbed them over with silver metallic lustre to really dull them down.

Close up of the metal clock face.

The left corner piece.

The right corner piece.

I don't know if you can actually see the padded fabric from this photo, but it's there.

The finished piece in the garden with the daisies!!