Day 26 Tags - Over to the dark side

Day 26 of the #fabtag30day.

Canvas Play Day

Today I took a trip over to Pramoda Gifts to take a workshop with Marina. When I say a workshop, I mean a play day. Kath also joined us too.

As I arrived late due to traffic, roadworks and accidents Marina had already started to prep my cardboard for me. We painted the canvas's in black powertex, placed the cardboard and added some of the wooden pegs from the back of the canvas.

Marina showing us how to mix up the balls and sand in the remaining Powertex. We did it in very small batches because it was between 33.5 and 35 degrees with the fan on and back door open!

So here are mine with the 'mucky mix' added. Told to us by Tracey at the garden party.

I put mine outside in the sun to dry whilst Kath and Marina wafted theirs with the hairdryer, but I was too hot so had a look around the fab studio at the lovely works of art.

A fabulously decorated skull and luckily they had some blanks to buy.

And this beautiful canvas. The colours are so subtle but it looks fab. It's like in a shadow box with a glass front, hence the reflection. 

Then I popped back outside to see how my cracks were doing.

Close up of the cracks on one of the canvases.

The left canvas was coloured with pigments and wax. The middle one was coloured with acrylic paints and inks. Some of the inks are metallic, a gold and an aqua. The right canvas has been base coloured with the orange paint, and the egg yolk and tangerine ink. I then added orange and burgundy pigments mixed with the Powerwax. I basically just kept going until I was happy with what I had. I still need to work on them as it was sooooo warm that the Powerwax had melted and it kept moving around. Marina put it in the fridge in the end!!

And after driving back in a storm with thunder, lightning, torrential rain, nearly dark at 6pm, hurricane type winds which left parts of trees and branches and loads and loads of leaves all over the roads, no to mention huge puddle, I finally arrived home about 7.40pm. It didn't let up from when I set off until well after midnight. So here are my purchases. I was running out of bronze Powertex after playing with it in the week, having seen the skull in the studio and also seeing a couple last weekend at the garden party, I picked up the last three that Marina had left. She had planned a workshop for them, but instead, very kindly let me have them. Then I spied the paper mache one too. I also picked up the gold metallic ink as it leaves a great shimmer over lots of the other colours. I picked up a piece of oasis too as I've been making figures and though it would be suitable to sit them on, so watch this space for that one!! And I've been after a little bag for ages, just big enough to fit my purse, camera and car keys in. This one was perfect and I got to try it out first! I picked up a tub of Powerwax last weekend at the garden party.

And because my mum and dad come over for the day and look after Fraz for me, I usually try and pick mum something up as they always have something unusual. I really wanted something duck related, but all the ducks had been sold and they weren't getting any more, so I had to make another choice and decided on the bee. I hope she likes it. I was hoping she might put it in one of the huge outdoor planters that I Powertexed for her birthday last year.

I took a photo of them when I got home and also the practise piece in the top corner, but I actually like them as a foursome, so might just keep them like this. I still need to wait for the wax to dry properly so I can buff it up or take some off or whatever I decide to do over the next few days, but need to look at them in daylight.

Dare to Dream

This is my day 2 finished project from our recent metal workshop with Lin Brown, and Emma, Lesley, Lin & Helen. They all made something completely different - they stuck to the brief!! 

Close up of the Wendy Vecchi art parts pieces covered in sticky metalic foil, covered in black paint and wiped off and the key was painted black and coloured with pewter treasure gold.

More art parts and a tap top.

Close up of some of the metal work.

The canvas was given a wash of black paint to tone it down.

The letters were die cut from a cardboard dog biscuit box using T!m's wordplay die and left their natural colour.

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!!

Metal Beaded bookmark

I picked up this metal bookmark from the Sincerely Yours show last weekend and I simply attached some Tigertail wire, threaded some beads and added a charm.  


Yes Kate, those larger beads are pink, but it's not for me, I've made it for my mum!!!

A 50th Birthday

A friend of mine has a 50th birthday today, can't tell you who as I promised I wouldn't tell anyone how old she was!!!!  The head and body were made from modelling clay, the hook screws and pins were added and were left to dry for over 24 hours.  Once dry I sanded them down, painted the body in faded jeans acrylic dabber and the head in sand CH studio paint.  I created the face with Artbars.  The head is wrapped in a piece of window lead.  I used beads to create the arms and legs, added washers to make the hands and added a bead and a bead cap for the hat.  To attach the head to the body I used a washer, a metal flower and a bead cap.  I made the metal frill for the neck from the smallest of the flowers on the TH tattered floral alterations die and added the key chain.  I added the

'5' '0' gold peel offs to finish.

This is the card I made.  The 50 and the happy birthday are clay pieces which have been coloured with cool peri alcohol ink as was the card background.  Various Art Journey and T!m images were stamped in shaded lilac and seedless grape distress inks.  The main indigo blu image was stamped on a separate piece of card in black stazon.  The edges were coloured with frayed burlap distress ink.  Frayed burlap was also added to the main background to balance it out.

JFF - Week 9 - Anything Goes!!

Anything goes this week over on JFF, so I decided to share this canvas with you.  I created the background a while back using just my fingers!!!  I then used my fingers again and made the white frame.  Once dry I stamped random alphabet letters in black stazon.  I cut the aliminium into a large crown shape and cut a piece out the middle to house the image.  Using my TSS tools I created some texture.  I swooshed over it with gold alcohol ink and added a few gems.  I mounted it on to a piece of thick cardboard for stability, so was able to add the row of ribbon with beads along the bottom.

Unfortunately the photo does not do this piece justice, it really is much nicer IRL!!!!!

JFF - Week 2 - Time Flies

Just for Fun is into it's second week now and following on with the 'wings' theme, this week I was asking for a time element to be added.  This is because I will be 'winging' pardon the pun, my way over to the states soon for my annual ski holiday.

Again I used a piece of corrugated, but this time I stuck a piece of netting from my bag of tangerines over the top.  Covered in gesso (as it was orange) and when dry applied lots of metallic acrylic dabbers, gold, silver, copper and pearl and again hi-lighted some of the raised texture with black.  All the items are cut from silver coloured metal with the bigshot using spellbinder dies.  They were a bit too shiny so I added black acrylic paint to them to give them a bit more of a weathered look!!!

Three's

This months UKStampers ATC theme is 'three of a kind'.  The idea is to use three identical things on each ATC.  Left I have three purple diamonds with a square bead embedded in each.  Centre, I have three pink hearts and right I have three purple beads embedded into the squares of friendly plastic.

A Challenge

I set myself a challenge which was not to use any words (as in large stamped words) or an image.  This is what I came up with.  Both are canvas's.  Top one had half a dictonary page attached and white gesso was applied.  Crushed olive distress ink was swooshed over it and royal purple stazon was used to edge.  I covered a small box and 3 cut down straws in text paper and used the purple again. I attached a piece of Angelina Fibre with fibre in it and a piece of wire mesh.  Inside the box is a piece of wire and a large clear gem stone.

This one actually looks more pinky / red than it really is, so I might try and get a better picture tomorrow in different light.  Anyway I wiped on various colours of acrylic paint with a baby wipe.  Covered a piece of wood in aged mahogany crackle paste and varnished it when dry.  I added a few nails to the top.  I bound a few oddments of metal pieces together for each of the circles and sat them on top of a piece of thick copper wire.  The mesh at the bottom is material which I attached with staples.

***Edited*** This photo shows the truer colours.

This one also fits in with this weeks Lotstodo Challenge - shapes