In Process

I have taken the cardboard bases I showed you last time and have been collaging like mad, using color copies of personal photos and images of my other artwork.  These are still in process, I need to do a final basecoat, I think of gloss varnish, as opposed to my usual matte varnish finish, to help bring out the colors more.  None of them have titles yet, and I may add grommets to the top corners and run colored wire along for display purposes.

All of these measure 5” x 7” or 7” x 5” depending on the orientation of the image.

The photographs are of my daughter.  In the top picture she is wearing a crocheted dress that was made by my grandmother for my mother.  I have a picture of her wearing it, and I’m sure somewhere there’s a photo of me wearing it.  Now it’s back with my mom, who is planning on having it framed in a shadowbox.  The bottom picture is from my Frida Kahlo phase, circa 1988.  I took a lace scarf and some fake flowers from Woolworth’s to make her headdress, and bought real Gerber daisies from Kroger’s. 

More art about art, this piece has a copy of on of my MOO cards.

When you have an interesting embellishing material, consider making copies of it to use in collage.  This leaf is an Indian applique I picked up from Treasures of the Gypsy.  I have a whole sheet of images of these appliques that I use for collage fodder in my journal and on pieces like this.  I also crocheted the little purple flower, but found doilies work as well.

You can tell these are in process because you can see the difference from where I applied the matte gel medium to adhere the images to the cardboard substrate and the original painting.  The background papers are both painted on the contractor’s paper, starting with a layer of gesso first.  I’ve been cutting out stencils in addition to using the Print Gocco fish screen and Speedy Cut stamps.  It’s been fun to put all the different patterns and colors together.

If I can find them, I have some coffee bean beads that would look cool on this piece.  I adhere the three dimensional embellishments using Golden Heavy Gel medium, it’s easier to apply to a specific spot because it’s so thick and it fills in the gaps on the bigger pieces so that it will stick to the surface.

More of the Indian applique copies, a contemporary button and a vintage embroidered applique enhance the copy of the cow quilt I made for myself after my Gran died.  I rarely make pieces that are specifically for me to keep, but this is one of them.  Using the image in this way makes it possible for more people to see/own it, and enables me to keep the original.  It’s kind of like licensing, but I am the one reproducing the image.

More buttons.

The seam in the cardboard really shows up in the photo, but isn’t quite this obvious in the original.  The sunflower charms are fairly dimensional, which is why the heavy gel is good for adhering them.  You can also see more detail of the fish print I talked about earlier.  That’s the yellow paper I showed in a previous blog post.  I am really happy with how it turned out.

I am also working on small canvases, 4” x 4”

On this one I used color copies of an old beadwork to make the landscape.  You recognize our friend Bessie from the earlier images.  I love her little purse and the bird on her shoulder.

Another one using my daughter in the heirloom dress.  The sunflower is an applique left over from the piece I made for The Artful Storybook.  It’s machine embroidery on fabric that is stabilized with Pellon interfacing.

We are all made of stars.

This one is 8” x 6”.  I used some canvas I painted with Setacolour paints as the background for the photocopy.  The star punchouts are from a sheet of scrapbook paper.  The composition was missing something, and it occurred to me that I could use some buttons from my stash to fill in the corners.  This is also when I realized I could embellish the cards.  Sometimes the solution is so obvious, isn’t it?