heARTfelt art - secret messages and special memories

I spent several days last week making a piece of memory art for my friend Betsy.  I had so much fun making this that I decided to offer them on my website.  I thought I'd share the process with you cuz I actually remembered to take some photos (surprise!). 

I start with the keepsakes & photos you provide,

then layer on elements &; a little texture,

color & more elements,

more texture & dimension, more color, more elements,

so on & so forth until everything is just right.

 

Available here.

Blue Heart

I love the colors in this piece but I'm struggling with naming it - it's a blue heart but it's not sad in any way.  It's really very calming and maybe even cheerful.

I started with three different blue CitraSolv papers that were torn and adhered to  clayboard(the center one had been painted).  Next came some sanding, stamping and coloring.  Yes, coloring.  With metallic crayons.  Then I took the heat gun to everything ~ it's fun to watch the crayon melt, it looks a little like embossing powder.  (Oh!  Embossing powder ~ I wonder how that would work under beeswax.  I see experiments in my near future!)

The next step was an image transfer.  I used gel medium to adhere a striped heart ~ my goal was to have a very subtle image so at least half of the image was white.  After it dried and I rubbed & rubbed & rubbed, all of the paper backing still didn't come off. 

However, since I worked on this partly while I worked on the journal page I posted the other day, I knew that Twinkling H2Os would cover that up.  I used a purply-pink and pearl in the heart as well as kiwi green outside.  The watercolor didn't stick quite as well to the CitraSolv paper ~ I'm not sure if that's due to the CitraSolv or just cuz they're glossy magazine pages.

Next came a NEW beeswax!  The local stamp store where I've been holding workshops, My Heart's Fancy, got in some pebbles of clear beeswax so I decided to try it on here.  Since it's been a gazillion degrees outside, I didn't want to heat up the electric skillet so I just melted the wax with my iron directly onto the board.  The wax seems to be much thinner than usual but that could be because it's perfectly clear - no yellowish tint.

And I ended it all with the addition of color. I absolutely LOVE adding more color at the end.  I think it might be one of my favorite parts because I have only limited control.

ps ~ even after writing this and running errands, I haven't come up with a name for this blue heart ~ I'm open to suggestions ~ hint, hint.

Distant Bridges

Here's another one of my tax season art pieces. 
It began with a lovely water scene - see it next to the lips?

Next came some pattern tissue with a dart.

I dabbled at this 10 or 15 minutes at a time,

sometimes before work, sometimes late at night.

Actually, it became a tester board for another piece I was working on.

The problem with that is that lots of the stuff I tested didn't work!

So I'd layer on some gesso and test something new.

Then, near the end of March I wrote a journal page and blog post about a vision I had about how I wanted my life to be.  At the end I said I might write that on an art piece.  Well, I did.  I wrote it on here with charcoal pencil and immediately hated the way it looked.

So of course, I couldn't remove it which meant more gesso and spray colors and some modeling paste.  Then somewhere along the line, the image was turned upside down (I think with the writing) making it look more like a bridge than the dock it originally was.  And it all took on a yellow-green cast.  Here it is right before the final layer of beeswax and encaustic.

It's very similar to the final product but the beeswax added so much more dimension and texture.  And the encaustic helped balance the color at the bottom.

I have really been getting into beeswax more and more lately - I think every piece I've finished has had a topcoat of it.  Not only do I love the texture and dimensin it adds visually, I love the soft smooth feel of it.  I really like the look when I mix in colors from crayons or encaustics.

Speaking of encaustics, I'm taking an Encaustic Painting Workshop in June.  I'm so excited.  So far all I've done with encaustics is add color to collages - in this class I'll learn to use it as the primary medium in a piece.  I can't imagine using only one medium in a piece - let alone for always - but I cannot wait to have an expert teach me how to handle the wax.  Everyone I know who works with it can't get enough of it. I'm very excited about learning about it and about meeting other artists here.

Thanks for letting me share ~ Sherry

heARTfelt gift idea

I'm sure you are all crazy busy right now so the last thing you need is another Christmas gift to make!  That's exactly how I felt when this idea popped into my head when I should have been sleeping Friday night.  I already had some gifts that HAVE to be finished THIS week (we're celebrating on the 19th at our house).

So what did I do Saturday morning?  I started three new gifts!  I was even diligent to take photos of the steps so you could see.  Unfortunately I messed up with renaming the files and my computer ate them so you only get to see the finished product and hear about the steps. 

The idea behind this is to give something very personal yet displayable (is that a word?); to share my thoughts and feelings with them in a way where neither of us would feel too exposed if others saw it; to give them art and feelings at once.

Those of you who do art journaling and collage might want to make these using your regular techniques but with the twist of a hidden personal note written just for that special person.  

Here's how I did it (again, sorry there are no pictures):

1. adhere book pages to heavy paper -- I used watercolor canvas because I didn't like the watercolor paper in my stash
2. do the masking tape technique
3. hand-write a personal note to your friend -- I used pencil but you could use a pen as long as it's not water-soluble
4. paint with white gesso -- this will cover a lot of the writing but not all
5. adhere assorted papers on top -- I really like to use tissue papers and hand-made papers for this step
6. your message should be pretty much obscured - if you want to be sure nothing too personal shows, scan it and look at it on your computer screen - it's amazing what shows there!!!
7. add paints as desired
8. if anything is water-soluble, hit it with a coat of clear matte spray paint
9. think of one word for them for the coming year - your wish or prayer for them - and add it to the collage either with calligraphy or your printer -- guess which one I did?
10. present to your loved one by telling them what you wrote

Anyway, after making these and destroying my schedule even further this week, I've decided that in the future these would be perfect for birthday gifts - sort of a blessing and prayer for the coming year.

I also realize some people might not feel artsy-fartsy enough to make them and am trying to figure out how to make them for others - perhaps they write the feelings down and I put that as the first layer on a collage and end with the word of their choosing.  Any ideas on that?

Okay.  Better go.  Still have those original gifts to finish in six days!

Night Sky

This is a piece that my son and I created together. 

It's taken me a few weeks to do my part cuz life has been
crazy hectic for absolutely no known reason!

Does this ever happen to you?  You're rushing around all day and exhausted at night. 

Then you look at your to-do list and you can't cross anything off?

Well, that's where I've been for awhile now.

Anyway, here's how we created Night Sky:

Nate sprayed some of his paint onto water and dipped in a canvas

(don't you love how the heart just showed up?):

Then I sanded it to remove some loose paint globs and added gel pen:

Next came washes of various iridescent blues:

And I finished it off by adding some more depth to the outer edges with golden acrylics:

When Nate and I collaborate on a piece, we mark it Pashnada

on the front and then we both sign the back of the canvas.

Well, now I really do have stuff to do - I actually cook a lot for Thanksgiving (I know, don't die of shock).  We moved into our new home the week before Thanksgiving last year so we didn't do much here during the holiday season.  This year we're having a couple of functions so we have to start putting up the Christmas decorations immediately after Thanksgiving.  And boy, do I have a LOT of Christmas decorations to put up.

So all of that is my way of saying I might not see you for a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, have a happy, relaxing time with your family and/or friends

and a blessed time remembering all the good that we enjoy even during hard times.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Courage to Create

CREATIVITY TAKES COURAGE ~ Matisse

So with a little courage I'm declaring this "done" and showing it to you.

Though, quite frankly, I'm really still not sure it IS done. I just struggle with making art that has no images drawn or glued on. For some reason, in my head it's still just a background. Because this is how I do most of my backgrounds: layer, layer, layer.

I started out with a book page and two images from a fashion magazine altered with acetone. Then paints, tissues, modeling paste - not necessarily in that order.

Ink, more paint, more texture, the quote written in sharpie, a copper charm I made but never used. Oh. And apparently very different lighting!!!

Charcoal around the edges, a little more paint, a thin layer of beeswax and still different lighting.

Green crayon and gold encaustic.

What do you think? Is it really done?
Do you always include images in your work?
Thanks for the help ~ Sherry

linked to the week 24 challenge at Lots To Do and
the color green challenge at Thursday Challenge

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

~ Emily Dickinson

I apparently can only come up with one word names for my art these days:

Hope, Rest, Peace.

I have another work in process that I almost named CREATE but decided to give it a longer name in order to break the habit. I'll show you that one in a few days.

Anyway, back to this piece, HOPE. Before I show you some of the various steps, I have to say I like this piece now - but at least twice in the process I messed something up and had to change direction entirely.

So, do you remember the boards I made in my Obscured Text Background How-To? Well this piece started with the music covered board in the upper left:


Then I added a CitraSolv page, gold paint and some lavender hand-made paper:


Next, some more paint:


Then I tried a photo transfer and it didn't work (at this point, I decided NOT to turn it in to the CitraSolv contest becuz I wouldn't finish in time & when I did, it wouldn't show any of the CitraSolv page):


More paint. Then I tried another image transfer - the bird and it worked. Next I added some spray paint (I did NOT get the look I was going for, probably becuz I'm too used to using spray paint on furniture, going for solid coverage):


I used colored pencil on the bird, added pattern tissue and wrote the first verse of the poem in pencil:


Then beeswax, pearl ex and melted crayon and here it is again completed:


It is so great to be creating again. Thank you for continuing to visit even tho I wasn't around much. I love blogland ~ Sherry

linked to the week 23 challenge at Lots To Do,
challenge #94 at Everybody Art-Challenge and
the June challenge at Alter It Monthly

Needing Spring

This has been the worst winter I can remember. Now that's not saying a lot cuz I've got that middle-aged-memory problem going on. But really, there has been way too much snow and ice. Not to mention the ugly gray skies. We humans require SUNLIGHT and it has been in short supply lately.

As a matter of fact, Tuesday when I got up and stumbled to the kitchen for a Diet Coke, I saw this purpley-pink line across the window and it actually took me awhile to realize it was the SUNRISE.

I hope it does a repeat performance today!

This is a piece I finished (?) late last month. I started this last summer (when there was LOTS of sunshine) with several different floral photos cut and adhered to a piece of MDF along with some tissue paper. I did a little bit of painting then packed it away looking like this: When I pulled it out last month it seemed just too flat and bright. The flowers were all so in focus that it didn't have any depth. So I added a wash of gray-blue paint over the background images. Next came some gold dots applied with tiny bubble wrap. Then some color on the edges and a great quote.Next came a print of a photo I took of gerber daisies and some pattern tissue that I applied with beeswax. OOPS!! That made the quote disappear and that just wouldn't do. So I incised it in the wax with the intention of rubbing color into the incisions. Well, I tried two different ways of trying that but it didn't work very well (I think my wax may not have been thick enough). And when I tried to remove the color, the piece got quite a bit darker. Guess I got rid of that "too bright" problem, huh? I'm looking for new ideas to get the quote to show up because it's a great one:

"and the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin

Oh, I'm also looking for ideas on the title. Right now I'm calling it RISK BLOSSOMING from the quote but...

Thanks for stopping by - feel free to give me some ideas to make that quote more prominent ~ Sherry

linked to the beeswax challenge at LOTS TO DO

Obscured Book Page Technique

aka - the masking tape thing

Perhaps you want to have some text as a background on your project (collage, card, scrapbook page, tag, etc) and the easiest way is to adhere a page torn from a book. Or perhaps you're actually working in an altered book. But you don't really want someone READING the book page - it's supposed to be the background. I mean, how many times have you put down a page from a book and then found something on it that was totally distracting? Or, worse yet, naughty?

This technique is great for obscuring the text - it still looks like a book page but it's not as legible. Kinda like you sanded it a lot but not as messy. Not sure who came up with this, but I learned it in a class taught by Beverly Seymour (B-Line Designs) several years ago and then forgot about it until I saw it on Tim Holz' 12 Days of Christmas 2009.

So I'm going to try to do my first HOW-TO here - since there are so many photos, I've made them smaller - but you can click on them to see them larger if you like. Here goes:

Supplies needed:

• adhesive (decoupage medium, soft gel medium, even watered down white glue)
• applicator (brush, sponge brush, your fingers)
• substrate (art journal, scrapbook page, card, canvas, canvas board, something you messed up before, wood, metal, whatever you prefer - you could even do this in an altered book)
• pages of text (from dictionaries, foreign books, engineering books, even phone books - I understand it works best with papers that don't have a shiny finish but I have no proof of that)
• old fashioned masking tape

Steps:

1. slap a little adhesive on your substrate
2. place your page on top of the adhesive (see, told you this was easy)
   
3. burnish in place - anything not adhered well will may up completely
4. let dry (hum-de-dum-de-dum - that's me watching paint/glue dry - hehe)
5. cover all or part of the page with masking tape ** if you want to make sure something shows when you're done, don't put masking tape on it **
   
   DISCOVERY: after I started covering these three pieces for the photos, I realized I needed wider masking tape but, alas & woe, didn't have any, so later I tried packing tape and it worked almost as well as the masking tape (and it's pretty cool looking so I saved it to possibly use later in another piece)
6. peel back the masking tape, starting inside the piece and peeling toward the outside
   
   Now you have a beautiful, obscured text background that is HIGHLY ABSORBANT. It's perfect for receiving color now but if you want to protect it, just coat it with your adhesive.
   

Art with Obscured Text Backgrounds:

close up of KEY TO MY HEART.............close up of PEACE.............tag made at Ephemerites

So that's it for my first HOW-TO. What do you think? Would you like to see more?
Thanks for stopping by ~ Sherry

linked to the Something Old Challenge at Mixed Media Monday and
the torn paper challenge at Theme Thursday

Key to My Heart

I started this piece by laying down a torn piece of scrapbook paper and my favorite scrolly tissue paper. Then I set it aside for months. Sorry no picture.

In the fall I did a collage workshop at a local high school and took this piece to show them how various materials interacted. During the workshop I dyed some handmade paper and slapped it on. Then I scraped on some modeling paste. And again, after the workshop, I set it aside for months. I pulled the board out this week and started playing around with it, wondering if I could actually turn it into something. I added some watercolor and acrylic glaze Then I added vintage German text and painted gold dots and the piece started screaming "I'm a heart" so I drew a heart in charcoal and added some acrylic paint around that. Then I found the key (an old Christmas ornament), added some beeswax and, voila, KEY TO MY HEART.
And, on top of all that, I actually put it in my Etsy shop - it's my first Etsy listing.
So what do you think? ~ Sherry
I linked this to Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs