Secret Recipes!

I love playing with techniques, textures, recipes and effects and have been doing lots of them lately.  So that I don't forget what I've done, what worked and what doesn't,  I have finally created a little book to put them in. I call my book of samples.

Needing something to decorate the front of the book I have been on the lookout for a couple of weeks for the perfect item and I found it last weekend at a car boot sale.  It's a Starwars figurine that I used to make a mold, then created a flat back piece in polymer clay before painting with a faux aged ivory / bone effect.  The book is approx 8.5cm x 10cm and approx 4.5cm thick!

Let the force be with me

I have a feeling I will be making subsequent volumes since I don't intend to stop doing this anytime soon.

The front and back inside cover use old text roughly torn and glued to the substrate then using an edge painting effect before covering with a fine crackle medium and rubbing in a medium to highlight the cracks.  On the right hand side is the first page of the sample - burned copper.

All bent and twisted.....

When I decided to start being more active with painting, I didn't have an art journal.  I had a wardrobe full of scrapbook paper, or as my partner calls it: crapbook.  I had taken up scrapbooking approx 12 years ago and then just as quickly realised I didn't enjoy doing it.  My creativity went into making minature books and ephemera and then changed to playing with polymer clay and beads.

I bought some good quality paint (Golden fluid) in 2 shades of red, a blue and a yellow.  And a student grade white and black plus some matt medium.  This helps to make the paint more translucent without making it too wet (watery).  Rather than buy even more paper, I decided to use the water colour pads I already owned (used for card making),

I taped them down to my work surface, as you do.  But unfortunately every one of them has warped and become bent in the same way.  I'm not sure how I'm going to fix them or even if I'll bother.

Below are my bent and twisted lose art journal sheets.  Inspiration came from Kate Crane a brilliant mixed media artist who has some very useful art journaling DVDs.  The other big inspiration came from RachO113 whom I found on YouTube.  This lady has so much talent and I could watch her for hours,  To get started I had to borrow their concepts and ideas and I hope they see it as flattery that they made me break out the paints.  I'm now producing my own unique work but I still feel influenced by what they produce.  Thank you both.





Freedom!

For most of my life I have done various crafts and artistic things but, as a business professional, i have always seen this part of my life as trivial and not important. Until very recently I hid my little secret from everyone, so that I would be taken seriously as a professional. Then one day I overheard a routine chat at the coffee machine between a group of male colleagues: went to golf, wonderful swing, lost a ball, played footie with the lads, went to the pub and played darts. I don't know why this conversation was different to hundreds I have heard before, but it was. My 'play' with various types of media is no diffrent to any other kind of sports play. At that moment I realised my artistic passions made me a more complete person not less of a professional one. On with the show......