Arty Oz Collaborative book for 2008

OH MY GoSHIE...in the mail last week there was a little collaborative book from arty heaven filled with the art of over 30 other Woman in Oz.I was sssooo honoured to be in this book.We all had to make Woman themed pages and media and content was left up to us.I chose to do mine like the ones below.Vilene and tissue base.Sprayed that with colour wash sprays and then stamped in white gesso over that.I'm not sure why but I then painted each page with Golden soft gel medium and to my utter surprise the spray wash colours came to the surface and mingled over the gesso stamped areas to create a gorgeous flowing colourful background.

Cuttlebug die cut negative used as a stencil to add texture paste element scroll at top.Vintage image transfers were done using water slide decals or fabric treated with Inkjetset that I printed direct to material on using my inkjet printer.Gold highlights were done with Jo Sonja Pale Gold paint and ironed on bits of gold foil.Halo around image was done using metallic water soluble crayons.Lastly I hand sewed on some red seed beads around the images and added some words.I shall try to scan the other folks works soon for you all....such a rewarding swap!!

A Simple Pleasure

A long long time ago there was a young child.She was the daughter of a kind,creative Mum and a hard working Dad but she was the second youngest of seven kids and the family was fairly poor.Materialistic toys were never in great abundance but love and encouragement were.Her Mum would often doodle and the little girl would look on in awe.One day her Mum gave her a drawing pad and some pencils and she began to draw and colour to her hearts content.This led to other creative past times like making people from pegs,making hand sewn clothes for them and carving coconuts etc but drawing was her favourite thing to do.
The child continued to draw and create as she grew up into a shy young woman.There was no spare money for art products or formal training so she learned by LOOKING and PRACTICING with what she had...she looked for shapes and colours in everything and her drawings reflected this.When she met and married time to create dwindled and then with the birth of her three children it totally disappeared.One day she wanted to make Christmas cards and even though she drew OK in the past she wanted to make alot of them quickly so bought some stamps and inks and made cards by hand.The busy young Mum enjoyed this and when ever she had time she made hand made cards.When her birthday came around her husband would buy her some new products to use....her creativity was rekindled.
One year she used the tax return to go to a stamping convention and did some classes with amazing tutors.One of those was with Cathy Daulman of My Stamps and she was totally amazed at the things she was taught and could now do.She cried that night because she felt she had been looking for a door and Cathy had opened that for her,to the lost place she had been looking for.Being creative and kind was what made her feel like a whole person.Stamping and Papercrafts were her medicine if you will.It has sustained her for 15 odd years.Now her kids are nearly all grown up she has found she has more time to herself to be creative but still money to be too self indulgent and buy products,is sparse.She remembered being that small child and loving drawing and bought a sketch book to try to draw again.The pages where so white and so it remained closed for two years.She believed she could no longer draw after not doing so for 20yrs and also that she could not paint or colour well.
In magazines and blogs of her friends some were now using drawn elements in their work...could she find the child who drew for pleasure from her past again and do that too?....maybe.Where would she learn to do this here as the only classes available were thru the Uni ,the Craft Council or privately and they were all expensive.Then one night while blog surfing to some of her favourite inspiring blogs she had an answer.
SSSooo she signed up for an on line art class with Jessica Wesolek from Cre8it and another door is opening for her...she has started to draw again,add colours and to see shapes and symbols and glorious colour schemes everywhere.At first she thought she would never show anyone her humble first childlike sketches but to day she looked at them as a learning exercise and she knew it may help someone some place to believe again that they can do something they thought they could not,if she shared what she has so far done.So no they are no major work of art but they are the beginning of yet another creative path for this woman.She feels happy in this simple pleasure...drawing

Alternative Way To Do Opals Embossing Enamel Transfers

As part of the Pipe Dreamink (makers of Opals embossing enamels) design team we are sometimes sent things to "play" with.One of the latest additions to their line is Abalone embossing enamel.It is finner then the other colours and has a milky beeswax look.On certain darker backgrounds there are iridescent highlights of colour.Unfortunately for me I knocked over the open and unused bottle and lost half of mine so I couldn't do too much with what was left.I did discover an Alternative way to make Opals embossing enamel transfers though and you don't need a skillet or melt pot for this.They are a much thinner transfer since you wont need to melt and pour a blob of the molten Opals.The Abalone was perfect for this as the colour is so soft and silky looking.

Here is some Abalone I ironed into a shimmery pale lavender material that was attached to thin Vilene(as per my Opals Paper technique). I then ran it thru the Cuttlebug several times in several different directions changing the embossing folders for the Cuttlebug each time



While this would make a great bg for a snow theme or Christmas,Wedding or Christenings etc I wondered if I could use the Abalone to do transfers directly into it and came up with the below way to do so...it is of course just a basic heat transfer but I had never thought this would work as I imagined the paper would absorb the Opals and not work.I was wrong.

1)Sprinkle the Abalone on to some material.I used white Satin.Place it on Gladbake (non stick baking parchment) and then put more Gladbake on top after you sprinkle the Abalone on.I had a chopping board underneath as I wanted my transfers really flat.




2)Iron this using a hot dry setting on the iron.The Abalone will melt into the material

3)Let it cool and then peel off the Gladbake.You will have a sold flat milky bg now that is what I call Opals paper.

4)Cover your toner/laser copied image with a very wet layer Versamark watermark ink.It is best to have a boarder left around the images as sometimes the edges get stuck in the transfer

5)Place transfer image side down on the Opals paper.Put Gladbake back on top and iron again on the hot dry setting.Here I go in circular motion over the parts I need.Don't press too heavy or too light...just nice even pressure.The heat from the iron transfers the image to the background.You can peel up the Gladbake and look.If the transfer is working you will see the image look milky but clear thru the paper.If not just place Galdbake back over and iron some more.

6)This is how it should look

7)Once it is cool peel off as much paper as you can and trim it as needed.Now fill the sink with warm water and place the transfer paper side up immersed in the water for a few minutes

8)Sart rubbing away at the paper using your thumb and the paper fails away to reveal the transferred image.Let it dry and if there are still fuzzy paper areas re-wet and rub away at those till all the paper is off

9)Here she is completed.Note the pinkish area at the top...that is where the transfer has not taken very well and part washed away when I was rubbing the paper off.I am not concerned about that as I am going to cover that area anyway.If you do a transfer that you don't like you can get them off by scrubbing at it with steel wool and re do it!!

10)Next I put the transfer thru the Cuttlebug several times and avoided the central image as I went.Then I coloured the flowers,eyes and lips with Tombow markers and the bg with iridescent Shiva paint sticks

This one was done the same but I used softer colours on the bg

and this one I used metallic colours

These look so pretty and when you hold them up to the light they seem to glow...hhhmmm another transformed candle in the making I think *grin*

Transformation of A Candle Holder

Now where have I been LOL...nope no more travelling around...I'm broke!!!.I'm in my busy week section for work which is pretty exhausting and time consuming with the shift work and all but I decided to do an on line drawing art lesson with Jessica Wesolek from Cre8it ...the artistic and creative lady who sells sheer heaven and other things.I used to draw ALLOT when I was younger till I was 28 and got married and had three kids and had no time.I'm wanting to get into some canvas stuff and add some drawn elements to them(God forbid LOL)but can't draw like I used too so hence the class.I'm really enjoying it so far as I have never had any formal art training so what Jessica has taught me in two lessons has opened my eyes immensely....6 lessons to go.No I am not brave enough to show you my attempts either
Anyway I was looking for some scans of my drawings from my twenties(might show you those) and found these images of a candle holder I altered that I do feel OK in sharing *grin*.I made this last year for the Pipe Dreamink ladies.It's a candle holder that has six rectangular openings.In three sections I did Opals embossing enamel transfers using vintage images and Franklin clear Opals embossing enamels.I coloured them with alcohol inks and pearlescent paints from behind and added some decorative trim at the bottom that I stamped some words on.Below is side one

and side two

and three

If you were wondering...I did put a tea light candle in there and light it and NO the Opals transfers did not melt!!!.When I saved these images they were in a small file format as I had no idea blogger was out there then so sorry the file sizes are not big...off to draw some more circles and lines!!!

Flowers and Eggs

In the name of "why not" I decided to try some thick Opals Paper in the Cuttlebug.I had only used the light weight Vilene and material Opals Paper to do this in the past as I just thought the heavy weight one wouldn't work.Again it was wider then the Cuttlebug opening so I put the Opals Paper in the embossing folder at an angle,closed the lid and folded the excess Opals Paper over the top...it didn't crack or break.Then I fed it thru slowly and hey presto it came out the other end with no problem.I repeated this with two other embossing folders to get the whole piece embossed in a seamless way.Onto that I painted on some Jo Sonja Opal Dust and added a few oil slick foil highlights on the raised texture parts.
The lady is a vintage image Inkjet water transfer onto unbleached calico glued down with gel medium.I love that image as you can make a "smelly" quote to go with her "woops" look LOL.Angelina fibre and After Midnight rectangular floral stamp image at bottom(see post below for how this works).Friends page pebble glued to the Angelina fibres at base.So there you go thick and thin Opals Paper goes thru the bug just fine

View from bottom below...oh after I took these I did repair the corners as they kept lifting.The brads were originally only thru the Opals Paper but now go thru all layers so it stays flatter

I got caught up on Tuesday(my day off this week)so did not play much with the new Abalone Opals that I have just got .I think it will have to wait till next week when I have three days off :o)

hugs

Annette