Screen Sirens Collage & Paint

Collage seems to be one of my favourite mediums. These are the ingredients I used pictured below

1    The base is cheap watercolour paper. Which you wet and lay on torn pieces of the tissue paper. You can wet another piece of the water colour paper and lay this on top. Press them together to transfer the colour from the tissue paper. Be sure to buy tissue paper that bleeds and is not COLOUR FAST. Put aside to dry - remember to remove the coloured tissue paper. Set this aside for use again. 

2   Tear up the tissue paper from the pattern and scrunch it up so it has lots of creases in it. Use the Gloss Medium to stick this over the dried watercolour paper. Make sure you get lots of lines, arrows and words in the main part of your design. You can also use the instruction pages as well, some graph or squared paper also goes well. You can do several layers to build up texture. Set aside to dry.

3   Now onto glazing the paper with the paint. Squeeze out a blob of red and pour a generous amount of Glazing Medium onto the blob of paint. Do Not Mix - just dab you brush into the paint picking up some medium as well. The idea is to get thick & thin areas of colour, with stripes and blobs of paint. Set aside to dry and repeat with the blue. Slap it on and have fun with this bit - no fussing allowed. Set aside to dry again.

4  The pictures of the Screen Sirens are from an old  -1940's movie picture book. I have used the originals on these, but scanned the images to use again. Cut out the picture you want to use. Again use the Gloss Medium, paint the medium over the picture and on the place on the paper where you want it to go. Lay the picture wet side down and smooth over it to get it to lay flat. You can use a brayer, soft one or I use a baby wipe as you can mop up the excess medium that squidges out the sides. Rub over the picture until you are sure its all stuck. Again put aside to dry. 

5  You need to leave 24 hours to let the medium dry properly.

6 And now the messy bit. Dampen the back of the picture and rub, with fingers, abrasive washing sponge or baby wipe. Keep dampening the paper until all the backing paper has gone and you are left with the original image. I find that I start with the abrasive sponge to get the worst off and then go onto fingers and finally the baby wipe. The baby wipe gets every bit of paper off for me. I buy the better quality baby wipes that are made of thicker fabric (UK Brand Tesco's own)

7  When dry I varnish with Matt Varnish as this just knocks the gloss back to a better level.

Bright as a Button

My Guardian Angel

Head Over Heels in Love

Me and my Shadow

No Man is an Island

Puppet on a String

All 8x10 and mounted to fit 12x10 frames.

This is the tissue paper that was used. It has been stuck onto some of the pattern tissue and can then be used in another project. I did make ten samples two failed at the image transfer stage. There's a lot of drying time on this project, so do what I do and have several projects on the go at once - or you could do some housework :-D

The little music folk were part of a display to celebrate the Olympics. They will probably creep into some more of my art.

Have fun.

The Aunts and Cousins

Yay back on line!!!! Lot of catching up to do so I'm starting with an update on recent work.

I've based these on pictures of people in a 1937 magazines, from photographs, adverts or fashion pictures. They were first drawn onto calico. Under the calico are the designer satin labels that I used when I had my Knitwear Business. These had Joan Rowland or Coggeshall Knitwear on them and were beige/brown or white /blue. Under these two layers is a curtain fabric, rather heavy one for stability, you can't see this fabric.

I have then used the sewing machine to stitch and embellish, with some lace used for hair, collars, hat and cuffs. They were then mounted on modern papers from a Laura Ashley set. When I framed them I put lace at the base and another strip of paper. It looks like they are looking out of a window with a cafe curtain. They are about 8 x 12, have a double mount of white/black and are in modern black frames.

I've sold two of these at the Popup Shop in Chelmsford.

Missed blogging and I'm really looking forward to all your comments.

Internet Problems

Hi Friends and followers, just to update you with the computer saga.

I have lost my connection with my main PC, the one that has all my programs for camera, picture editing, upload, printer, you name it that's on there. So I go to my internet provider to ask for the code, which they generate, to be reconnected and they want to charge me, £25.00. Now they generate a new code each time I log on so I have no ability to keep a record of this code. The internet service failed, which they provide and has caused this but I have to pay. Plus they have changed ownership and changed all the contracts, without telling us customers at all. Just so you know the new owner is Talk Talk, now I have nothing against them, but the service is now dreadful, phones not answered for 2 hours, kept hanging on for 1 hour just being transferred through one department after another, then the member of staff hung up on me because I had to ask him to talk more clearly and slower. I think he took this as a racial slur, when I just could not understand his accent. So I then had to start all over again.

Enough already, I am changing internet providers, well you guessed that!!! So it's going to take a month. I can use the internet on the lap top but am not able to do anything else. I was amazed the lap top worked, its not been used for 6-8 months.

So I will not be blogging for at least a month, but will look at all your blogs and check messages on here too. I will really miss you guys, getting comments and blogging. Hope to have lots of news for you all when I am back on line.

X Mad Bird

Image Transfers & A trip Out to View Fleece to Fibre

In between art I am doing some practice of techniques I want to use in future projects. This week it's Image Transfer. Something I have always struggled with, much to my disgust.

Here's the practice sheet, with a nice mount over it. Every thing looks better with a mount.

Now here are all my notes.

You will need base paper, I used watercolour paper, Bockingford with a slight roughness. 190lbs
Heavy Structure Gel -  HSG Winsor & Newton Galleria brand - cheap one :-)
Inkjet prints on glossy photograph paper, printed on Glossy Paper setting and if your printer allows use the Photo setting for the amount of ink put on the paper. I used a cheap brand of Glossy Photograph paper by Picture Expert.
Old paint brush
Bone folder or something to press the print into the HSG.
Some other paper to stick onto the base paper. I used vintage sheet music, the waste from cutting out all those paper dolls and a bit of tissue paper from a McCalls Dress pattern.

Transfer 1 - was done when the sheet music had just been stuck on the base paper, so it was still wet. I'm calling this method Wet-in-Wet. Put another thickish layer of HSG, about the size of your image, using the brush onto the wet music paper. Then put the picture, picture side to the wet HSG and press with the bone folder. The HSG will squeeze out the sides, just scrape it up and pop it back in the pot. NOTE. I chose to cut the main figure out from the photo first as I did not want the rest to be in my image. Left to dry 24hours overnight. Now use a wet finger and start to rub the back of the image. Not too much water, careful as you don't want to get the rest of the picture wet. Keep going, I was surprised how quickly and cleanly the backing came away.

 Transfer 3 above - This one was a mistake in the printing, I got the wrong side of the paper on top when I printed :-). So rather than waste this I thought I would try it and see what happened. Music paper has dried overnight, then stuck on a piece of the dress pattern tissue paper. Put on some HSG about the size of your image and place image side onto HSG. Use bone folder to press firmly and leave to dry. same process with the water and rubbing to get backing off. Well it did transfer, it's very transparent, but if you rubbed too hard to get the backing off the picture came off too. So not a great result. Also I suffered with impatience and did not let this one dry so long.

 Transfer 2 above - I let the music paper dry overnight, then use the HSG as Transfer 1 above and allow to dry. Then water again as above. This one was pretty good just lost a bit of the face. I think it again needed longer to dry and either a bit more HSG or press harder with bone folder.

 Inkjet Photo Transfer straight onto the watercolour paper. Spread on the HSG and put your image on picture side down. Use the bone folder to press down firmly. This time I used the complete photo. Dried over night and then removed backing with water and rubbing with fingers. This is the best transfer.

A really close, close up so you can see only a little loss of the image.

OK here's what I got from this. Wet-in-Wet image was the best on the music paper. Image 3 was onto dress pattern tissue paper, so this could have changed the result.

Image 2 was onto dried music sheet. It was 2nd best transfer.

Image on the watercolour paper was the very best, but I can't always use that as the base because I'm going to use this method on collage which will always be on different paper.

Hope the above makes sense if not message me and I will try to help. Have a go at image transfer it's a very handy thing to add a different layer to your work.

Image above is a photo ready to use as a transfer. Why not grab this and use it in your art. It's out of copyright so you can use it as much as you like. I think the head would make a great fairy face.

Thursday I went out with my friends Jennifer and Peter. Jennifer had a cushion in the exhibition Fleece to Fibre, put on by Mid-Essex Spinning and Weaving Guild. This was at the very splendid Layer Marney Tower.

Jennifer's cushion is woven from fleece she has spun and dyed green herself. She even bred the sheep the fleece came from, a real cottage industry. It is in picture 1 below.

Super exhibition, very high standard of work and great food too.

Featured on Friday

Hi followers and new lookers in. I am going to be doing a feature on another blog or a new article , picture or something of interest that I have found during the week. I do hope you all enjoy this Featured on Friday.

This week it's the turn of Inspiration Avenue Blog pop on over and have a look. This month they are going to have a Fairy blog party. Now I've never been to a blog party before so I'm dusting of my best fairy party wings and will be there. Hope you will too.

I was very excited to be asked to join this site via my Etsy shop. The whole idea of the blog is to inspire artists, you can be any type of artist, and at any stage in your art journey. The best thing is there is an ever changing programme of challenges, tutorials and other fun items.

If you are on Etsy Inspiration Avenue have a Team there too.

Click on the pink links and you will be whisked away to a new page.

Have fun this weekend and I be will posting some new works soon. I'm also in Boot Camp to learn how to make better use of blogger, from Joan the beginner to Joan the nearly expert this week :-)

Sold, Sold, Sold !!!

Just been to the Pop-Up Shop in Chelmsford today. Good news I have sold 4 x Pictures 1 x Box and a big deposit left on one mannequin.

All the above sold at the Pop-Up Shop

This one sold to my friend Gilli, who has sent it to her cousin in America. Apparently Dragon Flies are very popular over there. This is the 2nd Dragon Fly to go to the USA.

My Etsy shop is now looking very empty! I have taken all my new work to the Pop-Up Shop. So I now have to work really hard to get some more Etsy stock done :-)

Yesterday was a busy day and my diet was dreadful. Fish and chips for lunch with my friends from The Women's Branch of the Royal British Legion, you can see what they do here  Then I met up with my Granddaughter Leah and she wanted Kentucky fried Chicken, well I could not let her eat alone could I? Now where did I put the elastic waist enlargers????

Welcome to another new follower, Devata you are very welcome here.

More Art for the Pop Up Shop

Hopefully going to drop some more work off at the Pop up Shop in Chelmsford.

Three collage and Mixed Media works on canvas on the 1930 fashion theme.

 

ABC of 1930's Fashion 8 x 8 narrow edge canvas

 !930's Fur & Fabric 8x8 deep edge canvas

Fashionable Small Ads. 11 1/2 x 11 1/2 deep edge canvas

And this one is a bit off the wall, on a very textured deep edge 8 x 8 canvas.

15 Adaptors - enlarge it for a better view :-)

Every item came from a different source, S Z Sakall was a Hungarian character actor 1940's - 1950's.I've used Clear Tar Gel to make a mock glass in the watch face. Why I collect this junk I don't know and where my head lives sometimes, well I really don't know either. But it's art and I had fun!!!