Quilts: More experiments is Transparency

I have become somewhat obsessive in my quest for a combination of transparency and quilt. The process' have sparked my imagination more than anything has for a long time - and it is a quest that will take some play time and experiments for some time to come!

This face began as a thrift store sheer curtain panel....one of those polyester things that were so in vogue at one point and, who knows, maybe they still are! I thought it would be fun to see how much of an image I could get on it. I used Golden Digital Medium in Clear Semi Gloss and was rather surprised that it would really well .. better, in fact, that a lot of other base materials I have tried recently! Imagine that! Wonder if I can find some more sheer panels cheap now?! Sorry about the blue cast on this photo - it was a cloudy day and Photo-shopping it seem to just make it worse so I gave up.

These are two separate images. The one on the left is made from the the sheer polyester curtain panel  and the one on the right  was printed on Lutradur Lightweight.  I am doing a couple of small pieces for C&T Publishing - using some of the products that they sell in, I hope, a variety of unusual ways. The Lutradur is from them and the face, which I have called 'Balance' is going to be sent to them. Sure hope that they will like it! Since they gave me the product I added C&T's link for for it but Pellon makes it so it's available from other places too.  C&T has some great things going on so it is worth a visit to their website to have a look! They offer "give-away" promotions & coupons - plus they have a great newsletter that you can sign up for. I am also playing around with another Lutradur product that C&T sent to me - black Lutradur!  I'll have to show you some of the thoughts I am working on using the black Lutradur in another post! As an aside - Joggles, one of my favorite mixed media emporiums, also sells Lutradur in a variety of weights.

Here's the full face. I used kimono silk from Ah!Kimono for the borders and I am totally happy with the way the transparency effect I was able to get using the Lutradur.  I still have a little bit of primping and ironing to do on this piece but all in all I am happy with the experiment and hope that C&T will be too !  Next up I will be making another small quilt similar to this using the curtain panel print! I am enthralled with the concept of transparency & fabrics and can't wait to see where my experiments take me next!

New Hand Painted Cat Cards For Some Special Friends

Here a few newly hand painted cards. I used with a combination of inks: J.Herbin inks , J.Herbin Calligraphy inks, J. Herbin Pearlescent inks, Dr.Martin's India inks - and just a touch of Golden Interference Red/Gold. These will be off to new owners this morning. One a "huury back" rather than a "good bye" for a favorite doctor who is leaving and one for his nurse who will, once again, have to 'train' another new doc. The third card goes to the great, friendly people at the front desk of our Medical Center who somehoe seem to manage to always answer those blasted phones with a smile! Did I mention they get home made sugar cookies too?!

More Magic With Golden Digital Grounds

I've been continuing my playtime with Golden Digital Grounds and am finding them utterly addicting. I keep thinking about new things I want to try making with them. I am also having a fine 'ole time experimenting with using 'skins' & 'no skins'. This is a playground I may not ever want to leave I fear!

"Be Peace" was made by using two coats of Golden Digital Ground For Non-Porous Surfaces on a layer of silk organza. I printed an image of a photo that I had taken some years ago. I hand- lettered the words, layered the organza onto a piece of vintage kimono silk, added a post card back & then sewed around the card. I used a 30 wt thread on this card . My favorite thread for this purpose is Sulky Blendables 12 wt thread. That being said I am going to go on a hunt for something similar weight from my fav companies, Superior Threads & Wonderfil threads. Maybe I just love this specific Sulky thread and that's a good thing too!

One of the interesting things about this method - not using an acrylic skin underneath - is the organza has an almost holographic effect and changes colors depening on the way the light hits it!

These are my next experiments - ready for printing. Top is cotton voile coated with Digital Ground For Non-Porus Surfaces on a skin of matte medium, the piece in the middle is bleached harem cloth with Digital Gound Matte White on a skin of self leveling gel medium & the bottom piece is silk chiffon coathed in Digital Ground For Non-Porus Surfaces on a very thin skin of clear tar gel.

Go here for Golden digital ground information.
Go here for Golden acrylic mediums information.

In the photo above you can see how sheer the chiffon will be (front)- and the voile not far behind (on the top) in sheerness. The harem cloth (middle) with white digital ground will be opaque rather than having a transparent quality.

Up close on the cotton voile - double click for up close look

Here (above) you can see chiffon over voile

How thin this skin is with the chiffon!

I have to go and print now! I am also trying some other light fabrics with the Digital Ground For Non-Porous Surface - which has become my favorite of all! Hopefully tomorrow I will have some more experiments to share with you!

If You Want To Learn More About Acrylic Paints,Mediums & Gels These Two Books Are Perfect!

These two books were written by Chris Cozen who is a Golden 'Working Artist. When I first noticed them they sounded as if they would be perfect for me - since they addressed all of the things that I was specifically interested in. I read the reviews & several people indicated that this is a very slim book - almost a pamphlet,that the photos were small & that the author did not mention that other products could be substitued (why would a Golden working artist promote another companies products though?!). After reading more I decided that I would wait to spend the money on these two books - and got some other titles instead.

The other books that I got (one of them is by another Golden working Artist Patti Bradycalled "Rethinking Acrylic") are excellent & I am glad that I added them to my library. I was still , however, drawn to these books - so I ordered them. I am SO glad that I did! These two books - and yes they really are more like 50 odd pages of a large pamphlet - are packed with exactly the information I wanted about transferring images and using the wide variety of available acrylic mediums. Yes, the photos are small - but they are quite suitable to the the information that is being presented. The lay-out is excellent. Pictures of what mediums & gels work to achieve a particular result. Clear, concise & to-the-point. I highly recommend these two titles if you want to know about using acrylic paints, mediums & gels to the best advantage. I found a "recipe" for a glaze in "Altered Surfaces" that works besutifully! Thus far each technique that I have tried using theses books for inspiration has been a success & I am far more confident in my use of mediums and gels now too! These books are available through Amazon, your local independent book seller & good art supply places.

Experimenting With Golden Silverpoint & Digital Matte White Grounds

Yesterday's mail brought the long back-ordered Golden Silverpoint ground. I had ordered it in a fit of experimentation lust quite awhile ago. DickBlick was out of it and one thing led to another and I forgot it until it arrived. I also had bought some Golden Digital Ground in matte white that I had been wanting to try out - so I tried them at the same time.

I had never heard of Silverpoint - "what the heck is this"" I thought? Ah!Something to to explore! Silver point, it turns out, has a long and noble history in the field of art and drawing. Who knew? There is a wonderful website called silverpoint web that will tell you all you want to know. about this amazing art form. One thing I know is that I have to hustle up some sort of real tool to try this stuff with. My experiements were interesting, but I know that the real thing will be awesome. Golden has a great write up about this new product in their publication "Just Paint", which, if you love to paint and draw, you really do need to check out and subscribe to! Golden makes an amazing array of ground products. I am just beginning to really experiment with some of their gessos and grounds - so you can look for more posts about them in the near future. I am really pretty excited about some of the things I have been playing with - things that I have wanted to try out for some time. Playtime really lifts my spirits - and gets me going! I love to try new things and learn new techniques - it's the gadget girl in me I guess.

The photo below:
I covered some scrap printer paper with some Silverpoint ground and then grabbed the things that were on my desk to try out. The top of the examples have ground and the bottom portion (where you can see I taped) are plain. I simply HAVE to get a real tool for this!

Below: left to right:
an embossing tool that I use for metal ,a paper clip (not reall visible!), a berol Prismacolor pencil, a Lamy Safari fountain pen with a medium nib, a Berol 6B pencil, a Staedtler Triplus marker - very fine nib),a Berol mechanical pencil (left line using just the metal nib and right line using the lead). The embossing tool was nothing special but at least the makes showed up. The colored pencil, ink, pencil, marker and mechanical pencils all worked. The ground made a lovely smooth surface for any sort of medium & encouraged a bit of spread for ink and marker. The pencils just wrote super smoothly. Have I said i need a real tool for trying this?!

Below are some plain copy paper prints I tried:

Left to right: plain copy paper, Golden Digital Ground for inkjet printeres in matte white, Golden Silverpoint ground. Obviously the Siverpoint ground really is not effective for inkjet printing. Perhaps not as obvious is the improvement in the color when using the digital ground. The volors really are more rich and vibrant. Keep in mind this was printed on regular old printer paper and I did not adjust the settings - so that's actually a lot for the ground to achieve with no special adjustments made to photo or printer.

Below is a bit more of a close up of the plain copy on the left and the digital ground on the right. The colors are much better with the ground - so I know there will be more of them in my paint box to try out as soon as I can afford to order them. I hope Blick will have another sale soon so that I can get some more to try!

More Golden Play

This little piece was not quite dry when I took the photos of the other cards that I posted today. I used the same gesso techniques - but some used gold leaf rather than paint to emphasize the gessoed areas. I made this for a challenge - but unfortunately I no longer remember which place the challenge was! Ohhhh - this is bad when it was only a week or so ago and I have forgotten where the idea came from ! I remember that the blog owner said that she had contemplated not doing a challenge this month because everyone gets so busy - but she decided to post it anyway. You needed to use a recognizable part of the picture of the girl, which I chose to paint rathe than print,cut & glue. The prompt for this challenge was 'beginnings'. Anyone know where this challenge was?? Anyway, I think this card, larger than the others, turned ot well. and I like it I enjoyed doing the painting of the face and I liked the layers on the paper, the gesso and the gold leaf. I sure have been having fun lately...now I must need to buy some more Ginko for that memory lapse!