Hey Guys, Have You Tried This Technique?

Wow, I'm pretty tired from this weekend--alot of bloggers out there with some pretty inspiring studios--some of them intimidated me a bit , but you know what?--I still love where this blogger creates!  I consider my art room to be  my assistant helping me when I'm  "stuck".  I have everything on hand that I need in the places where I know  they are. I think by organizing my room and decluttering it has really helped me.  I guess it depends on which is the best way for you--messy? or neat?--whatever!!

And at my party I showed you my work in progress, and I finished it, and I'm very happy with it, although it was very hard to get a good shot of this because it's  a very dimensional piece--

I'm going to show  you a step-by-step of how I put this together.  I started out with this very cool canvas that I found  (with the help of Suzi)  at Dick Blick--

This is a 9 x 9 canvas with very deep sides--2 3/8". I love these--I bought them in the 4-pack.  And then what I did, was turn it over, because I wanted it to be more like a shadobox.   Then I collaged some of my papers and prints on it and also added paint.  Basically, I just covered every part of the canvas.

These are the different pieces that I used to put into it.  You see that yellow block to the right?  (vintage child's block--got it at the antique show), well it was the perfect height to elevate the main heart from the surface of the canvas.  So the technique that I wanted to show you is a fairly popular one. It's using aluminum foil--so simple.  If you know how to use gel medium, then you can do this.  I say gel medium, because that's what I used--you  can  use  any type of glue.  And there are a few ways you can apply the foil also.  The way that I did it this time--I crinkled up a piece of  foil and  then opened  it back up and laid it flat and then applied it with the gel medium onto the larger heart.

Another way of doing it, is to not crinkle the foil and apply it to the surface with extra heavy gel medium and while the gel is still wet, you can take the blunt tip of a paint brush and make designs  into it  or whatever you want.  You just have to be a little careful, because it can tear.  And then another way is to glue down embellishments onto your suface, and then apply the foil crinkled or uncrinkled. You'll get the imprints of whatever you embellished--it also gives great texture..  So after I put the foil on and it was dry, I just put some alcohol inks and acrylic metallic paint on it.  I always put a gloss varnish over that--you get the look of metal--very cool,  very easy, and very inexpensive. Alot of  journalers (is that a word?)  have used this technique for the cover of their journals. And if you click on this for the close-up, you can really see the texture.

So after I assembled the collage, I put the final touch on:

I used a metal picture frame and attached a piece of jewelry that I found in my stash.

And before I was even thinking of making this collage, I was using my Golden paints on something else, and I had some left over, and there aint no way I'm wasting this expensive stuff, so I just painted myself up a paper, which happened to work perfectly for the border and smaller heart.

So if you look at the jewelry piece--a pendant, actually, fairly large--and the paper--they match perfectly.  In person, they really are the same colors, right down to the swirls.  And I painted this paper with no particular thought in mind, and  I didn't even remember that I had this pendant until I found it afterwards.  But you know who did know that I had it?-- Clara!

For those of you who don't know, Clara is my muse.  You can read about her here, and then here  (the image on this one is hanging with me in the studio), and then here.  So, I have to say Thank You to Clara for this part!

And also, I started a new class--not like I have anything else to do.  You know when you go to a restaurant with that delicious buffet, and you have to get EVERYTHING, and your plate is just overflowing?  Well, that's my life right now. So I'm glad that this  is an ongoing class.  It's with Sharon again at  All Norah's Art--

Faces in Technicolor.  I'm going to have to put  this class on hold  until late July.  I have 2 shows back to back next month, and next week, I'm taking a mini vacation.  But this post is getting long, so I'll tell you about it in my next post--stay tuned.

And if you missed my studio tour party, its the post right below this.