Tote 1

Selected a stencil and took bag to the back porch spray box. Used yellow spray paint and added stencil design. Let dry between back/front/sides.

Brought in and started adding paint details.

Book Pages

I don't actually keep track of how many layers on a page, or number of pages done in a day ... but would assume somewhere around 10 layers today. Slow ... did a couple at the hospital waiting for Nikki yesterday ... the lettering can be done almost anywhere.

I've stopped starting new pages .. starting to get a bit bored with this stage and figure I'll continue working on this through Saturday and then move on to the next stage ...

Book Pages

Continuing along. I managed not to start any new pages ... ie., first layer today. I think if I just continue with 2nd - 4th of 5th layers on all the pages currently in progress, I might finish up by the weekend.

I have to go to Slidell tomorrow and I'll make a stop by Hobby Lobby for some sewing supplies. I'd like to pickup a couple border type stencils (yes, I know I can make my own), and some heavy duty sewing thread for taking on the next set of placemats ... future experiments on canvas.

Scavangered through the shed this afternoon and came out with some hardware cloth and sandpaper.. Tried it for pattern with spray paint ... It didn't lay quite flat enough and the pattern was not impressive. The sandpaper was interesting, makes nice lines through the paint, particular when the paper is placed over a piece of wood before sanding. I've never tried any of the salt techniques out there ... thinking of trying that tomorrow.

Tote 1

This is the black tote bag picked up at Saturdays' yard sale.

The book (Canvas Remix) said to apply one thick coat of paint as the base. Well, that obviously was if working on a white piece of canvas. The top 3/4th of this bag is very black, and it took a sum total of 4 coats of red paint to get it over it's black beginning.

Stuffed the inside with newspaper so it was easier to paint.

Faux Beach Glass

Did I mention that I'm still making faux beach glass. I keep thinking I'm going to stop doing this, however, a couple of the neighbors have been bringing me their wine & liquor bottles. I'll open the garage door and there will be a bottle or two. So, I bring them in. If I get too many of the same color, I send off to recycle. The rest I save. Periodically, I'll break up a few and line them up for the tumbler. I'll usually make a couple weeks of glass pieces at a time.

Discovered this morning that I've worked through all the prepared glass and later tonight I'll go out and break up another 5 or 6 bottles. Guess I'm going to have to call the neighbors and tell them to stop ... breaking these bottles really isn't something I enjoy.

Presenting Lillian Eve

No Art on Sunday as we were standing by anticipating the arrival of our first grandchild ... Lillian Eve ... who joined our family at 4:45 a.m. on 7/28 at 6 pounds, 14 oz.

Book Pages

Although we only had 2 hours sleep last night, didn't seem to make since sleeping away the afternoon .... also didn't make since to clean house while tired, so continued making pages.

More of the same, but seem to have branched into a 4th book. Went back and did some more spray paint today ... branching out here; multiple colors on one page . .. WOW (lol). !!!

Yard Sale Saturday, July 26, 2008

Mandeville ... between Koop Rd and Mandeville Trailheads ... with a detour down Soult. The signs were more numerous today than the 1 hour time. But, at $3.85/gal ... not going back out after picking up Beau.

Finds:

• Scrabble Game. Letters to the letter box, and the letter holders to the block box.
• Box of Highland Transparency Film. Excellent timing as I'm wanting to play with image transfer as part of the Book Pages and these are used in one of the techniques.
• 7 scarves. I was thinking yesterday that I'd been collecting scraves for purposes of making fabric wall pieces and now I'm painting paper (moving towards) canvas for the same purpose. Had thought that maybe I should discontinue collecting the scarves, then came across these great ones today for like 10 to 25 cents each. Obviously the collection continues.
• 3 racelets, 2 necklaces, 2 earrings and one angel hanging thingie. For the jewelry pieces box.
• A 2-oz container of brown oxide acrylic paint.
• 2 Canvas tote bags. I'm going to wash these and take them into the studio for some grafatti painting.
  A big stack of book/sheet music and other assorted papers. I'm not sure all of what's in here ... several binders and two walmart bags filled with what appears to be sheet music. I'm going to have to sit down and go through it ... an interesting lot. Yesterday I used a couple sheets out of my current sheet music folder and although I thought I should have more around here, wasn't sure where. So ... this should last me the rest of my life.

Book Pages

Enjoyed a good three hours in the studio today.

Did some of the usual stenciling, but experimened with some plastic doillies and a old shoe sole I found in a parking lot (had come off the original shoe and is now a part of my 'textures' toolbox). (( In fact, I'm on an official hunt around the house for textures )).

Worked through a couple more pages in the "Collage with Color" book. Tried spritzing and although I got an interesting result, can't say it looks anything like the book examples. I'll give it another try though. Also did some splatter work ... flinging paint onto waxed paper and then laying gently on the sheet of paper. Also quite fun ... in fact, the only part of this that has not been enjoyable is the frequent trips to the kitchen to wash the brushes, stamps, stencils, etc. I continue to create 1st step of new pages as I'll need them for photo transfer and text printing. On all the others (perhaps 50), I'm at either the 2nd or third steps. I'm no longer following the original guideline from the Canvas Remix book ... just doing what I want.

Book Pages

Last night I read in one of the magazines that nice effects could be made by put colored tissue paper on wet paper and letting it dry. Soaked a sheet of paper , layed on vivid purple paper and left to dry overnight. Well, there was some color transfer, but I'd call the color pale purple. Interesting though the the piece of tissue paper seemed to be just as vivid. Folded it back up and put it back in the tissue paper bin.

Continued painting on the book pages. Today I pulled out the 'Collage with Color' book by Jane Davies. This is a much better book that the Canvas Remix; better detail in pictures as well as descriptions. Much was a repeat, pallet knife, wet on wet, spatter. It was fun, however, and depending upon the page, I'm somewhere between layer 1 & 3. As I have leftover bits of paint I start a new sheet. I find it intriguing as the feel of a page changes with each layer and I'm working hard not to plan to far ... just move on to the next page with a corresponding color for that page.

Book Pages

I've decided to take whatever amount of time interests me and play with this paint process. I'm paint pages in the scrapbooks ... now seem to be working among three of them. I have several more, should they become necessary. I really like having them in these books ... can easily flip through the pages and they are consolidated ... versus lying all over my studio space. My current plan is to work through paint techniques in the various books and magazines I've accumulated. I'll layer them on top of each other in the scrapbook pages .... forming grafatti, I guess. When I get tired of this, I'll decide where to go next ... how I'd like to use pages, or not.

I started working through 'Canvas Remix' today. I bought this book off Amazon last week, as it is by Alisa Burke, the artist who sparked my interest with the magazine article on Grafatti painting. The book is quite a disappointment. The paint techniques are mostly a rehash of the common ones in almost every book, along with some that are so incomplete they are difficult to follow. The projects give one just enough info to trully get into trouble. But, since I spent the dollars, decided to start with these techniques. Again, nothing really new ... but practice with blending and spattering proved entertaining. Added bits to several of the pages and created a first start on another half dozen.

Placemats

Pulled out the jar of Polyacrylic and applied two coats to the top of each placemat. This is the first I've used this product on a fabric base. I was surprised at how flexible it remained. I suppose I thought that Polyacrylic would make the mats somewhat stiff.

I'm going to put these on the table tomorrow and we'll start some stress testing. (although I'm not expecting any issues).

In a day or two, I'm planning on cutting some more canvas and giving this another try. I like that idea that other than the decision of the initial color that goes down, the rest just happens ... good design or bad.

Grafitti Pages

Studio & Back Porch. I'm sure Beau's going to be thinking there just isn't a boundary as to where my studio mess will spread.

Between the two scrapbooks, I've probably filled up 35, maybe 40 pages with paint. Decided today to play with the spray paint. (Bought 3 more cans at the mart yesterday). Moved the stencils outside and setup the paint box. I didn't do a count, but probably 12-14 pages.

Placemats

I'd layed these out in the middle of the studio floor last night. Spent a good part of the day stepping around them ...

Added some triangle shapes in a sage green color. Decided this would be a good color to paint the backs .. besides, its a good match with several of my tablecloths.

Layed back out on the floor; seems to be a shortage of table space going on. And for the questions Beau was dieing to ask ... why paint the backs. Well ... because I can't imagine considering something finished without it being finished from all angles.

Placemats

Set myself up a spray paint box out of a big plastic tub ... it's new useful designation. Took it outside with the placemats and, using gold spray paint, added 6 stars to each of the placemats. Let dry a couple hours.

Added 'dinner' and 'lunch' to each mat in dark blue. Added black Smiley Faces and Circles (from the cooking spray lid). Added a Japenese stamp (not sure of the meaning) in green.

Mixed some light brown and glaze and spread some around. Used a light lime green and an onion sack and added a boxy type design. Lightly outlined the stars with permenant ink. Took back outside and put another light mist of gold spray paint on each (inside the new designated box, of course).

I'm not warm and fuzzy yet. Think they need a semi-transparent borber, and something more. Will re-evaluate tomorrow.

Tote 2

-I picked this cloth canvas bag up yesterday from Hobby Lobby. It, being white, should be a much easier start than the 1st black bag.
Book, Canvas Remix said to apply a wash to the inside of the bag ... which I did. I teal blue type color mixed 1/4 paint to 3/4th water. Got a little overexuburant with the wash and end up with quite a mess. ... splatter all over table top, on the tile floor, down the front of my frock. So, had to spend the next hour cleaning. I admit the cleaning off the desktop was something I was really needing to do, but didn't much appreciate having to get out the mop, because then one can't just mop the one spot. Next time I have to apply a wash to fabric, I'll take it outside to the paint box.
Let the wash dry, turned the bag right side out and applied acrylic paint in the same teal blue and a shed red. (Call it shed red as it's the paint leftover from painting the shed). This went much smoother than the black bag. One heavy coat seems to be doing it.

I'm going to work the 1st and 2nd bag together ... Different colors, but together.

Placemats

Decided to give the Grafatti a try on canvas. Thought a good starting point would be to create something useable and then give it a bit of a stress test. Placemats ... with potential design beyond tomato gravy..

• Pulled out roll of canvas (literally .. kept under the bed).
• Measured and cut 4 pieces of primed canvas at 19" x 14". Pulled out the iron and ironed in the edge and the 1" border around the piece.
• Set up the sewing machine and all was not well. Needle didn' want to go through the three layers of canvas. Changed the needle to heavy and then had trouble with tension and thread breaking. So, moped around a bit and then headed off to Chili's for family dinner, where my SIL suggested that perhaps I also needed a heavier thread. UH ... did I mention that I've never been much of a sewer and I find it quite interesting that I keep getting drawn this way. (was actually looking at patterns online the other night). So, lacking heavier thread and no local store to buy thread ...
• Pulled out the iron-on hem tape and used it to handle the seams. It seemed to work okay, but if I should do this again, think I'd rather sew them.
• Brought in some red and orange paint from the shed. Think this should make a bright foundation for the start. I've not painted much on canvas before and found that it took two coats to get good coverage.

Layed it out to dry overnight.

Yard Sale Saturday, July 19, 2008

There nothing like 90 deg. temp and 90% humidity at 7am to discourage folks from having yard sales.
Another slow morning. Made a stop at 5 yard sales.
-- 3 scrapbooks. The paper in these books are not quite as heavy as 90 wt. watercolor paper, but certainly more substantial than constructions type paper. I like that it has a pourous quality, rather than smooth. Going to try this for the painted grafatti paper.
-- A box of rubber stamps. These stamps seem to be largely space related. Not that I'm a big space buff, but for the painte papers, not sure that it much matters. AND, I really like these plastic boxes. I'm dumping the stamps into the Stamp box (of course), and I'm going to use this plastic box for those scrapbooking sissors that I now seem to have 5 pairs of.

Grafitti Pages

Did I mention what fun I had making the previous batch of pages. Decided I was going to try to make more of them in the scrapbooks. Be a great way to keep them together ... versus laying around here and there ... contained.
So, here and there as I'm doing other things, I'm going into the studio and painting up a page and then putting i by the fan to dry. Then, 1/2 hour or so later, repeat .... repeat ... repeat.

Book Pages

These book pages are becoming all time-consuming. I find that I'm out in the studio playing with them every time I get the opportunity. Housework is not happening; I felt hostile about having to grocery shop .. I just want to paint.
I continue to work on the book pages. I enjoy the spray paint. I keep adding new colors .. I've a good 12 cans going now. I like to have two books open at the same time to receive the spray paint. One book with spray over stencil, then pull the stencil off and lay the excess paint face down on the second book. Wonderful smudges.
These pages are going to be ongoing for quite some time. I've found I'm happiest with them between 6 - 10 layers. That number times the 4 books in progress ... well, quite awhile.
I found myself thinking this afternoon that I'm getting quite comfortable here and that I might be ready to move on to a larger surface.