More Transfers- Fabric, Paint and Gesso

I got the horse image from some deteriorating fabric that was on a box spring that we had been using as a door for our greenhouse. It was sheer and fragile so I glued it to some canvas that I found in the garage of the house I had bought back in the 90's. I'm talking serious reuse here!

The wooden door-like image was made using a skin transfer technique that I learned in Caterina Giglio's online class (which is still going on if you would like to participate)

This is an ATC (Artist trading card- 2.5 " x 3.5") on gessoed canvas.

The image is a window from a photo I took in Havana.

Practicing some new techniques here.

I allowed a little of the reverse side of this vintage magazine image to remain.

You're looking at two pictures  from the same page against a vintage  physics book page. (the girl on the swing and part of a wicker basket)

This is what happens when your newly purchased special paint spills. You try to use it up on some of your paper that is nearby.

The image from a vintage Grey's Anatomy book also is showing both sides of one page. The text is from one side and the diagram is from the other....magic!

I had a stack of gessoed pages from an old ring bound cookbook. I sewed them together when I realized that the gesso curled the thin pages horribly.

From my trip to Angkor Wat.

 Against muslin with some sparkly paint to enhance.

I'm enjoying pairing this windmill pic that I took in Douglas, Arizona with other images.

The buddha photo was most likely taken on one of my Thailand trips.

This photo was taken in Burma and the piece here is the result of a failure that worked to my advantage. (which I guess isn't a failure after all!)

I've been making some great messes in the studio with my newly learned techniques.
It's always been a part of my process which is to do things in a hurry and go at  my projects with a fury which results in an explosive mess. Just ask my mother or my husband what the kitchen looks like when I'm in the food production zone! I'm fast though, really fast. I recall that being remarked upon when I took my printmaking class back in the nineties as well.


You can view more of my recent transfers here  at La Dolce Vita's blog. 

Eyes In the Foreground~ Ink In the Background

Dusty desert background calls for a roadrunner

I like this already in a less is more sort of way.

Just showing off this guy on the background, he won't live here.

Believe it or not I was trying for a tiki head here!

Dog head floating above the mountains.

I had been remarking the other day that it seems that any sort of craft that has eyes on it is an easy seller.

When I first started making beads I tried my hand at making beads with faces but I ended up following a path that took me in a more organic nature. Perhaps because I didn't have the fine sculptural steady hand required for fabulous figural work and wasn't in the particular head space to devote the time to improve my skills. I was getting good feedback on the beads I was making and felt satisfied with the improvement I was making with that style. Or perhaps is that the caffeine I liked to imbibe for energy was at odds with my nervous system and I just shake too much for well placed eyes. They ended up coming out rather Simpsonesque.

I decided to give them another try the other day and maybe this time I'll put more time into developing them. I was thinking of doing some mask type faces and maybe it will behoove me to map out some of the design elements in advance even though that is SO unlike me!

The backgrounds are gessoed cards from some promotional that we got in the mail. I thought I would experiment with my new inks on them.

Here is a tutorial that Tim Holz has on using his alcohol inks. I was using some of my distressed ink pads as well with these backgrounds.

I'll continue embellishing some of these pages but it was a good lesson in familiarizing myself with some new products and techniques.

I have to give some credit to my friend Heather from Mountain Heather Creations for my mountain design elements in a couple of these. She makes awesome hats with a mountain and moon or sun motif.