Child's Play

A piece made with images from a brittle and crumbling children's book from the late 1800's, a porcelain doll arm, printed muslin, vintage photo, brass, found burlap, copper charm, book images, patinated frame, shoeshine on gessoed board.

Image and imagination

"Down on the Farm"

I had a chance to go through a great drawer at an antique shop in Tucson while I was waiting for a friend that needed a ride home from the doctor.

I found some nice vintage images to play with and try out an image transfer technique that I had read about. It involves ironing freezer paper to muslin and putting it through the printer. It worked pretty well except for some bunching on one sheet that didn't have a totally stiff edge ( that can be remedied by taping it)

I had recently gotten some tapa paper at a garage sale by disassembling some place mats which proved to be a nice excavation when I found that the paper had been formed on pieces of old Pacific Cement bags.

I also picket up a slew of old rusty tiles near our property recently that looked like perfect surfaces for some altered art.

I addition to that I just had to buy an old wooden shoe shine kit at the thrift store, thinking that perhaps I could use the shoe polish as a surface treatment. The very next day I read about Don Madden of Fully Flummoxed doing the very same thing on The Altered Page feature "Secret Sunday".

I was pleased with the results of shoe shine on a gessoed board. It came out with a wax shine that I could scratch up for a bit of distress.