More Infusions, Garden and Kitties

Infusions

Today I have been back in the studio for the first time for ages – what with the work being done on the kitchen and other activities, I have been very busy, and in between too tired to do anything, but I was determined to continue with my Infusions experiments today.

I am nearly at the end of the samples that I am going to create, and today I spent most of the time working with Infusions combined with white fluid acrylic paint and gesso.

Here are the materials I used for creating a marbled effect using white Pebeo fluid acrylic paint and Infusions – Sleight Blue and In the Navy from set 2.

I painted some of the acrylic paint onto the large acrylic block and sprinkled on the Infusions in both colours, and then spritzed it with water to activate the Infusions. I pressed the card down onto this and made sure good contact had been made all over, and then pulled it off, and these are the results.

Top left: the first impression. Top right, a second impression after spritzing the block with more water. Bottom left, third impression, ditto, and middle right, fourth impression, ditto. By bottom right, fifth impression, much of the interest had gone because the Infusions had blended too much into the somewhat watered down paint that remained on the block. I had to press the card repeatedly onto the block for this one, to ensure complete coverage. However, to get five impressions from one block is pretty good! The first two are pretty similar, but on close examination you can see a bit more texture from the paint on the first one. They get more muted and subtle with each impression. You could do this technique equally well directly onto a non-stick craft sheet or a gelli plate, I should think.

Next, I did the direct-to-paper method of marbling with acrylic paint.

In this case, I painted a layer of the white fluid acrylic onto two pieces of card and sprinkled the Infusions in the same two colours on top. Spritzing with water activated the Infusions and they started to flow. For the first one, after spritzing, I blotted it very lightly and then left it to stand for a few minutes, and then dried it with the heat gun.

For the second one, I alternated heating with the heat gun and further spritzing, and added a bit more of the Infusions half way through, which gave a slightly stronger effect.

I think on balance I prefer the more subtle effect created by the printing method.

I then moved on to some further experiments with gesso, beginning with spreading gesso through a stencil (my own honeycomb stencil which I cut myself). For these pieces, I used Terracotta Infusions from set 2.

I spread the gesso through the stencil using a palette knife, being careful not to be too careful with it! By this I mean I wanted a fairly distressed, incomplete look.

After doing this, I immediately turned the stencil over and blotted off the excess gesso onto another piece of card, to get a fainter, reverse stencil effect. I dried the gesso on both samples, using my heat gun, and then sprinkled on the Infusions and spritzed them with water.

The gesso acted as a resist. I spritzed and added a bit more Infusions and tilted the card around to get the Infusions to flow between the raised gesso. I particularly like the subtle effect of the second sample, with the reverse stencil effect.

I then remembered a technique I used ages ago which I really liked – boiled gesso! I spread some gesso onto a piece of card with a palette knife, deliberately keeping it pretty rough with different thicknesses of gesso across the card, and then, before it had a chance to dry, immediately heated it with my old, high-powered heat gun held pretty close so that the gesso boiled and bubbled up. Once it was dry, I fanned it to cool it, and then used my fingers to squash the bubbles down onto the card to stop the tops of them flaking off. You get a gorgeous texture this way.

Adding some of the Terracotta Infusions from set 2 and spritzing it with water, this is the result I got. Pretty good!

Here’s a detail shot where I tried to show the texture a bit better. Hard to see in the photo but I love it! This would look good with a touch of gilding wax on some of the raised parts, I think.

My final samples today were done with cling film.

I cut a piece of cling film larger than two pieces of card and spread it out but not too flat. I sprinkled on two colours of Infusions – Violetta and In the Navy, both from set 2, and spritzed them well with water.

I then took the two pieces of card and placed them down on top of the spritzed Infusions.

They immediately started to curl up, but it didn’t matter. I flattened them down with my fingers, and carefully lifted the whole thing up, gathering the cling film a little at the sides so that the Infusions wouldn’t run off too much, and turned it over. Using my fingers, I scrunched up the clingfilm to create a nice texture across the two pieces of card and walked away and left it – how hard is that!! – with this technique you can’t peel off the clingfilm until the paint is dry. Patience…

Later…

The Infusions had dried by bed time and I gently peeled off the clingfilm, and this is the result.

I think these came out really cool! Definitely a technique to repeat.

I discovered most of these these techniques online, but I’m afraid I can’t remember who did what, so I give a general thanks to everyone for blazing the trail before me.

Our Garden

The Clematis montana growing on the end of the garage is now in full bloom! It is so pretty. This picture was taken from my hubby’s study window upstairs.

In a few years, this prolific plant will have grown to cover the end of the garage. Next year my hubby will extend the range of the two trellises by adding wires along to right and left, and over the top of the window. It’s going to be glorious.

Taken from the same vantage point, the Forsythia is now in full bloom as well, and looking very pretty beside the steps to the upper garden. Beyond it, you can just make out the blossom on the apple tree. A few weeks ago my hubby’s brother came over and helped him prune the apple tree, and it’s a nice shape now, and hopefully we’ll get a good crop again come the autumn. The apples it produces are delicious.

Finally, another shot from the study window, looking down onto the water feature/rock garden outside the kitchen window. It’s looking quite pretty now.

Eventually the aubretia plants we put in will cascade over the wall, making a pretty display.

Kitties

The news isn’t good for either of our two old ladies now. Today Phoebe was unwell again, very listless and not interested in food, and she was sick a little bit, and produced some very small pellets of poo. The vet said that eventually the cancer would cause a blockage. However, we didn’t take her to the vet today, because when she was unwell before, she suddenly rallied and started eating again, and since then she’s been very well. She did eat a little bit at lunch time, and a bit more at tea time, and she seems a bit better now. We are keeping a close eye on her and are both realistic enough to know that eventually we are going to have to take her to the vet and have her put down…

As for Beatrice, for some time now, her balance hasn’t been that good when clambering into her hammock, and she’s been quite wobbly especially in her back legs. Today she seems a lot worse and even just walking along, she appears drunk. If she shakes herself while on her feet, she tends to fall over. She is eating well and is very communicative and purrs a lot, as usual, and is taking her usual interest in things, and her fur is in good condition. Again, we are keeping a close eye on her and my hubby thinks it’s just old age – if she was a human she’d probably be using a granny frame by now! She hasn’t had a stroke, we are sure, because it seems to be mostly both back legs that are affected and there’s no sign of hemiplegia. We don’t think it’s arthritis either, because she doesn’t seem to be in any pain. If it gets any worse we’ll take her to the vet but my hubby is sure it’s just old age. She is nearly 17.

Card Factory 2015–Brusho Trees

Following my first Brusho experiments using the Inkylicous clear stamp set “Simply Trees,” this morning I made the four best ones into cards. My studio became a matting and layering factory for the morning! I think I am definitely improving with this skill and most of them look pretty straight, which was not how it used to be in the old days…

I have thrown out sample #1 as unusable, but have decided to use #2 which was borderline. It does look better mounted.

I went through my stash and extracted various papers and cards suitable for matting and layering these designs, and again spent some time deciding on different combinations.

Design #2

I chose a sheet from a small pack of marbled papers for the main background layer for this card. All the cards have a narrow matt layer of glitter card from another pack. These are in colours that I know I shall never use for anything else, and I am not keen on the colours on their own, or on glitter card in general, but in conjunction with other papers and as matt layers for cards, I can use up a lot of stash that really does nothing for me! I bought quite a bit of paper back in the days when I was starting, and not sure what I really wanted to do, and some of these purchases turned out to be a bit of a mistake until now! I am determined to use up a lot of the clutter in my studio so that I can have room for more useful stuff.

Preparing to stick the layers down, I thought that the exposed white card of the base looked a little stark, so to soften it, I distressed the edges with Forest Moss distress ink, which definitely improved its appearance.

Here is design #2 complete.

Design #3

Another pack of paper is quite thin, verging on tissue paper. It has real leaves embedded in it. I used this paper in different colours for the remaining three cards. For this one, I chose a cream-coloured glitter card for the narrow matt layer.

When the leaves paper was stuck down onto the base card, the very edge of this white card was visible, so I ran my home-made ink blender around the edges with some of my new Fossilised Amber distress ink.

The finished card.

Design #4

For this card, I chose a yellow glitter card for the narrow matt layer, and the natural coloured paper from the leaves pack.

I distressed the edges of the base card covered with the leaves paper, using Vintage Photo distress ink.

Here is the finished card.

Design #5

For the final design, I chose a green sheet from the leaves pack. When this was laid over white (the colour of the base card in each case), because it was so thin, it looked a bit washed out, so I glued it down onto the plain orange card seen in the above photo, to give it a slightly richer appearance. Once trimmed, this double-layer was glued down onto the base card.

In this case, I distressed the edges with Forest Moss distress ink.

The finished card.

Here are the cards made from designs # 2 and 3.

The cards made from designs #4 and 5.

As usual, I have left these cards blank inside, so that I can add appropriate sentiments when I need to use them, with the exception of design #3. We are going to a birthday supper tonight, so this card hasn’t even made it into my new card stash! Using Forest Moss distress ink, I stamped the “Happy Birthday” sentiment onto a scrap of white card, which I trimmed to size and coloured with Fossilised Amber distress ink, using a home-made ink blender, and then matted onto more of the cream glitter card. I stuck this down onto the base card, and then stamped the same sentiment inside, again using Forest Moss distress ink, and applied some Fossilised Amber distress ink over the stamping to give it a bit more impact. This stamp is one of a collection of clear sentiment stamps that I have had from when I first started, and I no longer have the packaging so I do not know the name of the set, or the manufacturer.

Here is design #3 in birthday card mode.

Despite this being my first attempt at using Brushos, I am pretty happy with the results, and think they have come out quite nicely mounted as cards. This is definitely something I am going to again, using a variety of different stamps.

Craft 4 Crafters Show, 24th January 2013

On Thursday my dear hubby very kindly drove me over to Exeter to the Westpoint Exhibition Centre for the annual Craft 4 Crafters show. Not getting out much, unless he takes me, this was a huge treat for me, and I’d been looking forward to it for ages! I’d also arranged to meet Margaret from Blogland, and her hubby, who were down in Devon on holiday – Margaret suggested I carried a red rose so I’d be recognisable, and as I was going around, I spotted them from behind (she’d given me a couple of clues as to their appearance) and I tapped her on the back, and she turned round and saw me there with a long stemmed rose between my teeth, looked a bit blank (as well she might!) and then burst out laughing! We had a great time together, meeting for lunch.

I don’t think there were as many stands as last year, and some that were listed weren’t there, but I put this down to the snow. It’s been pretty clear down here in South and parts of East Devon, but up country it’s been much worse, and people may have been put off coming – this would probably also explain the reduced numbers of the public attending, which suited me fine as it was easier to get around and see everything.

My new wheelchair spoke guards (finished just in time for the event!) and my new floral decorations down the front frame were a great success and I lost count how many lovely positive comments I had about them, and how many smiles they generated! Blog post imminent!

Here are some photos of the day. I tried not to duplicate too many of the ones I took last year (like the wonderful display of huge quantities of glitter, and all those beads!) to provide a bit of variety.

There was a stand for Origami South West, hosted by Sean Clarke, who gave me a little private lesson on how to make an origami flower (“we don’t usually teach this on the stand as it’s a bit advanced…” – but I’m always up for a challenge and didn’t want to do anything too simple!!) – I made a reasonably successful one!

Here are some of the pictures I took of the stand.

These rings are constructed from individual modular parts which are slotted together without glue or pins. I love the interlocking rings.

The same principle applies to these beautiful panels hanging on the wall. They remind me of patchwork.

These were some floral bouquets and arrangements, with some floral panels behind.

I loved these naturalistic blossom sprays which reminded me of oriental paintings. Behind was a little tree with hanging ornaments.

Then we had some fun! Here is Sean holding an intricately-folded piece made from brown paper, which he said took him six hours to create.

Here is a little video clip I made:

I’m afraid I couldn’t resist taking more photos of Stef Francis’ stand as it’s always so colourful and her textile art pieces are so stunning.

On the Inkylicious stand, I got chatting with the lady there, and she said she’d seen my Youtube videos on how to use their Ink Dusters! I was thrilled. She said they had been too busy to upload any tutorials, and I said when I did mine, there was nothing, and because I was so pleased with them, I thought I’d be the first.

On the Storage 4 Crafts stand, I bought some Really Useful Boxes – unfortunately they didn’t have both the sizes I wanted but I got a couple of larger ones as well as the smaller ones I’d intended buying. I couldn’t get too many or they wouldn’t have fitted in the car!

I came across a stand hosted by Textures and Beyond, a group of exhibiting textile artists who don’t necessarily sell their work, but just like to exhibit as a group. This year their theme was royal blue, and the pieces had to be tall and narrow. To me, they spoke of a marine life theme. Gorgeous pieces, aren’t they.

A new one this year (at least to me!) was Marbling 4 Fun, with Craig Joubert. I knew about the normal sort of marbling, where you put oil based paints onto the surface of water and swirl them around, and then apply paper to the surface, but this was something different – the ink is water based, and you add something to the water in the tank to make it slightly gloopy so that the ink rests on the surface. The patterns you create with the ink that you drop on are a lot more controllable, and also, you can marble absolutely any kind of surface! There were examples of stone, metal, leather, paper, fabric, wood… I was so fascinated by this that I’m afraid I broke the vow I made before leaving for the show – “Whatever I see, I am NOT going to start a new craft or art form!” Really, I can’t take me anywhere… Craig popped a little marbled stone, a fabric sample and a clothes peg in with my kit.

Here is the stand.

The beautiful quilts behind were interesting.

The one in the foreground with the white background is apparently fairly new, but the large one behind is about 20 years old, and has been washed repeatedly! (I thought this was a new form of marbling, but apparently not.) You can see how controlled the patterns can be. In the following photo, of a small wall hanging, the patterns remind me of fractals.

For the first time in my experience, there was a Zentangle stand at the show! I got so excited about this, and spent some time visiting there, looking at all the gorgeous stuff she’d tangled – shoes, boxes, canvases, fabric, coasters… and all the books she had for sale, that I quite forgot to photograph any of it! Duh… Anyway, quite a few of the pieces on the stand are on her website, so you can see them there. She was doing good business selling her various kits, including one for kids, and demonstrating. It was great to see Zentangle in evidence at the show.

The NaturaLeigh stand was an interesting contrast to most of the rest of the stands which tended to be very colourful – everything was natural white in colour, and very shabby chic. They were selling natural herbal beauty products and crafty fabrics in natural fibres.

Madeleine Millington was there again with her wonderful felt creations, and dressed as usual in colours to co-ordinate with her work! She is a friend of my sister-in-law’s so I always seek her out and we had a nice chat.

Towards the end of the day I came across Jo McIntosh on her Knit One Weave One stand – she is a textile artist living in St. Ives, Cornwall. I had to stop and speak to her because her appearance was so striking and creative, with her green hair and her gorgeous bright clothing! It all shouted, “I am a true artist!” She was so friendly and lovely, and I asked her if she knew Carolyn Saxby, a mixed media artist from St. Ives, and she said she was one of her greatest friends, and they often exhibited together! Such a nice contact, and I was thrilled to have met her.

Finally, here are some pictures of some of the purchases I made – filling the gaps with colours I was missing from my distress inks etc. and one or two nice extra things too!

At the back is the very pretty bag that the yarns came in – I bought 3 different balls of yarn for my art work. Most of these are slubby (great for mixed media) and/or dip dyed and variegated, so you can cut off lengths of whatever colour you want. At the back on the left is a tag given to me by the gentleman on Ali Crafts, from whom I bought the stencil brushes and the Graphics 45 keyholes, and also the refills for my Tim Holtz blending tool.

In front are some of the Distress Stains I bought to fill the gaps in my collection, including, grouped together front left, the three new metallic ones which I am looking forward to trying. According to various Youtube videos, these blend very well with normal Distress Stains to give a beautiful metallic shimmer to the colours, and you can create great backgrounds with them. I also bought the Fall Seasonal collection of Distress Inks. Unfortunately nobody seemed to stock any of the re-inkers which I am missing but this isn’t a problem as I can get them online when necessary.

Next level down is the Origami South West information sheet, folded in an origami pattern! I did unfold it and actually managed to get it back again, folded correctly! I’ve stuck on the two flowers we made on the stand – yes, you’ve guessed it, the red one was the one I made lol! (Well, it did get a bit squashed on the way home…)

On the right is the marbling kit. You get several pots of different colours, which can be mixed, some fixing agent and the gelling agent for the water, as well as some plastic pipettes for applying the colours. In front of the box are the samples I was given when purchasing the kit – the fabric sample, stone, and clothes peg.

All these items are arranged on some Really Useful Boxes that I bought. Now I’ve got to summon the energy to sort out all the stuff, make labels for my new Distress products, and start filling my new boxes, and I might even get a bit more organised!

Here is a close-up of the two origami flowers I came away with. I don’t think my red one is too bad really – one of the petals tore when I was trying to shape it and it’s not quite as even as Sean’s one, but I shall definitely practise this one as it’s so pretty! I’ve tracked down a Youtube video giving instructions for this lovely flower if anyone’s interested.

Here’s the marbling kit. In the demo, Craig used the lid of the box as a tray for marbling small items. He explained that he also used a cat litter tray for larger things, and even constructed his own tray from cardboard, lined with plastic, for such items as lengths of fabric etc.

The items he gave me show the versatility of the process.

The amazing thing is that if you dip something like a clothes peg right into the tray, the pattern continues right around the object! As you can see from the fabric sample, the pattern is also very controllable. I’m looking forward to getting started with this!

My hubby came to collect me at 5 p.m. and we went to his brother and our sister-in-law’s for a Chinese takeaway supper, which made a perfect end to a wonderful day.