Mixed Media

This week, I worked on my mixed media pieces for Karen's 3rd Quarter Challenge on the Felting and Fiber Studio Site. The first piece I worked on was the smaller board with lots of folded and creased scrim on. I started by painting the background with some blue shades of acrylic paint.

Then I layered lots of shades of blue and white, then finished with some details of black, white, yellow and red. This is the piece just after I finished, while it was still wet.

And this is it when it is dried. You can't really see the texture in the photo, you might be able to if you click to see it bigger, but I've uploaded it to flickr, so you can see the texture of the scrim and the detail better.

Here's a supermacro of a small part which does show some of the texture:

Often when I work with acrylics, I need to wipe off excess paint, so I keep a spare painting board nearby to wipe the paint on there. It makes a great base for another painting. This isn't really part of the challenge, but I painted it just after the blue piece. It's mostly the same colours, but in different amounts.

 And a supermacro:

 The second piece I worked on was the larger board with 2 layers of scrim. It did turn out the way I'd planned, but didn't look as good as I'd imagined. I painted a light grey in the centre and dark greys around the edges. Then I covered some laser prints of artwork in Golden gel medium and stuck them face down on the surface. When they were dried the next morning, I wet them and carefully rubbed off the backing paper to reveal the prints. I covered in gel medium then painted reds, oranges, yellows and whites around the edges. I don't think I got enough paper off the bottom print. I might carry on working on this, I think it needs something else.

Has anyone else made anything for the challenge? If you post a link, we can add it to the gallery there.

Fabric Notebook Cover and Studio Challenge

I've finally made a start on a couple of pieces for Karen's 3rd Quarter Mixed Media Challenge on The Felting and Fiber Studio site. I chose two different types of background, the first one is a 7 x 5 inch art board, I think it is meant for watercolour paints. These are boards with a textured paper surface.

I covered this with Weldbond glue then added some cotton scrim, I added some Golden gel medium and added some more scrim, making creases, gathers and folds. Then I covered it in Gesso.

The next background is hardboard, the same kind of thing pegboard for workshops is made out of. I got some 8 x 6 inch pieces cut years ago for making polymer clay mosaics.

I covered this in Weldbond glue, added a layer of scrim, then glued another layer of scrim on top. I covered this in Gesso too. They are both almost dry, waiting for me to forget to finish them ;)

I finished another fabric collage notebook cover last week. This is a small A6 one. This is the front:

And this is the back:

I used some flowery fabric to line the inside, and used the sewing machine to attach the flaps, then hand-stitched blanket stitch around all the edges.

It's probably not quite as effective as zig-zagging with the machine, but it's helps stop the fabric fraying.

Mixed Media Book Cover and Camera Case

As much as I really liked the mixed media piece that I made last week as it was, I did want to make something out of it. I made sure the piece of fabric I worked on was big enough for a book cover, but the finshed piece was too thick for that. I turned it over, folded it, measured it, looked at it, thought about it, then decided I could make a book cover out of it if I cut it and used different felt for the inside flaps. So, more measuring, hunting for felt and sewing of felt to fabric. This is what the inside looked like before I'd quite finished the bottom edge:

And, this is what it looked like once all the edges were finished:

I'm not sure whether I prefer it with the red part on the front:

Or whether I like the blue better:

I had quite a good sized piece left over, and I actually really like the green part the best, so I thought I'd use it for a gadget/camera/phone case. This is one side:

And this is the other:

I really enjoyed making the mixed media piece and the cover and case, and I don't feel so odd for saving all the tiniest bits of felt scraps 'just in case' now :)

Rachelle Gardner

Rachelle Gardner is a mixed media artist from the US. At the moment she is focusing on fibers and textiles. Some of her recent work is lace felt which she creates by free motion embroidery on water soluble stabiliser and hand dyed wool which is then lightly felted to produce beautiful pieces in rich colours with intricate designs. On her blog she has examples of some of her recent work and also a post showing the process.

Rachelle is also about to embark on an adventurous project transforming her 2-D lace work into large scale 3-D sculpture.

If you'd like to know more about that, visit her Aspen Project website, there's even the opportunity for you to be involved and help with the costs of the project. Everyone who helps out receives a credit and also a reward of beautiful unique artwork, made individually for each person.