"Stained Glass" Reindeer Tutorial

Again, my apologies for having no new photos of this technique to share, but here are the steps for making it!

What you'll need:

~ Paper mache forms in any shape, including boxes, purses, hanging ornaments, spheres, etc. This technique can be used on any item- including wood and some metals- that will take glue and paper well.

~ Paper napkins in bright, saturated colors. Patterning or design really don't matter. Obviously for these, I chose Christmas napkins, but any bright napkin will do as long as it doesn't have a lot of white space showing. The size of your project will determine the number of napkins you use. You'll almost always use more than you think you will, but one package is usually enough.

~ White primer spray paint and mask/gloves/goggles for safety.

~ White school glue, thinned with a little water.

~ Disposable foam brush.

~ Gold foil pen or metallic paint pen.

~ Embellishments (optional... in the case of the reindeer, I used ribbon and some stems of silk evergreen sprigs and berries. You can find these in the floral department of your local craft store).

What you'll do:

~ Wearing goggles, mask and gloves, spray paper mache form with white primer. Coat evenly and allow to dry completely.

~ Paper napkins are usually between two and three ply and only the top ply is printed with enough pigment to make this technique work. Separate ALL plys and only use the top (printed) ply for this project (don't discard the other plys... they can be used in other projects, or for clean-up).

~ Tear napkins into irregular pieces and strips. The size of the pieces doesn't really matter.

~ Using a foam brush, paint the primed paper mache with a little of the glue mixture, press a piece of torn napkin into the glue and smooth out any air bubbles by painting a little more glue on top. Work in small areas so the glue doesn't dry before you can cover it with paper. Continue layering the napkin pieces and glue until the entire surface is covered.

~ Allow to dry fully... could take a couple of days.

~ At this point, run your hands over the piece and check for any edges of napkin that might be trying to lift. If you find any, you can usually smooth them out by applying more of the glue mixture and letting it soak in. Then smooth with your fingers. You can also coat the entire thing with a couple of layers of thinned glue for protection, if you choose. I didn't bother with this step and my deer have remained in excellent shape for years, but it's up to you.

~ Once the piece is fully dried again, use the gold foil or paint pen marker to trace along the torn edges of the glued napkins. Allow your lines to intersect and break into as many pieces as you want. This is what creates the stained glass effect.

~ Embellish with any ephemera you like.

Happy holidays!

- Judi

Glass Ornament Tutorial

(Sorry there are no new photos to accompany this tutorial... I was out of the raw materials!)

What you'll need:

~ Clear glass ornaments, any size, with light-weight, removable metal hanger. Most craft or hobby stores carry these, and they're very inexpensive. Just ask for the ornaments that you can decorate yourself.
~ Alcohol-based re-inkers (I used Adirondack brand, but Jaquard makes nice inks, too). Choose as many color as you want and at least one metallic additive (copper, silver or gold).
~ White (or black) liquid acrylic paint, or craft paint thinned with a little water.
~ Dixie cups, one for each ornament.

What to do:

~ Remove the metal hangers from the ornaments and set aside- do not discard!
~ Rinse the inside of the ornaments with hot water and allow to fully dry on a dish towel, or a paper towel.
~ Choose one color of ink (I like to start with the lighter colors, first) and drip (don't squeeze!!) a few drops inside the ornament. Turn the ornament so that the ink moves around, coating some of the inside but not the whole surface (otherwise, your ornament will only be one color). The ink will dry very quickly.
~ Choose another color and drip a couple more drops into the ornament. Turn to coat. You can do this with as many colors as you like, but I've found that more than three colors tends to muddy the pigments too much. Finally, choose one of the metallic inks and drop not more than one or two scant drips into the ornament- the metallic inks seem to spread more aggressively than the colored inks, so you only need the smallest bit of it! Allow to FULLY dry.
~ Once the alcohol inks are fully dry, squirt about one teaspoon to one tablespoon of white acrylic paint into the ornament and turn to completely coat the inside. (This is what will cause the colors of the ink to "pop". You can also use black for this step, as well.) Be careful not to get paint on the outside of the ornament and wipe up any that does.
~ When the inside of the ornament is coated with paint, upend the ornament into a Dixie cup and allow it to remain resting inside the top of the cup, hole pointed down into the cup, until dry. This could take several days to a week.
~ Once fully dry, replace metal hangers. The ornaments are now ready to hang. They can be stored easily in the box they are sold in.

Crafts of Christmas Past

I can't help falling for kitschy Christmas crafting. Here are a few of my favorite projects from years past.

 

These guys are a matched set. The tallest stands about 16".

An incredibly fun project that Mom and I did together. I saw something very similar in a catalog for way too much money, thought we could probably improvise one ourselves, so we did. She made one for herself, and this guy was mine.

Glass tree ornaments.

All of these projects are incredibly easy and if there's interest, I'll be happy to post a quickie tutorial on any or all of them.

- Judi

Beauty and Re-imagining

First the beauty. I've been impressed with the jar dyeing I've seen done on a couple of my favorite blogs, so I tried it myself.

In case you've been living in a convent for the last 20 years and haven't heard of this, let me recap the technique. You soda-soak multiple pieces of plain white fabric (or I suppose you could use previously dyed or even commercially printed fabrics, if you wanted) and mix up as many colors of dye as you'd like. I ended up with eleven pieces of cotton muslin and I used eight dye colors: yellow, orange, red, a couple of blues, purple and then a couple of greens.

Once your fabric is prepared with mordant (I use mine wet but you could do this with dry fabrics, too), you wad up one piece of fabric, stuff it into the bottom of a large jar- I stole one of my "sun tea" jars from the kitchen, although I obviously won't ever make tea in it again- and pour the first dye color on top of it.Then you wad up the next piece of fabric, stuff it in the jar and pour the next color on top. I started with the lightest colors first and worked my way through to the darkest hued colors like the blues and purple. You continue on this way layering fabrics and dyes until the jar is full. Cap the jar and let it batch overnight.

I was going to let my fabrics sit for a few days to batch, but I'll be honest... when I saw the next day that it looked like the dye had turned black in the jar, I freaked out a little, and began the rinse-out right away. I needn't have been so scared. The results were spectacular and remind me of images I've seen taken by the Hubble Space Telescope! These are some of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

The complex patterning I achieved, as well as the amazing color combinations made me think that I might never want to dye fabrics with any other method.

I have no idea what I'll do with these fabrics... it seems a shame to either use them as backgrounds and have most of their beauty covered up, or worse, cut them up and lose the detail of the patterning and color shifting. I wonder... if I framed them as is and called them art, would anyone believe me?

As for re-imagining, remember this piece?

The idea I had originally was that I wanted to recreate the two paper pieces in the above photo in fabric so that I could stitch them onto the background pictured.

I worked a large piece of fabric nearly to death, adding stamping, batiking, dyeing and overdyeing until I achieved an almost exact match for the colors of the square spiral elements. I figured at that point that I would mask off spiral motifs on the new piece of fabric and then use an olive green fabric paint to achieve the deeper green background that surrounds the spirals.

And then I foolishly, out of curiosity, laid the paper pieces on top of the new fabric and suddenly, I no longer wanted to place this on it's original quilt top.

They just look too much like they belonged together, don't they? So now I'm stumped and will have to re-imagine this piece. Do I go with my original plan, batik and overpaint this piece, trim it to size and add it to the original quilt top? Or do I blaze forward with the design above and actually stitch the paper pieces directly to it? I'm not sure, yet.

On other fronts, the AC unit is almost installed in the garage, and the attic has been insulated above it. Now to get the garage door installed (delayed three weeks at the factory because I want windows installed in it), the garage rewired and the sink put in.

Also, some folks have been asking me about my commission piece. I can't show you anything but I can tell you that in the beginning, my client and I were thinking about one large piece in the bedroom but we've since decided instead on five long, narrow pieces for the front entry hallway. And now that I've seen how spectacular the jar dyeing was, I may just modify that technique and use it to dye these five pieces.

The sun is finally shining and I have to go get in it!

Happy creating!

- Judi

Photo Blog Update!

Finally, I managed to update my photo blog. You can see the newest post here.

Fun On The Horizon

I have a couple of fun projects coming up that I wanted to talk about today.

The first is a quilter's challenge sponsored by the saucy ladies- Terry Stegmiller, Vicki Welsh and Sue Bleiweiss- over at 3 Creative Studios. Understanding that there are a lot of quilting and mixed-media challenges floating around, but not nearly enough for all the talented artists who want to join, they've started their own quilting challenge that anyone can join! Fresh off my experience with Compositional Conversation, it sounded like it was right up my alley, so I signed up.

It's called 3 Creative Studios Quilt Challenge 2010. Go check it out and think about joining the fun!

The second fun thing happening this week is the beginning of an almost total garage-to-quilting-studio make-over.

As a painter, I'd set up shop for many years in my home garage, slowly converting it to an art studio with additions of storage space, work space and task lighting. But I live near Houston, in south Texas. The heat, humidity, bugs and street dust and debris were impossible to keep out. It wasn't unusual for me to be out there in the middle of August for hours at a time, painting and sweating, painting and sweating.

Finally, when our daughter moved out on her own, I took over her bedroom, painted and moved my stuff in, and voila! I had an indoor studio. A really lovely, well-lit, tiny, cramped indoor studio without the 8' x 4' horizontal work space I'd grown accustomed to. Yeah, it was a tight fit, which I complained about here in my blog at least once.

So, back out to the garage and reclaiming my work space (which is about 2/3 of the space available... thank you, honey!)

I have a long laundry list of changes and additions. There will be a new, insulated garage door which will be fully trimmed to keep out two of my key enemies- dirt and bugs- and a garage door opener for my honey.

Next, we'll be addressing the heat and humidity issue by installing a wall-mounted AC/Heating unit that will be vented to the outside and plumed to drain properly. And since it does require plumbing to code, a laundry sink is also being installed. This will be fantastic for me- no more bringing dye-splattered items and fabrics through the house into the kitchen for the wash-out! My indoor carpet will be thanking me.

Finally, power and lighting will be addressed. More lighting will be added in the form of new overhead fixtures and a new track light to flood what will become my design wall. New electrical plugs will be added on all walls carrying more current  than the plugs we now have (so my lights will stop dimming when my iron heats up).

I'm excited to make these changes (and nervous, too, being my own general contractor on a job this large). I'll post photos of before and after, once the job is complete.

In the meantime, happy creating!

CC Complete And Other Stuff

Well, the cooperative art project, Compositional Conversation, has been completed, at least as far as design goes. All the artists, including the originator of the project, Terry Jarrard-Dimond, have had their hands on the work and have left their own unique mark. The piece traveled back to Terry last week, she made her own final contributions, and she's blogged about it. Go take a look at her contribution and let us know what you think!

I spent the week deep in work with absolutely no finished results to show you. Some weeks are like that: art takes time. Hopefully, I will have photos to share next week!

In the meantime, we had a winter freeze and some snow- both incredibly rare events here in South Texas. My yard suffered an almost total loss of vegetation- some stuff survived, most didn't. The loss of my all my flowers, shrubs and beautiful greenery has been devastating to me. Naturally, I had to record it in photos.

I might post more photos to my photography blog, if I have the heart to, later.

More happy creating next week though, I promise!

Compositional Conversation, Stage 14

We're almost done! Our cooperative art project, Compositional Conversation, has passed through the hands of our last talented artist, Marina Kamenskaya. Please go over to Terry's page and check it out!

To follow along from the very beginning and see the amazing transformations this work has gone through, check out the Compositional Conversation blog.

The work now returns home to Terry, who will make any needed changes and complete the work as she sees fit. Stay tuned for (at least) one more chapter!

In Progress

Here are this weeks' down-and-dirties.

 

The first is several layers of painted and dyed papers topped off with some lovely corrugated cardboard and a triptych of more painted papers, cut and adhered mosaic-style, to heavy black card stock. It measures about 30" x 30" and will need to be framed.

The second is a large piece of dyed cotton batting topped with a machine-pieced quilt top constructed of dyed and painted cotton. It's current size is about 24" x 36".

Before I begin stitching this piece, I will need to resolve the issue of how it will be mounted (I think I will stitch it to a large piece of hand-dyed cotton and stretch the whole thing over stretcher-bars), but more than that, I need to convert these three paper pieces:

into fabric elements. The bottom element, the one that looks like a straw mat, is mulberry paper that I molded and shaped around pieces of straw using matte medium. Once it was dry it was painted with acrylics, sprayed with walnut ink and sponged with Lumiere paint.

I am constructing the fabric version in much the same way. I have painted white muslin with green acrylic paint. I really worked the acrylic into the fibers with a chip brush and a little water because when it was time to cut the edges, I didn't want any fraying. Once dry, I sprayed it with walnut ink. In the meantime, I painted the straws in the same color and sprayed them, as well.

I'm still not certain how I will adhere the straws to the fabric- the method I used for its sister paper piece won't work- but once that hurdle is jumped, I'll sponge it with Lumiere and I think it will be a pretty good match.

The two long pieces that stretch across the quilttop are also paper that I batiked a few years ago. This will be somewhat more challenging to recreate in fabric, but I think a variegated dye job on some muslin, some soy wax batik and another layer of either dye or paint should do the job. That will be tomorrow's task.

The third project I've tasked myself with for this week is a small piece of textile art I'm constructing for our annual holiday gift swap over on Radio Paradise.

I have dyed, painted, stamped and otherwise tortured two small pieces of fabric. One is a piece of simple white muslin, and the other- the backing fabric- is artists' canvas. Like the green fabric above, I scrubbed white paint into the fibers of the artists' canvas so that it would resist fraying when cut to size.

I want this little doo-dad to be a genuine "quilt" (three layers held together with stitching), so I will layer it with a piece of batting. Because the batting might be visible in the final piece, it needs to coordinate, so I set about this morning to test a few dye recipes on four pieces of batting.

Since this is just a little piece of batting and I am on a tight time limit (the swap recipients must receive their presents by December 13th!), I decided on a quick dye with RIT. RIT dyes don't require a mordant to set the color, so the batting can be soaked in the dye for a few minutes and then set in the microwave oven for 1-2 minutes.

Unfortunately, I must have played a nasty little joke on myself the last time I used my RIT liquid dyes, because the lid to the purple was loose and I didn't realize. Today, when I picked it up by the cap, the bottle dropped out of my hand, landed on my desktop and splashed everywhere.

I snatched up a piece of batting that was waiting to be dyed, and sopped up the mess.

Once I got that cleaned up (and I still haven't gotten the dye off the windows that- dumb luck- were just cleaned yesterday) I went ahead and did four little dye samples to find the right purple for my batting.

And here they are being auditioned on the design board.

Obviously, none of these pieces is complete... hopefully one or more will be, soon, though. As usual, I'll post my results.

Until then, happy creating!