Art around us

Jessie and I went for a walk this morning. Saw this beautiful gate:

Sonoita Arizona

I have been warmly welcomed to the Aftermidnight Ranch.
Beautiful sunset view:

Ready for the Art adventure to continue.....

Color Theory Class

I'm taking my second beading class with Beverly Gilbert. This one is a two day course called Wander with Color. We started with lessons in color theory. Then we choose our bead color palette, picking colors we wanted to use together and learning how to make color connections to tie them together. I choose a palette of Black, blues, pewter and white. Here's my working plan.

I have laid out my beads, started a long strand of the color order I want and have started the free form netting.

My beads are blending well on the bead mat and on my strand.

Tomorrow, I'll continue netting them together and begin to incorporate larger beads. This is certainly a new adventure.

Fantasy Film Christmas Card

Adrienne let me use her new Christmas stamp to make this card. Placed two light green sheets of fantasy film over the image stamped with black StazOn ink. Placed a sheet of parchment paper on top and heated with a heat tool. Adhered the fantasy film image to dark green paper with gel adhesive and gently heat set with hot iron. Attached to yellow card stock and added some gold chain trim.

Anything But Rubber Swap

ccswaps has a swap that caught my fancy tonight: Anything but Rubber. We are to make a card, using any materials, except no stamping. I started with a charm made from brown air dried clay in one of the molds I made earlier this week. Colored it with metallic rub-ons. Used a piece of the purple Double Saran & Watercolor Spray backgrounds. Ran it through a Cuttlebug embossing folder and colored the raised areas with green metallic rub-ob.

Changed the raised area of the air dry clay piece to gold metallic rub-on, colored the edges of the air dry clay and the purple background with a gold leafing pen. Layered with gold mesh ribbon to a dark green card.

Fun to have an opportunity to use one of the charms from the molds I have recently made.

F is For Faux Dichroic Glass

Here's a fabulous technique that Adrienne showed me today using fantasy film, UTEE and stamping.

Glued a piece of light colored fantasy film onto a piece of dark mat board with pva glue (I used Elmer's glue). Heat set with hot iron over parchment paper. Stamped VersaMark ink over the fantasy film and covered with UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel). Used heat tool to melt UTEE, while still hot, add more UTEE and continue to melt. While the UTEE is melted, lightly press in a rubber stamp and leave in the UTEE for 5 - 10 minutes. Remove stamp. Isn't this fabulous:

Here's the same piece in a different light:

I can see this technique becoming addictive!!!

Check Adrienne's blog for more information. She did the same technique using iridescent gift wrap.

Fantasy Film butterflies

Adrienne encouraged me to have a bit of a play after showing me some of what fantasy film can do. I inked an open winged butterfly stamp with dark brown Stazon ink and laid two pieces of light fantasy film on top, then a sheet of parchment paper and heated with a hot iron. This is what happened:

Cut out the butterfly and added some cut red pieces of fantasy film and some angelina fibers (which are shredded fantasy film bits).

Covered with another sheet of light fantasy film.

Heat set on, cut out the butterfly shape. View from one side:

View from the other side:

I made another fantasy film butterfly using the same stamp, but choosing a two darker sheets of fantasy film. I left the heat on for quite awhile and got this lovely color variations:

I cut out the butterfly slightly larger than the stamped image and laid down another sheet of light fantasy film.

Heat set the layers together and re cut the butterfly shape. Here's one side:

Here's the other side:

I can see I need to order some of this fun material!!!