The seaside pendant -- an acrylic doodle

It's ages ago since I participated in a monthly challenge it feels like. This month I really wanted to get started on something and gathered info on challenges. One challenge that I instantly felt a connection to was the Art Bead Scene Blog challenge, featuring a painting by Franklin Carmichael called Jackknife Village. Living on a peninsula, always close to the sea, I really liked the landscape he conjured up on his canvas. While it doesn't really look like that around here, the image reminded me of the childhood vacations I spent in Bohuslän (google it and you'll get photos illustrating my point). It's pretty similar to the Bohus coastline. In other words, it was an image that wouldn't leave me.

Some weeks ago I felt compelled to paint a pendant with these images -- of the artwork and the childhood vacations -- in mind. I got out a 34 mm arte metal (i.e. blackened steel) pendant and started painting using white gesso that I tinted with acrylic paint. Now, the only small brushes I have are watercolour brushes as that's always been my favourite media when it comes to painting (ironically, Carmichaels painting is watercolour and I still didn't choose that myself for this project). No way I was going to ruin them with acrylic paint -- and besides, the brushes are made for heavy paints like oil and acrylics anyway. So I had to make due with some bigger craft quality brushes instead, which partially determined what style to paint in: it wasn't possible to paint any fine details so instead I opted for an impressionist style. The kind that just look like smudges of paint close up, but forms a dreamy landscape when you take a step or more back and admire it from some distance. I always did like impressionism as a teen.

It's really just a doodle, but a doodle I had a lot of fun working with. It might not be perfect, but I'm still pleased with it. While it might be hard to understand from seeing these photos, I must say it looks quite pretty in real life -- though of cause I see it through my own rose-tinted glasses right now.

So the challenge really inspired me, but unfortunately I also wanted to participate in it for real (and get a chance to win as they always have such lovely art bead prizes) and the pendant just didn't want to turn into a piece of finished jewellery (a bead strung on cord or chain doesn't qualify). So frustrating! The days went passed and I couldn't find anything useful in my stash. No blues or if I found any they were the wrong blues (pendant have a slightly lavender blue, most my blues are turquoise). Or the wrong finish: the pendant is so matte that any shiny bead detracts from the focal. The last day today and anything I did try failed. Everything conspired against me!

Wanting to at least do something with the pendant, I made this necklace which I doubt will be approved by the ABS team. But at least I did finish a project so I should feel good about myself anyway, even if I can't officially be part of the challenge this month.

The cord, by the way, is one that I've tea dyed myself. Tea dyeing might not be the best method of dyeing textiles as the tannins can weaken the fibres over the years, but it's easy and fun -- and you can experiment to get just the right hue. Like in this case: I let some cords steep longer than others which gave me range of hues to choose from when wanting to find a good match for the pendant. It looks a bit dark in the first two pics, but it really does match the cliffs in the pendant.

The necklace cord is simply made by doubling the cord, knotting a loop in one end and tying the loose ends to a metal button. Nice and simple. You just need a cord long enough, which was really just barely the case here.

Tinted patina

Double post today. Just a quick snapshot of a couple of ammonia patina'd bronze tags. Like most of my tags, the most intense blues faded from the crusty patina surface. Having seen metal colouring techniques and patinas that were made on a base of a "primer" patina, I thought why not dye the verdigris crust with some alcohol ink. To boost the colour in the first case (left) and add another colour in the second (right).

You could probably do something more interesting with this that just add a few drops in the middle of the tag like here. This was just a first try to see how the ink reacted with the patina, how it'd spread and how well it'd stick.

Adding the pic, I was reminded of an old photo of a rose I made using layers of alcohol inks in a two or three different shades on a brass ox flower. Add a really matte spray lacquer and you get a nice velvet-like feel. (That white smudge is made by the nick in the lens on my old camera -- will not be missing that about it!)

Etching mother-of-pearl

These last few days, summer has definitely turned into autumn. While the rain and wind makes it dark and cold outdoors, I've been so inspired by my experiments I've almost forgot the boring, chilly weather (though not fully as I have to run outdoors in the rain every now and then -- and it's given me a soar throat). This is what I'm playing around with right now.

The other day, I showed some pics of my accidental brass etching (remember it?). As I like the result so much, I had to do some research online to see if I could learn something more about etching metal with vinegar. As I did that, I stumbled over something else. Apparantly, vinegar is used as an echant when decorating eggs. Patterns are created using bee's wax, which works as a resist, and then the eggs are submerged in vinegar until the outer layer is removed by this mild acid. Particularly effectful when using brown eggs as the vinegar removes the pigmentation in areas not covered with wax.

That had me thinking. Wouldn't it be possible to etch seashells the same way? Pearls, seashells, egg shells -- they all contain some sort of calcium compound, which makes them porous and sensitive to acids. And we all know about Cleopatra dissolving a pearl (i.e. nacre, mother of pearl) in vinegar to create the most expensive drink in history. I have to try this, I thought while mentally going through my bead stash looking for something -- anything -- made from mother of pearl.

As I didn't have any info specifically on vinegar etching MOP, it was truly an experiment. I'm sure there are others that have done this and written about it online, but I didn't have any how-tos available at the time (in fact, it probably didn't occur to me to google "etching seashell with vinegar"). So I had to figure things out myself. I didn't know how long to let the shell soak in the vinegar or what other types of resists I could use, which would withstand the effects of the vinegar without damaging the MOP (either when applying or removing it). For my first piece, I simple dripped a few drops of wax onto a MOP bead and submerged it in the apple cider vinegar. Eagerly waiting for a result, I got tired as it took much longer than the recommended times for etching eggshell -- and forgot about it for a couple of hours. When I finally got it out, the vinegar had created a nice, deep etch (se photo above, bead on left side).

I went on to try another resist: white glue, which works with etching liquid for glass (I've used it here). Unfortunatly, the vinegar dissolved the glue -- not sure if I should've let it cure longer or if it'd still be as unsuccessful -- before I could get a good etch. All I got was a nice matte surface (photo above, pendant in middle).

Next experiment was a flop. I don't even have a photo of it. My plan was to do something similar to what you can do when etching on metal: cover the surface with resist and scratch a pattern in it. That would leave a shiny background and an etch-out (matte) pattern. Sounded fab, but maybe I applied the wax too thickly (dripping onto the bead rather than being brushed on) or maybe the wax was too hard: scratching a pattern with my needle, I maybe caused the wax to separate from the surface, leaving room for the vinegar to seep in. Maybe if I'm more careful, it'll work. This time it didn't.

I then when on with another method I've used for glass and stone etching: using peel-off stickers as resists/masks. This was much, much more successful (se butterfly bead above).

So far I'd used dyed shell -- mainly because that's what I had and that's what I was prepared to sacrifice. I went on to etching a few small white MOP mosaic tiles. Etching on white MOP has a big drawback, I discovered: it's really hard to see the motifs. There's not much contrast between the etched and the protected areas. The latter is more shiny, but there's still a pearlescent effect visible in the etched areas so that you must hold the piece at an angle to see the pattern. Just look at the pics below.

What to do? It might be a nice, subtle effect, but I want the motifs visible! On a whim, I took out the only dye I have: alcohol inks. What would happen if I wiped the surface with the ink? Surely the etched areas are more porous than the polished areas protected by the resist, meaning the ink would soak into those areas faster -- thus leaving the pattern in a different colour/hue?

It worked! Not perfect -- not by a long shot -- but for a first try I'm satisfied with the result. So all I have to figure out now is the best way to dye the shell: what dyes to use (e.g. egg dyes?), how long I can soak the shell before the contrast disappears etc.

And then, of cause, I have to come up with a more exact time for how long to I should etch the shell for the perfect result. Because I don't know that yet. All these pieces have been etched a minimum of one hour, but most of them were etched a least two hours, the first piece being etched the longest.

Rose petal beads and tea dyed silk

Our water has frozon today so I feel it fitting to dedicate this day to daydream about last summer. One thing I managed to take the time to do for the first time last summer was rose petal beads.

There are many different recipes for rose petal beads online -- you can find several listed by me here -- and I read as many as I could find before giving it a try. I have mostly followed a version written by Cathy Covington, who puree the petals using a blender instead of using the old Victorian technique of boiling/simmering them for hours. Unfortunatly, her recipe is no longer to be found online.

I picked petals from several different rosebushes, some pink and others red. Luckily dad has mostly chosen to plant old-fashioned roses with wonderful scents, not the modern one that look good and blossom for a long time, but lack that real rose scent. To make them more special, I also added another sweet-smelling flower: Sweet mock orange or English dogwood ( Philadelphus coronarius L.). We have a couple of bushes in our gardens and they smell lovely. No summer is complete without the scent of doftschersmin in the evening.

It's impossible to tell the size of the dried beads from photos only. I haven't measured them, but would guess that they are 14 mm i diametre at the most. The colours of the dried beads are a melee of red and brown, reminding of silk ribbon I own. Many doesn't look divine, but that is how they smell.

They feel lightweight and fragile and I think one way I might use them is for decorative scented boquets/bags/pomanders for the closet. Or perhaps they will be part of a pendant or earrings.



But how, then, are rose petal beads related to tea dyed silk cords? Other than I dyed them the day after I made the rose beads. Actually it didn't start out as a project related to my venture into bead making. It just ended up that way. But I will tell you the story from the start.

I visited my local Panduro store, a craft shop chain, once when they had a sale and I bought two dozen white silk cords for a fraction of the normal cost. They spent a long time in storage until I finally decided I had to dye them, even if it meant I would have less cords left -- and that tea dyeing would be both fun and cheap. Barely anyone in our family drink tea so teas we are given or buy to serve tea-drinking relatives just sit in the cupboard most of the time.

So I did my usual round of research online. And I also began to wonder what the result would be if using green tea. Would the silk turn green? I'd love that! Found green fabric online which was supposedly dyed with green tea so it seemed plausible even if other websites warned of unpredicatable results.

What I did learn from my research was this:

• Salt or vinegar/ättika can be used to stabilize the colour. One website says to use 2 parts vinegar, 1 part water, and 1 spoon of salt. Soak for 15 min, dry and press. The tannins act as mordant.
• The dye can also be heat set.
  
• Colour can fade in the sun.
• Dye can be removed with bleach and too much washing using modern detergents.
• Work on all natural fibres.
• Use at least 2 bags of tea per cup. Rinse in cold water.
• Coffee dye will leave a smell longer than tea does. (So not for me.)
• Some say the tannins will deteriorate the fibres over time.
• Best for small projects.
• Green tea works, but many different variables will affect the outcome colourwise.

Knowing that I began, using different teas and letting the cords soak for different amount of times. My green tea did give the cords a bit of a greenish yellow tinge, but not as much as I hoped for. Below, in my crummy photo, you can see the different shades I ended up with -- upper-most cords are undyed. Green tea to the right and fruit-flavoured black tea to the left. In the middle a cord dipped in both.


Don't worry -- I haven't forgotten the rose connection. Well, after all my tea dyeing I couldn't give up thinking about dyeing with plants and natural dyes, something that had interested me as a kid. Actually, at one point as kids we did make "ink" out of flowers, mostly evening primrose or St John's wort, (i.e. boiling them with vinegar and reduce) and also "painted" with petals on paper. I can still feel the special vinegar smell from those inks. But we never really did try dyeing fabric. I guess mom thought that would mean too much work and special ingredients.

Well, as I mentioned above, part of making the rose beads included mixing the petals, which resulted not only in a puree but also a lot of rose juice. That juice, which I squeezed out of the puree to make firm beads, was saved. Don't ask me why. It had a pleasant smell so I guess I didn't just want to pour it out. So, one thing I had discovered about rose juice -- let us call it that -- was that it could stain clothes, paper and skin. Because that it did when I made the beads. I know somethings stain when you don't want it to, but refuse to be used as a dye on purpose. Still I wanted to give it a try. I added a splash of vinegar and salt (see above) and dipped the cords.

As you can see in the first photo of the silk cords, I did manage to give them a nice rosy colour. The flat cord was "heat set" using an iron. The cord in the upper part of the photo is both rose dyed and tea dyed. I liked that result. Unfortunatly I have no idea if my amateurish dyeing is good enough to make rose dye that won't fade in sunlight or over time... [UPDATE: the rose dye was unfortunately not permanent even without sunlight bleaching it. No difference between heat setting it or not.]

~*~

Footnote: The first thing I wanted to tea dye was actually not silk cords, but FW pearls. Inspired by websites on the subject, I actually once did try to dye pearls using plants, but it failed. Haven't given up though. If you are interested in dyeing your own pearls, please check out the links I've listed here.