Moon swallow

I had a little fun with a pressed-glass bead. The picasso effect wasn't very strong on this bead so the bird silhouette wasn't very visible so I thought "why not fill it with Pebeo Fantasy paints?" So I did. Using blue Fantasy Moon paint to be precise. At first I wanted to mix colours, but it didn't take much paint to fill up the depressed motif so I stuck with just one colour.

Tiny bottles, please!

One thing about wanting to dabble with paints is that you get more and more interested in different medium that you keep finding. The problem is that these media are usually made for artists and come in big jars. Not big for someone who wants to cover a couple of canvases, but very big for someone who want to use them in mixed media jewellery. Some media/paints can be found in smaller bottles, especially in samplers like this one or the lumiere paint in the pic above, but as for most of the products that interest me I have yet to find smaller bottles. That goes for e.g. tar gel, modelling paste, crackeling paste, sand mortar, clear granular gel etc.

It's of cause a money issue: I don't want to spend a lot of money on supplies I'm not sure if I will use often or not. But it's also about my not wanting to buy something that might get too old before I even get halfway through the jar. It feels so unnecessary.

I have found a few DIY recipes for e.g. modelling paste that might be cheaper than buying a big jar of it and you can make as much or as little as you think you need. And some stuff, like glass bead gel, feels like something I could do using the micro beads I already have in my stash.

Unfortunately, I don't know an artist who uses these media and paints or one option would be to ask to get (buy) little quantities from his/her jars. With the black gesso, my sis and I bought it together, but she isn't as interested in media as I right now. And even if she were it'd still be expensive with all the different media I want to try. So all I can do is really make do, try one thing at the time when I find it for a good price -- and hope to win a lot of money on a scratch ticket soon so I can buy all the supplies I want!

Old love never rusts

My first love was painting (and then drawing when I got old enough to really master a pencil or charcoal).

My second love was writing, I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.

My third love was jewellery making and beading.

And inbetween all that there was hand embroidery, starting a little before writing and ending before my second love petered out, mostly due to school work.

Now I've slightly returned to my first love and, just as with embroidery which I rekindled my passion for a couple of years ago, I'm combining it with my third love, the big crush and long-term marriage that is the amazing world of beads and jewellery. In fact, while patinas and inks on metal was the first step towards returning to the old love, it was my desire to alter surfaces to bead on that really got me back into paints and made me order both Pébéo Fantasy and a set of Lumiere paints.

But it feels a bit like trying to re-learn things I've forgotten and once again getting used to working with paints. The big difference between beads and threads on one hand and paints on the other is that with the first you work with set colours that can't change hue in any other way than by mixing in another colour next to the first one. With paint you can actually mix colours to make new shades and make one colour seep into the other in a whole different way. I've kind of forgot how fun that is to work with, having gotten used to working with a fixed set of colours.

However, paint isn't just paint. There's a big difference between how different types of paint behaves and what kind of techniques you use with it. I held on to watercolours the longest and so I'm the most used to them. One thing to remember about watercolours: you can't paint anything white (only leave a spot or area free from paint from start). Something that's not really a problem with other paints. Then there's oil, which I also used as a kid, which needs to dry out for ages, but feels very fancy to work with (plus, it's only pigment and linseed oil in its purest form which I like).

But with jewellery and beads, alcohol inks and acrylics have been the most common. Inks are usually just used as dyes and easy to learn to use -- though I've managed to screw up a couple of items: one by spilling alcohol (t-sprit) near it and the second on by using the wrong type of sealant. Acrylics is the most common in many crafts for a reason. Big minus for being oil-based, but big plus for being easy to use, works on a lot of materials and sold in a range of colours and effects. So common to use that I by mistake used the same techniques when I got my Fantasy paints, e.g. marbling, which was really not a good thing to do! That was a disaster that taught me you need to really get to know the type of paint you use, read the instructions and learn about how the paint works.

So while old love -- in this case a love of creative crafts and making art with my hands -- never rust, according to the old saying, the knowledge sure does. It's not like you have to start over, but you need to take a few steps back and repeat some lessons in order to revive your know-how and relearn the things you've forgotten.

Thankfully, the basics for working with paint -- no matter which type -- are easy to learn and from there you can have a lot of fun just playing and experimenting. Add a few pro tips and tricks and you can do great things.

Marbled bezels and eye shadow cabs

I'm back into blogging now, feeling a lot better than just a week ago. Pretty much recovered fully now -- unlike how I was when making the two bezels (to be covered with clear cabs or glass tiles) above. They are actually failed, but I do really like the look of them nonetheless, especially the round one. Adding a cab/tile over the paint will also enhance the look, not least of the oval bezel.

The failure lies in the fact that I used Fantasy paints, but being ill on the evening I made them, I probably didn't stir them properly and I ended up really marbling the paints, which might be the main reason why the paints didn't behave as they should.

(By the way, anyone out there that knows why the image background is white in PicMonkey, but takes on a blueish tint when I upload it to Blogger? Or is it just my monitor?) [Problem solved: it was a change in Picasa, where blogger pics are uploaded, that I wasn't aware of, which autocorrected photos -- in this case making them worse. I fixed the setting and the pics are as they should.]

This is a cab I made before I got ill, about the same time I made the Pébéo Fantasy paint tests. It's made by painting a mix of acrylic medium and loose powder eye-shadow (essentially mica powder) on the back of the clear glass cabochon. I then covered it with magenta acrylic paint for a more opaque background that intensifies the burgundy mica powder.

Unfortunately, I made the biggest mistake you can do when painting: forgetting to let the first layer of paint dry fully before doing any touching up or painting a second layer. Because of that there's blot of non-shimmering magenta. Not that easy to see in the photos, but very visible IRL. Still, I really like the colour, shimmer and depth of the painted cab so I'm keeping it like this. At least at the moment, perhaps I'll scrape it all of and redo it some day.

Pébéo Fantasy test pieces

I thought I'd better blog about this before forgetting about it. As you can see, there's two more pieces than in the sneak peek posted here. As mentioned in that post, the paint comes with instructions just must follow to the letter in order to get the effects you want so therefore I thought this post would start with my first pieces, which all failed, and tell you what I did wrong.

The first fault I did was not paying attention to the instructions saying mix well. I just shook the bottle and stirred the knitting stick (for applying the paint) around the bottle once. That's usually enough with ordinary paint, but this isn't ordinary paint and you really, really need to stir well as the effects won't appear if the paint isn't mixed properly.

The second fault was taking the next set of instructions lightly. Flat, horizontal surface means that and not just something sort of horizontal and flat-ish. I wanted to paint the bottom of a cab. To keep it horizontal I fixed it onto the table using Tack-It (häftmassa) and moved the cab until it seemed to be horizontal. It wasn't 100 % so and therefore the paint slowly, slowly moved to one side, which ruined the possibility for the patterns to emerge.

The third fault I made was forgetting how slowly the paint dries and thus making the very first piece, the round bronze tag, on an impromptu worktable. When moving it, the charm got rolled over by a paint syringe, got knocked into the wall of the cardboard box and then, finally, was dropped on the floor. You need to work on a table or other space where you can leave the pieces untouched until they harden. And don't pick them up just because you want to look at them more closely, even if they've been drying for two hours. I did that with the piece below and accidentally put my thumb in the bezel, ruining the paint (which was one of my first successful pieces) and having to redo it....

same bezel with glass cab

So far you can see that I've tried adding paint both directly to a cab and to a bezel covered by a cab. You really should do the latter and I'll explain why. First look what happens when I flip the big glass cab from the photo at the beginning of this post:

Whatever pattern there is on the surface won't be on the bottom. When painting the back of transparent glass cabs, it's the bottom of the paint you will see once the cab is being used. It's at least a small comfort that the Fantasy paints have a mica shimmer that makes them nice to look at even when you fail to get the effects desired. These two cabs are still useful even if they're so far from what I wanted to make.

One last fail, which I don't really see as a fail is what Cookson Gold in their tutorial call an amalgamated effect: if you wait too long (like, a minute or two) to add a second or third colour, the new colour will be engulfed by the first one and the result will either be a marbled look (bracelet) or just one colour on top of the other (copper connector). If filling multiple bezels it's better to add all colours to one bezel before moving over to the next. Pébéo doesn't tell you that on the package so be sure to remember this!


But enough with failures -- I've had some very successful results too! And for every failed piece (almost) I've learned something.

These two glass pebbles -- that I made before realising cab painting was a dead end -- might not look very special, but I'm including them as they were my first two successful attempts at using Prisme. You can see the front of the eggshell white and purple cab above.

For most of my tests I've been using 2x2 cm glass mosaic. They're a good, handy size and will hopefully be very useful and versatile when it comes to actually doing something with them. In the samples above I've used two colours in each (except in the apricot tile in the middle of the top row), mixing Prisme with Prisme, Prisme with Moon or Moon with Moon. The only real flop was the red one in the upper right corner: the lighter red in the centre is Prisme, which should've turned bubbly as in the rest of the samples.

I've also filled both tags (need to be careful moving those) and bezels. Here are two examples of that, both using two colours of Prisme and as you can see they've fused together on the brass round in a way they didn't do in the bezel (part of a bangle).

My final samples are both made using Vintaj brass tags. In the first one I mixed three colours of Prisme. Nothing fancy, really. In the second piece I wanted to see what happened when you have a relief. As you need a horizontal, flat surface would the paint migrate from the relief (in this case decoupaged thin cardboard leaves)? Except for the edges, the paint did cover the embellishment well, though I'm not sure it was a good idea to paint on a sealed pendant considering the Fantasy paints are solvent based. Not sure if that explains the lack of pattern in the Moon paint or not.

Now, when I say that the paint is dynamic and moves, it doesn't just mean that it'll flow on a surface that isn't horizontal. It means that the paint changes, morphs during the time it takes for it to harden. The patterns develop up until the paint is dry, meaning the results are unpredicatable. A fun surprise. Below is a photo I took of the pendant above just two hours or so after applying the paint (never occurred to me to snap one right after dripping the paints on the charm). Notice the differences, both in pattern and the proportion between the colours. (The harsh shimmer, however, is due to the artificial light and camera flash as this photo is taken indoors at night.)

It's not a paint for control freaks -- but for everyone who loves unpredictable results and find morphing paints exciting, it's heaven!

Peek at Pébéo

I'm blog hopping today (Challenge of Travel) and waiting for the Pébéo Fantasy paints to cure fully before taking photos, but I just had to post a little sneak peek of my first try at these paints.

This is what you can see on my worktable right now, hidden under a plate to dust, paws and fingers from the drying paint. A couple of the first test pieces failed miserably as I didn't adhere to the instructions well enough (flat, horizontal surfaces really means flat, horizontal surfaces, not somewhat horizontal and mix well doesn't just mean shake the bottle), but the good thing is that the paints have such pretty colours even failed pieces look nice and usable.

As with all effect paints there's a little learning curve and you need to read -- and follow -- the instructions in order to succeed, but it's such fun paints to play with that it's well worth it! I got back down to the bead room more than once because I just had to make one more. And then, later, I went back several times just to look at the paint. It's like the paint's alive, it grows and moves and you can't be really sure what the finished result will look like. It might just be my bad newbie technique, but when mixing colours the final result is always different from how I envisioned it. In a good way, a very good way.

 

Be warned, though: painting a piece goes fast -- especially if combining colours as you have to do it right away to avoid the amalgamated effect seen in the bracelet -- but the paint dries slooowly (and hardens fully first after 72 hours) and it's easy to be tempted to pick up the piece and look at it before it's dry. Don't! I did, fumbled and put my thumb in the copper bezel on the left... Nothing to do, but wipe it clean and do it all over again... Lesson learned -- admire them on the table the first and do not touch until after at least 6 hours (2 hours for Moon and 6 for Prisme to dry on the surface according to Pébéo, others say 24 hours), but preferably more just to be on the safe side. 12-24 hours before touching the paint surface is probably a good rule of thumb.

But this isn't the post for paint tips. Stay tuned for a more in depth look at my first experiments and what I learned from it!

Meowy Monday: Cat photos of the week (and paint musings)

I was taking some photos of the worktable we have outdoors, mainly used for paint jobs which has given it layers upon layers of paint (blobs, sprays, drips, splashes) covered by a weathered patina -- perfect for photo textures! -- when some of the cats decided they wanted to join in. Don't know how many times I had to put down Uggi on the ground and move Mimi. After giving up taking more photos of the tabletop, I decided to take a few pics of the cats and the table. As the cats were in the way the whole time, I might as well give up and take photos of them instead. This is what happened then:

Oh, so now you can get off the table and stay off it, Uggi...

Pardon? You wonder what the tabletop look like? Well, I'm taking more and hopefully better (= cat free) pics tomorrow, hopefully, but if you're curious here's one photo I got from a section of the masonite surface.

And speaking of paint -- I just ordered some. Actually I was just going to order some shells so I could make a copy of this necklace of mine for grandma as she liked my necklace, but it was too dear for me to give her. Those shells aren't always easy to find. Especially not if buying a cheap large bag from the US isn't an option. Luckily, a shop I have a long wishlist in recently added the shells to their range and it just happened to be a shop selling Pébéo's fantasy paints -- paints I've been dying to play with for many months (if you follow me on Pinterest, you've probably seen that).

I'd like to paint more.Colourizing metal, creating mixed media components, painting fabric for (bead) embroidery), staining paper, make glass cabochons -- or just doodle. Paint is exciting, especially with all the amazing colour and effect paints and media available today.

Painting is fun, but it's not something I've dabbled with that much for the last 15 or so years. Though back then it was mostly about painting pictures. When giving up all but the occasional watercolour doodle, I would just use paint a couple of times for furniture makeover. Staining that unpainted ikea chair I got for the student apartment, adding colour to a wooden box or revamping the old mirror my parents gave me. That sort of thing.

The painting I want to do now is really just more related to that than to the artist dreams I had as a kid. More about playing with crackle and patina effects, simple paint techniques, stamping/stenciling/printing projects etc. Like you can see in my pinboards (mostly Colour it! and Crackle, patina and faux finishes, but also Stamping and printing techniques). Besides encaustic wax, paint is probably the thing that interest me the most right now.

Black gesso filigree

I'm waiting for the rain (ok, it's really just a light drizzle today) to clear so I can get back out and take some more photos. While waiting I thought I might as well show you this. A little something I made just to try my new black gesso.

It's a relatively large silverplated filigree piece that I coated with black gesso and then dusted with purple chalk, which gave the matte surface a slightly smoky feel. As you can see, I wasn't very thorough with the paint job so the plating peaks through here and there, but on the other hand it was just a test. Next time I'll prepare the surface better -- and wait with the second coat and chalk until the first coat is fully dried.

Hrmm... I should've taken a photo of the filigree before painting it so you could see the difference. I do have a second, unused and unaltered, one so I'll see if I can add a pic of it here later.

...and now it's added.

 It's very pretty as it is too. But it's fun to do something different sometimes, create a new look for filigree you've had laying around for ages.

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.

Gesso texture

A quick "oh-by-the-way post" here. Remember the ribbon I mentioned here? One way I thought of using it was as a stencil. Well, I tried that as you can see above. Gesso applied on cardboard (painted black using a permanent marker) with a paper towel while manually holding the ribbon in place probably wasn't the best combo of materials and techniques for this, but it still result in an interesting texture. A texture filled with unwanted tiny air bubbles, but still a nice result.

Next time I'll either use stencil glue on the ribbon or use another paint, e. g. spray paint, and see if that works better.

Now the big question is just what to do with it. Or rather, not with this particular sample, but more in general what to do with this kind of gesso texture. Could it be applied to a pendant? Or could it be used for backgrounds? Should it be used as it is or maybe painted, brushed with chalk, rubbed with metallic wax, crackled or in any other way altered or manipulated first?

Many questions that I'm not even going to start thinking about at the moment as I'm focusing on some other samples and it's just way too easy to get side-tracked. But I thought it was a nice first result and worth showing today when I don't have anything better to write about anyway.

Gesso and chalk

When I bought a jar of gesso for a project, it was only sold in big jars (with a price to match). Great for painters, but when making jewellery you don't use very much at the time. So there's a lot of it left. Now, gesso is great and has many uses so I'm sure it'll come in handy some day. And I want to buy black gesso too to complement the white.

The other day I got the idea to just play around and smear some of it on two small Vintaj brass blanks. On the left tag, I used a smooth brush stroke motion (didn't actually use a brush but a piece of paper towel) and on the right tag, I dabbed the gesso with the paper.

Then -- just for the fun of it and because I hadn't used it yet -- I brushed coloured chalk on the not fully dried gesso. Not sure it's something that's going to lead anywhere. It was just for fun and because I had nothing else to do. It's two little doodles made without a plan or idea, almost stuck after having that inital thought of "what if I gesso some metal and brush on chalk to tint it". Nothing special to look at, but I'm hoping to see some sort of potential in them nonetheless.

To conclude, the blanks had me thinking of more ways to use gesso on metal -- you've seen me use gesso on metal before here -- and what to do with my chalks. (And what kind of fixative or varnish to use on chalk and gesso; these pieces aren't sealed.) Both gesso and chalk are fun to play with. I bought gesso inspired by designs and techniques I'd seen in paper crafts and mixed media while I got the chalk with the intention to use it on polymer clay. Then I realised I'm rubbish at working with clay and the chalk was never used. Perhaps it can be used on the epoxy clay I have lying around? I do believe it can also be used on paper so maybe it'd be a good thing to think of some sort of paper-based project for these materials.

But I do think I want to develop this idea of gesso and chalk on metal a bit more too. What do you think? Do you perhaps even have some tips or ideas to share or links to others who do great things with gesso and chalk?

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!)

Dark metallic bronze bead

Just wanted to add a pic of a wooden bead my sis painted in Magic Metallics dark bronze paint.

She bought the paint for the same reason I bought their steel paint: to paint objects we wanted to add a patina to. These paints contain real metal particles and when treated with the appropriate patina solution, they patinate. Bronze and copper paint turn a beautiful verdigris while the steel paint rust -- like in this example I''ve shown before.

But I must say this paint is very pretty as it is: a matte black with a discrete copper shimmer. In a way it reminds me of my etched goldstone.

Patina and decoupage

Because of work, I haven't felt like starting a new project. Instead, when time has permitted, I've just experimented with bead-weaving ideas, played with patinas and colouring etc. Here are a few things I did today. The round tags are bronze and the flower vines are brass.

I've been thinking about combined patinas lately, what with the gesso and heat patina stamping here and the heat patina'd vinegar etched/buried patina stamping here. Therefore I picked out two of the tags from this experiment and added a peanut oil heat patina. (As a comparison, see these tags, which are just peanut oil with no prior patination.)

The dark tag above is almost burnt peanut oil on a "buried patina" (= leave metal in vinegar soaked sawdust).  [UPDATE: mixed up the info so here's the correct description of the tags.]  I'd polished the patina off with fine steel wool to get a shiny, textured surface so it was textured but not patinated when oiled. I also dabble with a second tag where the etched and slightly verdigris surface wasn't treated in any way before brushing on the oil. No pics of the front that one (i.e. the side the heat was applied on) -- but below you can see the back of it. I liked the softed colours it got.

These pics are macro shots: the actual size of the bronze tags is 17,5 mm in diametre.

If you've read this Manekis Pärlblogg post, you might've seen the branches below. I wasn't satisfied with the gesso finish so I dipped the whole thing in oil (rapeseed, not peanut this time) and heated it. Carefully as I'm not sure it's a good idea to torch acrylic-based gesso.

Nothing special, but I think it's an improvement. It's much darker, but you can still see some of the gesso, especially on the flowers.

And then, finally, a WIP photo.

One day I said to myself: "well, I've had this decoupage glue for textiles forever, when will I actually use it? Napkin decouapage on a piece of fabric could be a good foundation of embroidery or bead embroidery and I am looking for some fun, exciting and unusual surfaces to stitch on. If I don't do it today I'll probably never get around to it." So I found a cotton fabric scrap and a rose patterned tissue and begun work. It's one of those boring techniques were you have to wait for the glue to dry for 24 hours before heat setting it and being able to use it.

Now it is heat set and dried, but it's still laying around as I'm not sure what to do with it. Thinking jewellery (bracelet), but how do I want to embellish it? Could leave it as is, but using the decoupage as a surface was the original idea and I want something fun to stitch on... This is one of the bits and bobs laying around that I hope to be able to devote some time to after midsummer.

Apart from embroidery of various kinds, I'm really, really looking forward to some patina and colourisation sessions this summer. I'm obsessed with those two things, embroidery with or without beads and colour on metal, right now. (One patina I want to try soon, after seeing this, is heat patina on rusted steel and then of cause I'm dying to try coloured pencils and perhaps add some distress embossing.)

To end this post, another pic that'll appear on my other blog later this week: gold wax on black brass stamping (no, it's not Gilder's Paste). The wax really brings out the details, which the original shiny black finish didn't.

Gesso patina

Still busy with the harvest, but don't want to abandon the blog totally. So here's a pic of a brass stamping I was playing around with recently.

Originally, I just wanted to give it a white wash using gesso. Gesso is a product I just recently discovered. I'd heard about it before, but just seen it as something for painters, not for me. But then I began to see it in mixed media works and on metals coloured using coloured pencils. So I got a jar -- and I love it: the versatility, the creamy white colour, the matte finish, the toughness, everything.

The stamping with its clumsy gesso patina had been laying on my worktable for months as I wasn't pleased with the result. So the other day, when I felt like torching something, I gave it a bit of a heat patina on top of the gesso, perhaps inspired by Victoria Altepeter's patina examples.

Not sure if it's a good idea to torch acrylic-based gesso... Don't encourage others to apply an open flame on anything plasic based, but that's what I did. Carefully and with (sort of) good ventilation, but still nothing to encourage. Probably better to get the heat patina first or go for a fumed/buried/immersed patina on top of the gesso instead.

Next time I might dilute the gesso -- as mentioned here -- to make it easier to apply and, most importantly, to wipe off.


PS! If you want some gesso inspiration, check out my pinboard Crackle and patina finishes on Pinterest.

Crystallisation

The reason for me getting around to torching that brass stamping in the previous post was that my sis -- finally! -- got around to clearing up her mess in our shared workroom. That mess almost made it hard to find my workspace... On the other hand, as a beader I often work in a bed or sofa, using the bead room mostly for metalwork, painting etc -- something I haven't done much of lately. Anyway, today I therefore sat down at my table for the first time in ages and that is when I say that thing above. Can you tell what it is?

I was very surprised to find this because last time -- a few months ago -- when I used the pressed-glass ashtray it was filled with vinegar. Vinegar I'd used to etch mother-of-pearl (the mauve tint is dye from the MOP beads -- and there's probably some acrylic paint in there too) and then, together with some salt, used to add a fumed patina to some brass and bronze tags. After that I forgot about the vinegar-filled ashtray under the plastic jar. And then today I looked at it for the first time in ages and found the salt laden liquid had crystallised (or crystallized depending on how you want to spell it -- I keep mixing British and American spelling).

It reminds me of when we made salt crystals -- coloured with food colouring -- on string as kids. That was fun!

Crackle paint cabochons

I've had some crackle medium standing on a shelf for ages. Or at least it feels like that. I bought it just a week or so before reading about a cheaper crackling technique that uses ordinary white glue instead of crackle medium, which can be pretty pricey sometimes. Typical. Anyway, this weekend I finally got around to trying it and these are my very first pieces: two 30 mm wooden discs and two glass pebbles (of the kind used in flower vases etc).

This one is a bit so-so. I tried not to paint over the medium more than once, as recommended, but I think I was too worried about doing it and therefore got a very uneven layer of paint. To the right you can see an unsuccessful attempt to add some colour without blocking out the crackles in the semi-dry paint. Not a smart idea. Better to just paint, allow it to overlap if you have to (and don't do it too much) and then not worry about uneven painting or a few small bare spots. After all, that just add to the old and rustic look.

For both cabs/discs I used a blue base coat, pretty much the only darker colour I have apart from some purple paint. It was really a matter of using what I had at hand. Have to buy some dark brow paint soon as I think it'll make a better base coat, more realistic if nothing else.


I also tried to paint some glass pebbles. Here, I didn't use any base coat. Instead I painted the medium directly on the glass and then painted it over with acrylic paints. Beige on the amber yellow cab and the same blue as above on the clear cab.

I tried to add another layer of paint in a contrasting colour to darken the cracks on a third, green cab (not pictured). Didn't work very well. Perhaps I should've let the first layers of paint dry longer, making sure there's not even a drop of moisture left. Well, you live and you learn...

Have no idea what to do with these cabs. They were test pieces, but it would still be nice to use them in my jewellery.

I'm also planning on doing a few pieces that are only partially crackled, e.g. adding the crackling as a frame around an image or painting. Not exactly sure what I want to do, but playing with crackle medium is fun so I will experiment some more with it.

Crackled and peeled paint *new photos added*

I've taken a little break from blog hopping and working on creations for my next two hops as it's been such a sunny and warm day today. For those of you that don't know me that means I was outdoors with my camera. Tailed by three kittens, which meant I couldn't leave the garden (the kitties are not allowed on the road). Which isn't as bad, not least considering we have a big garden, partially overgrown and left to its own. But sorry to disappoint you: no pics today. Apart from the last handful I took, which were not of changing leaves but of old paint.

The first photo, at the top, is of the wooden window frame around the barn window. The second one is of the metal windowsill. It's really, really close up, which is why the paint on the frame almost look like bark. Seen from a slight distance, the crackling is much more subtle. Notice how the crackling is finer the closer to the edge it gets.

The crackle on the sill is so much finer (you can see a bit of the frame in the shadow under it if you look closely). If the frame is like bark, then this is more like the lichen you can find on trees.

I want to do some pendants with crackled paint so this was unusually inspiring. I see peeling and cracked paint every day, but today it made me think more about how I want to work with the crackled paint techniques. I've got some crackle medium, the kind you paint over -- bought before I hear of this technique -- but I'm also thinking about getting Distress Crackle Paint and Lefranc & Bourgeois' transparent crackle varnish (and ageing varnish for the right patinated effect).

Also took a few shots of the barn wall with its old peeling paint, but I'm afraid they came out very blurry...

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And because they were blurred, I thought I'd take a couple of new one. Of cause, I ended up taking a few more photos than planned. So that means more old paint for you.

And then there's the old barn door:

The other window on the same side of the barn (the long side facing east):

The red is paint from the wall. Someone was a bit careless when painting it, it would seem (window frames not painted at the same time). There's also rust stains where the paint covers a nail.

I've actually got a pic of the whole window too. Not the one those last three pics are from, but the one the pics at the top is from:

It probably needs a new coat of paint, or what do you think? Luckily, it's on the back so most people don't see this side. On the other side, facing the yard, there's only wood panelling for perhaps half a meter under the roof. The rest of the wall is concrete.

But let's return to the windows one last time. What side a window is on can make a huge difference. And it's the same for other parts of the house as well: the bargeboard on the short end of our outbuilding facing west is much more worn than the one facing east as weather and wind are tougher on that side. Anyway, here's a barn window that faces north:

Not as crackled and worn, but here in the shadow it's a easier for the algae to attach itself to the walls and windows.

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As usual you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Unless I have too much to do, I'll upload some of the foliage photos next week. For those of you not interested in close-ups of old paint (I can probably find more of those in my albums too, perhaps there might even be some old pics somewhere in this blog).