Making Marbled Paper & Fabric - With Shaving Cream!

I came across this idea when I was researching Golden's new High Flow Acrylics, and immediately had to try it!  As I experimented, I found that it worked on paper and fabric, AND that you could get the same effects with High Flow Acrylics, Fluid Acrylics, and even Jaquard's Dye-Na-Flow fluid fabric paints.  Awesome!  

Shaving Cream Marbling on Rice Paper with Golden High Flow Acrylics - Yummy!

What You Need:

• A Shallow Tray - anything like a baking sheet or shallow plastic tub will work.
• Shaving Cream!  The cheaper and foamier the better (the gel stuff is harder to work with).
• A Few Toothpicks or Skewer Sticks - anything with a fine tip will work, and you can even use a popcicle stick. You can also use a marbling comb like the pink one pictured above, but it's not necessary at all - I didn't use it any of the examples.
• A Few Old Giftcards - or another kind of spreader/scraper. Even an old piece of coated cardboard or chipboard will work (though it will soggy and won't last!)
• High Flow Acrylics, Fluid Acrylics, Dye-Na-Flow, or other inks or fluid paints - experiment!  I'm using Golden High Flow Acrylics in the first example, and they were VERY easy to use! They behave like inks, which makes them ideal for marbling. Dye-Na-Flow also worked well (I applied it with a dropper) and is good for use on both fabric and paper.
• Paper or Fabric - I used a sturdy Japanese Sumi-e paper and bleached muslin in my experiments, but just about any smooth paper should work.  
• Paper Towels, Baby Wipes or Rags - these can be helpful to clean paint-infused shaving cream off your tools as you work, though the whole thing is easy water cleanup!

You're Ready to Start!

1. Begin by spraying shaving cream into your tray.  You'll want a pretty thick layer (mine ended up about 1/2" thick)

2. Using your hand or your spreader, blend and smooth the shaving cream so you have a relatively flat surface. It spreads like fluffy icing!  It's handy if your spread shaving cream is roughly the same size as your paper. 

3.  Drop paint onto the surface of the shaving cream. I found I got the best results when I started with three colors and spaced the drops of paint out over the whole surface of the shaving cream. I did mine in a very random pattern.  

4.  Next, take your toothpick or skewer and drag it through the shaving cream, blending the dots.  You can do it all in one direction.

Or, you can shake it up and create swirls. You could even get a book of marbling patterns from your local library and go for complex patterns! (yup, I've got one on hold right now)

 Here's what my shaving cream looked like before I put the paper down.

5. Put the paper down onto the shaving cream. Gently press to ensure that every part of the paper is in contact with the surface of the shaving cream.

6.  Pull the paper up - and don't be scared! It will look like all you got was a big hot mess, but it will get better! 

7. Put you paper down and gently scrape away the shaving cream.  The gorgeous marbled pattern will be revealed! Be careful - the paper will be damp, and if it's thin, it may tear.  

Here's how the paper looked after it was scraped and dried!

8.  Keep going! You may think that after that first piece of paper you have to clean your tray off and start all over again with fresh shaving cream!  Not so!  It may look like the pattern is destroyed, but you can keep swirling, laying down paper, pulling and scraping.  The colors blend more and become more subtle, but that's part of the beauty! 

Here's what the second pull from that batch of paint and shaving cream looked like.

This is the third pull - here, I just used my spreader to blend the remaining color.  At this point, I could add more drops of paint and keep going!  This soft green would make a wonderful background color!

More Options!

Here, I used Golden Fluid Acrylics. I found that the drops of paint were harder to control, but the color was brilliant.  I used a skewer for the first pull, then used a popsicle stick to create the larger, looser swirls for the second pull.  Then, I was back to the skewer for the final pull.

And here is a sample using the Dye-Na-Flo on bleached muslin.  

I've also been thinking these marbled papers (especially the lighter ones) would be great as backgrounds for art journal pages.  I've pinned a few other art journal ideas on Pinterest! 

An Easy Birdbath

I love birds, and I've been wanting a birdbath for a long time. However, a recent trip to my local garden store showed me that pedestal birdbaths are pretty darn expensive! Try $70-$180 - for a short one.  And I wanted a fairly tall birdbath - I really want to make it hard for the neighborhood cats to hunt in my yard!

So, I with a little internet research, I figured out how to make one for about $25. 

What You'll Need:

1. A shallow dish - I found this one at a second-hand shop for about $10
2. A three-foot piece of 1/2" or 3/4" galvanized pipe 
3. A galvanized floor flange that the pipe can screw into (see photo below)

4. Heavy-duty adhesive - I used a caulk-like adhesive called StrongStik

Here's How You Put it Together:

Clean both surfaces, and then glue the floor flange to the bottom of the dish, being careful to center it.  Let dry per the adhesive's instructions.  You can sand the bottom of the dish first for better adhesion, but it didn't really seem necessary here.

Once the glue is dry, screw your length of pipe into the floor flange.

Push your pipe into the ground like a stake, fill your dish with water, and you're done!  Mine was positioned near my deck, and the ground was kind of rocky, so - since I couldn't get the pipe very deep into the ground - I screwed a galvanized pipe strap to the edge of my deck to help hold the pipe upright.

Want to see some other DIY Bird Bath ideas? Check out my "Outdoor DIY" board on Pinterest.

Working Big!

I used to work big all the time.

When I was in college, I regularly did acrylic and collage pieces that were 4 feet by 4 feet.  When I started doing process painting with tempera on paper, the paintings frequently grew to six feet in height! That's so big I had to stand on a chair to paint them.

But since I started working in encaustic in 2006, I've been working smaller.  Encaustic is expensive, and there are technical considerations to working large that aren't as prevalent in other media.  For example, it's generally easier to work an encaustic painting while it's flat rather than propped on an easel.  I'm effectively limited by the length of my arms and the size of my table.

But in January, I exhibited a piece that once again hit the four foot mark - it's made up of four panels, and is four feet wide.

Because I was working on it modularly - generally one or two panels at a time - I was able to move the panels around as I painted. So, the painting can be hung different configurations.

A few months ago, I re-configured my studio so that it would be easier to paint on large panels. Now, my palettes (er, griddles) sit to my right and the paintings sit on a six foot "island." It's all at counter-height, so that I can stand and walk around the pieces, working on them from multiple angles.

The diptych that's on the table in the above photo is composed of two square panels, each of which measures two feet by two feet.  The piece went through multiple evolutions!

At first, I wasn't even sure the two panels were related, one just areas of color, the other incorporating image transfers of cactus.

But then I connected them.

And then it takes a huge, undocumented leap!  It got largely painted over, octopus tentacles were added and removed, pollen was added, and then . . . I decided to focus on the pollen.  Interestingly, even though the panels were flipped, you can see that the underpinnings of the composition remained . . . 

And here's the final piece - installed at In Bocca Al Lupo Fine Art as part of their "Pollen Count" show, up through the end of June, 2014.

 Working on these bigger pieces lets me be looser, more experimental. 

Getting Creatively Unstuck

Creativity often involves trying new things.  Taking risks.  Even possibly looking like a fool.

Well, here I go! My first video!

I share ways of getting unstuck when you don't know what to do next in a painting, as well as how to fold a paper fortune teller (or "cootie catcher" for those of you who remember middle school).

Why the heck do I share how to fold a "cootie catcher" in a video about getting unstuck?  Because I've created my own paper fortune teller, dubbed the Creativity Catcher, full of prompts to help you get unstuck! (Yup, all the same tricks I use when I get stuck!)  So feel free to scroll down, then download and print your own Creativity Catcher, and fold right along with me!





And here's the link to the Creativity Catcher -  it'll take you to Google docs, and you should be able to click the arrow in the upper left-hand corner to download after you follow the link.  If you have problems, just email me at sparky@eyesaflame.com and I'll be happy to send you the .pdf!

Washi Tape Easter Eggs

Sometimes, I get really excited about a new art material.

This time, it was washi tape - printed translucent tape originating in Japan.  It's not exactly new - but it was new to me when local art store collage started carrying it.

I've been looking at it and drooling every time I go to collage to teach a class - so I finally developed a class to actually use it! Easter eggs with their bold stripes of festive color seemed like the perfect opportunity.

What You Need:

Papier Mache egg shapes
Old egg carton to hold eggs while you work
Gesso
Craft paints
Washi tapes
Mod Podge
Scissors, xactoor craft knife
Brushes, water, rags

Optional: 
Tiny screw eyes
Thick craft glue
Narrow ribbon

You're Ready to Start:

The egg shapes I used were brown, so I started by painting them with two coats of gesso. Since the tape is relatively translucent, the white background helps the color show more brilliantly. Here's the egg after one coat:

The tape doesn't work well to cover the steep curves of the very ends of the eggs, so I painted the bottom and top 1/4 of the egg, leaving the center of the egg free for washi tape.

Measure the circumference of the egg at the widest point - mine were 6" around.  That helps you determine how much tape to pull off the roll.

Start by wrapping tape around the very center of the egg.

Because of the curve of the egg, the tape won't lay completely flat. It will probably be lifting up along the top edge.  Use your xacto knife to cut tiny slits in the tape every 1/4" to 1/2" along the top edge.  This will create what are essentially darts, and will enable you to press the tape flat. The edges of the cuts will overlap slightly.

Now, you can repeat the process by adding tape on either side of the center stripe, cutting the little darts, and pressing the tape down.

Awesome! You've got stripes!

At this point, you can seal the egg with Mod Podge and call it good - or, you can prepare the eggs for hanging.  Take a small screw eye and dip the end in thick craft glue.  Screw it into the top of the egg and make sure there's a little extra craft glue sealing the hole.

Once the glue has dried, cut 6"-12" worth of narrow ribbon and tie it through the screw eye for hanging.

Here's a few of the ones my students did during the collage workshop last week:

Love the skulls! The possibilities are endless!

Taking a Second Look at Art You Don't Like

A while back, I did this collage.

It was made as part of a class I was running, using one of the exercises in my book, The Creative Conversation: ArtMaking as Playful Prayer.

The Artful Explorations in that book are all about exploring - not necessarily making an amazing product.  In fact, this exercise is called the "What's Next? Art Jar" and it's all about working within constraints and ultimately, LETTING GO OF THE OUTCOME. 

I had fun doing the exercise.  I  finished the collage, and felt, well, complete. 

And I didn't particularly like the result.

This happens.  And it's ok.  To paraphrase drawing instructor Phil Sylvester, "Everyone's got a lot of bad drawings stuck in their arms.  You've got to make a lot of bad drawings to get to the good ones." 

Fortunately, I wasn't attached to whether the piece was any good or not: I had a good time, learned some interesting things with negative space, and that was enough for me.

But there's always the question:  what do you do with something you're not crazy about it when you're done?  Poets and musicians might keep a line or a phrase from an unsuccessful piece, use it, turn it into something else. 

Even a piece we're not happy with will have interesting moments - bits that shine when you put them in a different context.  To help me find those moment in my own artwork, I use a piece of cardboard with a rectangular shape cut out of the middle.  Like a camera, the cardboard helps me to "frame" a small piece of the total picture, and notice it as its own composition.

I have one the size of an artist's trading card (what better way to use those pieces than to find the good "moments" and share them?) and another that's a small square.

Then, I use the cardboard frame(s) to mark the selected areas with a pencil . . . .

And I cut out the pieces I want to keep!

It's fun to play with the pieces, rearranging them, considering them alone and together.  It gets the creative juices flowing!  I'm really enjoying how these three pieces fit together!

 So, do you have any pieces of art that could use a fresh look?
 

Quick and Easy Vegetable Printing!

I've always loved printmaking - especially using found materials to make impressions and patterns.  Several years ago, I was introduced to nature printing through The Nature Printing Society, and I've been printing with plants, vegetables and other natural found objects ever since!

Usually, when printing from nature, I roll out water soluble printmaking inks, and use a brayer or dauber to apply ink to whatever I'm going to print.  Recently, however, I saw a great shape in a bunch of celery I was getting ready to juice, and wanted a quicker printing option.

Here's What You'll Need:

• The end of one bunch celery
• A paper towel or rag
• A rubber stamp pad - I used Staz-On, a solvent ink pad, but any dye or pigment stamp pad will work
• Paper to print on - try copy paper, cardstock, or even tissue paper

You're Ready to Get Started!

1.  Blot your celery end with a paper towel or a rag to get up the extra juices - if the celery is too "juicy," it'll cause your print to blur.

2.  Ink up your celery!  Don't just push the celery into the stamp pad - be a bit more gentle and dab the celery with the ink pad.

3.  When the celery looks like this, you'll get a light print.  Keep gently adding ink!

4. Press the celery onto your paper with even pressure.  Voila! See how inky the celery is?

5. Every celery bunch has a different pattern - and each celery end can be used multiple times!  I've had good luck getting up to 30 impressions from a single celery end, but haven't had much luck with storing them overnight for reuse. 

The paper can be used as gift wrap, collaged into encaustic paintings, used for greeting cards - use it anywhere you'd use patterned paper! I used a celery end, but I'm thinking you could use the carved end of a potato, a cross-section of onion, or even a sliced apple!