Pals, Powertex and Pebeo

The Fearless Four recently got together, and we are still on that Powertex road! This time using a mirror as the base. As I had recently done a mirror with other friends (see here), I decided to turn mine into a picture.

Last year, I had a Pebeo play and used some Eco-board tiles, to create this ... using the Moon and I think a bit of the Prisme, not sure though, so long ago!

Since then they have sat in a box waiting for inspiration to strike. I found they fitted perfectly over the centre mirror ...









I first blocked the mirror aperture with cardboard, and covered the whole piece with a mixture of ivory and grey Powertex. I then used Stone Art all over, into which I embedded some loose woven hessian.

Once dry, I've used acrylic paint for the colour, and dry brushed gold paint, together with some copper gilding wax.

And what did the others get up to ...

Lin's mirror has some metal butterflies and flowers, with Bister. There's a bit of crackle going on there too.

Linda went for texture and flowers, with a bit of silver sparkle.

Monica used buttons - makes a change from shells!

I think we all have a button box, so a great way to use up those odd ones.












Another great day. We have already put the next one on the calendar, and we will not be using Powertex!

Power(tex) to the people ...

Had a session with a couple of other friends who wanted to try Powertex on a mirror frame. Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of their pieces - sorry!

I've used t-shirt yarn, paper clay roses and dragonfly, and bits of wallpaper, together with ivory Powertex and Bister sprays. I've done a lot of acrylic paint dry brushing on this, particularly in gold, which doesn't really come out in the photos.

Having finished it I can see a touch of Art Nouveau and Mackintosh in it, which just goes to show how we can be influenced by other art, even subconsciously!

Last week I went to this year's Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. The usual eclectic mix, here are a few of my favourites.

Sanctuary by Barbara Rae

She does a lot of work with the collaged birds, and I love them all.

This year, the red one attracted me!

Golden Wasp Game #7 by Mike Chisholm

This is a digital print. I am drawn to the simple almost monotone image.

Watching by Wendy Freestone
(bronze)
Quite small, which is what caught my eye, and maybe a little disturbing too.











Another fabulous art-filled day!

It's not about what it is ...

... but about what it can become!

Recently the Fearless Four got together for a Powertex play, using empty Horlicks containers.

We used bits of fabric, string, wood shapes, shells and other found stuff. Also included in our ingredients lists was Bister, acrylic paint and ink sprays. Because the Horlicks containers are plastic, we wrapped masking tape around them so the Powertex would stick.

So, here are the results ...apologies for the quality of most of the photos, but I forgot to take my camera, so used my phone.

Lin used ivory Powertex, with ric rac ribbon around cotton fabric, and embellished with some wood shapes. Bister and gold sprays used too.

Linda used bronze Powertex on cotton fabric, with some string, and a skull (Linda is a little bit Gothic too). She also used Bister and silver spray for colour.

Monica seems has a never ending supply of shells! Some have been incorporated into the cotton fabric, together with lace and string.

Bronze Powertex also used with  silver spray.

Every Halloween I'm on the lookout for likely stuff to use in projects, and I found a bag of plastic skulls one year and still have loads! I had to saw the backs off so they could be incorporated into this project.

I  have always been a little bit Gothic and fascinated by skulls, so I put three on my pot, but the other two are round the other side!

I've used some t-shirt fabric, with hessian, string and dishcloth material.

I also thought the plastic cross added to the look!

I used black Powertex, and dry brushed some blue paint, and also used Linda's fabulous silver spray (I've now bought some too!).

I'm using my pot for some of my (rather large) stash of paint brushes.



So, another fabulous day. We've already booked the next get togther, and guess what - yes - we will be using Powertex again!

Seeing red ...

I'm still on a Powertex wave!

With a couple of friends, I took part in another workshop; a good way to try stuff before maybe buying - this time I tried the red Powertex. Now, I'm not usually a red girl, but, I fell in love with the richness of this colour.

On a 40cm x 40cm box canvas, the texture is created from bits of wallpaper, hessian, cotton strings, sand, and paste through a stencil.

Also, some plaster ammonites from a mould and a couple of metal embellishments.

I also used black Bister and gold mica powder.

Followed by a good lunch ... another perfect day!

Gilly what?

All this heat addles my brain so that I can't think about anything creative, but I did complete this month's Craft Barn's Twelve Month Challenge using the July couplet:

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Strawberries and gilly-flowers.

And we must include gillyflowers, which I had to look up -

Gillyflower, also spelled gilliflower, any of several scented flowering plants, especially the carnation, or clove pink (Dianthus caryophyllus), stock (Matthiola incana), and wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri). However, the gillyflower of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare was the carnation. Other plants that are types of gillyflower are dame's gillyflower, also known as dame’s violet (Hesperis matronalis); mock gillyflower, also known as soapwort or bouncing bet (Saponaria officinalis); feathered gillyflower, also known as the grass or garden pink (Dianthus plumarius); and sea gillyflower, also known as the thrift or sea pink (Armeria maritima).

Hunted through some stamps, and found an old one by Paper Artsy which must be a wallflower (well, it certainly looks like one!).

Stamped onto watercolour paper and coloured with Windsor and Newton pens.

So far, so very boring ... 

...looking around I found a small piece of Bondaweb (a double sided adhesive usually used to bond two pieces of fabric). I had sprayed this particular piece with ink (probably Dylusions). So, I thought I would iron that over the top, for a bit of interest and texture.

Really enjoying Wimbledon this year - nothing like spending a lazy afternoon watching the tennis with an ice cream!

Postscript: just noticed the Sara Coeridge poem I downloaded has strawberries and not apricots. So I've just done another search, and found 3 different versions of this poem! 

So, I'll stick with strawberries - especially with cream - yum!

Wave power ...

I'm still playing with Powertex, and I found an offcut of MDF in my cupboard, which I thought I would use as a base. In preparation, I roughly cut some strips from an old T-shirt and some flower shapes from calico.

I coated the MDF with black gesso, and put some plasterboard tape down one side for texture.

I poured on ivory Powertex and spread it around before dunking the fabric bits into the ivory Powertex, and creating the flowers. I added  sand and small balls (also by Powertex) to add weight at the bottom.

I let it dry before using some bister sprays. I also added crushed glass to the centre of the flowers and a little gilding wax; although the photo doesn't really show the glimmery bits!

The measure of a man is what he does with power(tex)

With apologies to Plato

Took a trip to the British Museum last week and saw "Hokusai beyond the Great Wave" exhibition (on until 13 August). I love these kinds of exhibitions because they bring together artwork from around the world, which normally I wouldn't get to see.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is mostly know for his Great Wave (woodcut) - have you noticed the boats and the people?

I also love the way he did waterfalls ...

... and this one with carp.

In fact water features a lot in both his woodcuts and paintings, as well as Mount Fuji.

This is an ink painting I wouldn't mind hanging on my wall - The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mount Fuji.

I've always had a passion for dragons - probably because I was born in the year of the dragon!



















Usually our art trips start with a coffee and almond croissant, and this one was no different! Perfect day.

City lights

I wanted to have a play with Powertex, and see how it worked with stuff I've already got. It was first formulated as a fabric hardener, but you can use it on so many other things.

I've used corrugated cardboard, cotton threads and microbeads for the textures, and Dylusion sprays, and gilding waxes for the colour.

I first spread ivory coloured Powertex over the box canvas, then placed all the elements, using more Powertex as they were added.

I left it overnight before applying any colour.

When dry, everything is quite solid and secure. Powertex do their own sprays, pigments and varnish, but you only need to use them if the item needs to be weatherproof. I'm not likely to put a canvas outside, so I wanted to try the sprays I already had. Decided to use the Dylusion ones, as the colours are so strong and vibrant. I then used some gilding waxes for the highlights, and sprinkled some mica flakes too.

Look on the positive side ...

The Craft Barn's alpha dictionary challenge is every 2 weeks, but it seems those 2 weeks go in the blink of an eye! The next letter is N - with no twists (phew!).

I did contemplate doing Nothing and presenting a blank page - but then had a Negative thought!

I took some black card and some card that had been sprayed with inks. I then die-cut both pieces exactly the same.  Then I pieced the images together using opposites - the birds were quite tricky!

Again, the definition was very long, so I took just one aspect and printed it separately.

Thought for the day -

Turn every negative into a positive!

Going round in crazy circles!

Firstly can I welcome new followers, and also say thank you for all the comments I receive - I love reading them and they are truly appreciated.

This week's Craft Barn challenge is about sprays, and the current Paper Artsy challenge is all about circles ...

I'm still into my Crazy bird stamps, so I sprayed a piece of card with some Dylusions sprays, stamped a load of  the birds, cut them out, and added another layer of eyes and beaks - some of those dies are soooo tiny, I keep dropping them in the waste bin and then spend ages fishing them out!

The background is Brushos blown around with my Color Spritzer, the tool that you can attach pens to, to get an airbrushed effect.  Mine is made by RenArt and I've had it for years, but I think Tim Holtz does one too. Anyway, I don't use it with pens, but it is great for blowing paint around!

I then cut a circle from a piece of sheet music to create a circular swing, and added some words from a Paper Artsy stamp set.

Maybe it is time to say happiness is singing in the rain - as we are getting rather a lot of the wet stuff!

Spray time!

My craft room is going to be out of action for a couple of weeks, as I'm having it decorated, but first I have to empty it!  Slowly going through everything; being a little bit ruthless and chucking stuff out - which really goes against my nature and "that could come in handy for a future project" thought process!

Anyway, before I packed up particular items, I needed to make a card for a friend's birthday, and to save a bit of time I was going to used some pieces of card I had already sprayed with Dylusions.

Co-incidently the current Paper Artsy challenge is all about sprays ..... so here is the card.

I prepared a background by sponging white acrylic paint through a stencil to act as a resist, then used some Prima sprays to give a mica sparkle (which doesn't show on the photo!).

I then stamped and die-cut some flowers with the Dylusions sprayed card, using some newly acquired Heartfelt Creations stamps and matching dies (this is the daisy one).  I don't usually like using stamps with matching dies, as I seem to have problems lining them up, but a friend persuaded me these are different.  And they are!  No problem lining the dies up with the stamped images, so I'm a convert now!

Back to my sorting and packing now, and to avoid withdrawal symptoms I have put a few bits on my kitchen table (including my Brushos!), so that if I feel the urge to make something I can.

Happiness is shortly going to be a new craft room (I hope!).
Happy Maytime.

Say it with colour!

This month's Craft Stamper challenge is all about colour, so I decided to dust off my Dylusion sprays, which haven't seen the light of day for a couple of months!

I sprayed some sheets of card with the Dylusions, then decided to add a some of the Prima sprays, the ones with mica in them.  Weirdly the Prima spray instantly dried the Dylusion spray - not sure what is going on there, but the effect was what I was looking for - vibrant colour with a bit of shimmer; though the shimmer doesn't show in the photo.

Anyway, I took my current favourite Paper Artsy flower stamp, stamped it 3 times onto each of the sprayed bits of card to create my very colourful flower.

Another thing I've been meaning to try is creating shapes with a hot glue gun.

I wanted some drips.  My first few attempts were rubbish, but once I got the hang of it I couldn't stop! Difficult to photograph - this is just a small section of my craft sheet!

I then coloured some with silver gilding wax; and carefully put the rest in a little box - hope they don't all stick together!  No doubt you will be seeing these drips on a lot of other projects!

Background is done with Distress Inks, and I made a square stencil to add a bit of interest; I added more colour with pencils.

I've named this flower Kaybeesia colourii - don't think you will be seeing it at Chelsea though!