Gelli Printing fun

When I bought my house, I 'inherited' a bedside table, which matches the built in wardrobes.  I have never liked it much, so I decided to brighten it up a bit. I took a colour pallette of turquoise/teal with golds/yellow as contrast, and used stencils, masks and bubble wrap to make Gelli prints.

I arranged the prints on top of the bedside table, glued them down, and painted the edges of the top with blue fluid acrylic. I laid glass over the top for durability, and changed the little brass knobs for bubbly turquoise glass ones.  A much improved piece of furniture already. I may yet paint the drawer fronts and carcase turquoise, let's see how I feel in a month or two! 

Polymer clay play

I've played with polymer clay a few times over the last few years, but I've never devoted enough play time to it to get confident using it.  I think that's going to change, I've spent a LOT of time admiring polymer clay art on Pinterest in the last few months...

So, I thought I'd make some simple polymer clay inchies for a swap.

 These were made using dark skin tone scrap clay, into which I pressed a plastic tablecloth to create an intaglio effect. I brushed them with copper Pearl Ex, which has brought out the design. I baked them, but have decided they need something more. Maybe gems. I'll work on it.

Next, I played with making a cane. A simple geometric cane, where I layered black clay with 2 different greens. And then I cut it up and re-assembled it so that the stripes went in different directions, to make it a bit more interesting. I made 3 inchie bases and treated each differently. 

The first had two balls of the darker green added, then poked with a stick to make holes.

The second had eight slightly larger balls of the same green (mistake) rolled into cigar shapes and flattened, then attached to the inchie. I used an awl to press them down and make the central line in each petal. Then I added a squashed ball of yellow clay, and dabbed it with an old toothbrush for texture.

The third just had six little balls of green clay squashed and added in a flower shape, then a black ball added to the centre, and poked with an awl for texture.

The third set, I was pleased with technically, and I went with primary colours (although I'm not sure I should have, that yellow is VERY bright). I made a cane of variegated stripes which you can see a slice of on the left hand inchie. I then cut the cane into some slices, then cut thin strips off the slices before cutting the inchies and using the stripy strips as an inlay. This was starting to get quite technical, and I was starting to have fun. 

Once I'd inlaid the stripes, I needed some dimension, so the first inchie got a shaving off the cane and a little spiral of the striped strip.

The second inchie got a much bigger spiral of the striped strip.

The third inchie got a very thin strip of striped wiggled around on top of the inlaid stripes.

I'm not sure if these are the inchies I'll actually send out for the swap. They are OK for a beginner. I'd like to do better, with some slightly more muted colours.

New blog for a new phase of life

It's long time since I updated my old Adrienne's Art Garden blog, but I've decided it's time for a fresh start. 

I changed my surname nearly 2 years ago following my divorce and father's death - I kinda wanted to pay tribute to him by going back to the family name. Also, my marrried name offended me to see the old one every time I logged on to my blog. 

I changed my computer back in January, and the new one has Windows 8. Amongst many other things that my new computer and I argue about is the blog. 

It doesn't like me having a blog linked to a yahoo email address. It wants me to have a blog linked to a gmail address, and after months of arguing, I'm giving in gracefully!

The other change in my life is that after about 18 months of having very little art time because I have been increasingly supporting and caring for my mother (who lived 80 miles away), I am now an orphan. I don't like it, but apparently it's an irreversible state, so I'd better get used to it.

I have more time, but as you can imagine, my muse has been in hiding for a couple of months. I am only just beginning to dabble with art and craft again. Watch this space.