It's all fun . . .

. . . and games in the studio, especially when there's company.

Gwen and Beverly joined me this past week for four hours of tag-making, topped off with a gel printing session.  The hit of the printing session seemed to be the fun foam prints, so I thought I'd share the tutorial again:

It all starts with a dollar store foam surface.

Luckily I didn't discard/give away/lose my bag of foam shapes saved from other projects.

I've secured some of the shapes to the base with liquid gel medium - a great glue!

I'll be taking this one a little further than I did in the video above, using a round-tipped-impression-making-thingy to add some texture.  Incidentally, a knitting needle or dried-up ballpoint works just as well.

You know that by the time the tangling work is done and it's been used a few times it will resemble all the other fun foam templates - colour extraordinaire!

And while the gel printing session was fun, the main event meant that Beverly and Gwen were hard at work creating layer upon layer to bring a series of tags from background to finished product.

I neglected to get photos of the finishes but they were all certainly looking fabulous when I caught these in-progress photos.

And you can tell from the grins on our faces that it was a blast.

We're already looking forward to round two!

I'm hoping your week was at least as much fun, 'cause it's hard to beat the creative life!

I'm a scrapper...

...apparently, because I like to utilize everything.  I had a bag full of fun foam bits left over from my recent foray into the world of fun foam gears.  They were all shapes and sizes, and just begged to be used.

I chose a full sheet of fun foam and started placing them on top in an abstract design.  When I had one I liked, I adhered them with gel medium.

That looked a tad boring, so I started incising them with my handy-dandy double-ended incising tool. Does anyone have any idea what this thing is called?  I'm sure I must have known at one time, but it's now buried somewhere in the archives of my artist brain, unable to be recalled.

Some hours later I surfaced to a fun foam texture plate that was totally different.

Each bit of the raised surface was patterned like a tangle gone crazy.

Of course, I had to do a test run on the super-size 12 x 14 Gelli plate, and pulled this first print. It somehow reminds me of a souvenir map of Venice I had in my stash.  Can't you just imagine all those lovely canals filled with exotic gondolas and even more glamorous gondoliers?

After pulling a few prints (no way could I stop at one) I love how the mother colour on the fun foam plate pulls the look of the plate together, in spite of the variety of coloured foam bits.

I'd love to know how you use your scraps from projects...feel free to put a link to your posts on this matter in the comments below, since I'm sure my readers would as well!

Have I been...

...in a black hole for the last couple of weeks?  Perhaps, if you consider a black gesso frenzy in two studios a hole.  I've been working on a clock, if you can imagine.

The Impossible Clock, °Bart Bjorkman & Win Dinn
Repurposed table, clock workings, chalk paint, gears
47" diameter

This piece, in collaboration with Bart Bjorkman of Puffin Design, has occupied my mind, hours and dreams for the past while, and has been a long time in the works.

Bart found the table (imagine this photo without the clock hands, and some 47" inches in diameter if you can), and knew he had to turn it into a clock.

Well before Christmas, Bart did a lovely cream edging with chalk paint and left the distressed wood showing for the four sets of Roman numerals.  Adding the clock mechanism, he foolishly turned it over to me.  That's when things really started to bog down.

We mulled over a French concept, but I was unmotivated.  I spent hours working on a design concept that included a floral motif, with lacklustre results.  And then the craziness hit.  Why not do a steampunk theme?

I searched the net for clockwork gears, hoping that I could find some larger ones.  No luck.  I found a wide range of gears in sizes of 1.5 inches and under, and ordered what I loved in those.  The larger ones had to be hand-created, though.  Watch out - here comes the fun foam brainwave.

Cutting gears from fun foam is no easy task, and incising them with a ball nib ever more entertaining.

Each gear (hand-crafted and commercial) then needed to be coated with black gesso, front and back, in order to give the medium (glue) something to adhere to.  They were then painstakingly gilded with four different shades of Inka Gold to give that metallic/rusted appearance.

Ranging in size from 2" up to 8" or so, each gear took about 2 hours to complete.  In order to ensure there were enough for the design, I did sixteen of them.  I'm grateful that my artist brain precludes me from doing the math or I'd be really worried about my sanity.

Distressing the cream edge, adding some real metal nuts and bolts and other oddments from my stash, and some layering really finished it off nicely.  I'm loving the results, and can't get enough of the look; I'll be sad to see this particular piece go out the gallery door! Detail photos follow:

I've been calling this the Impossible Clock for weeks (months?) now, and the name is definitely going to stick, in my mind anyway.  It's been a huge adventure, and I'm delighted that Bart was patient enough to wait for it to come together.  Thanks, Bart, for all the fun!

Studio mayhem...

...has struck again, with a host of projects on the go.

I'm in steampunk mode, making gears from fun foam (and yes, I did fussy cut these).

I gave them a heavy coat of black gesso, and then tore into them with three or four colours of  Inka Gold.  I think they're starting to get that steampunky look, don't you?  The largest is about 8" in diameter and I will not tell you how long it took to cut them.

I've got a lot more to cut, gesso and gild before there's enough for a 47" diameter clock created by Bart Bjorkman of Puffin Design.  The clock itself he's repurposed from an old table top:

I think the combination will be a knock-out, if I can just get the scissors and time to cooperate; I've been calling this 'The Impossible Clock' for so long I'm afraid the moniker will stick.

I'm also working on a couple of large floral paintings/collages for an upcoming show in Kimberley. The flowers, leaves and stems are all Gelli prints.  In this photo, I'm working on placement of flowers and flies on the background...somewhere in my studio chaos are some stems and leaves to add to the mix.

The second large floral has an entirely different colour scheme as you can see in this sneak peak...it's more my usual subtle colour style don't you think? 

I also finished a felted piece, my first ever, last night at Carmen's workshop.  What an amazing experience that was.  I somehow managed to forget my camera, although with water dripping from every part of my body throughout the night, it certainly wouldn't have accomplished much anyway. Suffice it to say that wet felting is just as colouricious as any other visual art form (although very much wetter, I must say).

All in all I feel progress is being made and I fully expect you will see some completed pieces here in the next while.  I hope your creative life is going gangbusters too.

Studio eye candy...

...abounds, so even when I'm tight for play time in the studio, I can always find colour and pattern that gives me joy.

Alcohol ink-painted wallpaper

Signature in process

Tag background

Background for journal page

Painting in progress - textured edge

Dried leaf mandala from my stash

Another background for a journal page

Fun foam stamp being created for a YouTube tutorial

 I've often been accused of channeling a bumblebee, because  I get up close and personal with my photos.  What do you find in your studio when you cast your eyes around?  Are you a big picture type, or a close-up fanatic?