mixed media insect Archives - Page 13 of 16

Between Halloween and the Orange Catastrophe, I never posted most of the things I made in October.

And of course I’ve been making more in November, because handwork is my safe place.

I worked on the beaded crazy quilt mantel scarf for quite a while after Halloween, once I finally got my sewing machine working here.

You need a step-up step-down transformer to operate a US sewing machine in Germany.

However my machine is a computerized one with great automatic thread tensioning and I was terrified that the sheer power of European wall current would fry it. Finally I nerved myself up, plugged in the transformer and it was fine. The transformer gives off a bit of a chemical smell as it heats up, but that kind of thing never bothers me.

I’m still a raging helpless amateur on the sewing machine, anything I sew looks like wombat knitting.

Of course, I’ve spent a lot of time around extraordinary couture seamtresses and costumiéres, and I know I’ll never be even a regular competent sewer. But I don’t care. Using the machine makes me feel powerful and capable and it’s just so magic and fun.

My plan is to take the mantel scarf out before Halloween every year and add more beading, embroidery and quilting.

This hat is one of my “Uplift” projects. I found it in a 75% off bin at Michaels the fall before we left, coming apart, and threw it in the “Halloween Crafts on Arrival” box for the shipping container.

I love to carefully glue crappy things, and fix their carelessly made bits, and then add hours of careful crystal decoration and a vintage jet bead. I had these rooster feathers that precisely matched some scraps of sequin in the sequin trim scrap bag I got at Discount Fabrics for $5 years ago. Isn’t that nuts how they match?

I also spent a lot of time adding Swarovski crystals to a deer skull.

And gold leafing another skull. I used this weird star-patterned variegated gold leaf I got at Idée for super cheap; with my usual fingerpainting leafing technique, it didn’t really show.

After I leafed it I varnished it with acrylic glaze, then rubbed the still-tacky glaze with this pure bronze pigment powder. I bought the jar at the art-school art supply store in college in 1990 ’cause it was in a discount bin; I’ve still barely made a dent in it and I have used it for SO MANY THINGS.

Daria thought the black crystal-decorated skull was a little passé. Like, so gothsterday. Ah well, there’s no pleasing the young.

I also cleverly framed this creepy eye I painted back in February in this creepy frame.

Creepy, right? And I did the first test of using my machine to add passementerie trim to one of my pillows that for some unknown reason, did not already have trim on it.

I had been feeling bad for this poor, undecorated pillow for years.

Also, I got this incredible animatronic talking vintage radio at Target in the US in September, and carefully brought it home.

However, it needed work; both Daria and I felt that the way the lights flashed around the top was overkill and not so nice.

So I painted the white faux-Bakelite strip black, applied varnish, roughly gold-leafed it with the same cheap variegated leaf, then used the bronze powder on it. And then Daria distressed it with more black paint, because she said it was still too glitzy. She was right, of course.

I probably would have made a lot more stuff in October, but I was really busy baking for Halloween.

And in November I was so stressed before the US election and so gutted afterwards that I lost a lot of creative time. And Leonard Cohen died. What the fucking fuck, 2016.

I’m trying to catch up.

At least cats are on hand to supervise.

Lots of frames!

I am always catching up on framing. I wanted to frame two of the lovely drawings of me made by young women artists this summer, as well as more creepy dollar store lenticulars I brought from the US for Halloween decor.

And I finally found a copper frame that was just right for this postcard from beloved friend-muse-Patron Audrey Penven‘s 2011 show.

Floating frames are perfect for postcards because you can look at the back as well.

For the drawings I bought frames that were blue to start with, since they would be going in the salon.

(I have a gallery of portraits of me drawn by other artists, because I really believe in portraiture for life documentation. “I’m not just the President, I’m also a client!”.)

I wanted the frames to be a little more special and integrate with the mostly silver and gold existing frames, so I silver-leafed them.

To give the glossy frame a little more tooth on its surface, I scuff-sanded it with a nail file.Then I quickly glazed the frames with some clear polyurethane craft varnish (I was out of my other clear glazing mediums) and stuck bits of silver leaf all over them.

My VERY unorthodox method is to then tap and rub the leaf on the still-sticky frame, picking up bits of leaf with my tacky fingertips and tearing the pieces already attached.

Once I had a nice pattern of distressed leafing, I mixed up a little acrylic paint and used a sponge brush and my fingertips to roughly add some variegated color that partially obscured the leaf.

I found the blue plastic adhesive-backed curleques, made for scrapbooking, when I pulled out the leaf package, so I threw them on there too. More rococo!

Once I was done with the painting and the frames were dry, I gave them a thin coat of translucent pearly-gold craft acrylic.

Please note that as is the tradition of my people, I completely disregarded the safety instructions on the back of the large frame. Safety Third!

I’m pleased with the results and happy to have my students’ work hanging in the gallery. Viviane is impressed with my efforts as well, apparently.

Meanwhile, I was also working on the Halloween projects.

salt-and-watercolor-mat
For the frames, I used the last of the laser-cut wood frames I bought at Michael’s a couple years ago.

I had painted them black in Oakland, so I just needed to add some black bugs and some of these pre-formed glass rhinestone motifs.

I find these “rhinestone flourishes” useful for Extreme Crafting situations, where you have multiple projects going and need to bust out some finished projects tonight.

I cut the designs up and move them around as needed, and supplement with actual glass hotfix rhinestones from my stash to finish the details.

I also take a brush and quickly paint black over the most obvious areas of the vinyl adhesive strip that the crystal “flourish” is on.

The greenish bugs had white undersides, so I dry-brushed them with black at the same time to help them integrate into the frame.

I painted the whole green bug frame with multiple coats of Plaid FolkArt “Extreme Glitter” (hey, that’s what it’s called) transparent acrylic glaze with glitter.

I’m not generally a fan of the “craft” acrylic paints that come in bottles for anything, but I make an exception for sheer glitter, metallic or pearl glazes.

They go on very smoothly, they’re buildable and the tough, rubbery finish stands up to household use. If I could paint my hair with them, I would.

Next month’s bricolage roundup will be all Halloween, all the time- I’m working on half a dozen other Halloween projects besides the beaded mantel scarf I’ll post tomorrow.

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Suzanne Forbes, a New Yorker thriving in Berlin. Crowdfunded documentary art made possible by the generous support of her Patrons. https://www.patreon.com/SuzanneForbes.

Tag Archives: mixed media insect

October/November bricolage roundup: More Extreme Gothic Crafting.