Textured Artist Trading Card inspired by Frida Kahlo... using glass beads medium and art glitter, October 2011
I don’t think there’s been a week that’s gone by since April that I haven’t been stressed out about preparing for the Atrium Show… hoping to be inspired enough to bring to life at least 25 new journal pages; worrying if the pages will scan and print properly; finding new printing sources for my pieces, and, worst of all, paranoid that my framer Luis will call to say, he’s made a terrible mistake framing and the whole show literally falls to “pieces”!!! I’m such a worry wart it’s exhausting! And, I think, the more I worry, the more things go wrong – Luis actually did have a problem with framing! … and the more I hope for the best, the more things go right… an ever resourceful soul, Luis found a great fix for the problem. At some point this month while I was in one of my moods freaking out about something I couldn’t find at Michaels, my husband took a photo with his cell of something in the store that reminded him of “me” – and it made me laugh (after 25 years, I still don’t know how that guy’s mind works!). It was a reality check for me – I needed to laugh, relax and unwind… and the best way to do that was to make art!
So last week I took some time to make Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) for a few friends I made in Kelly Kilmer’s on-line journaling classes. We’ve admired each other’s works virtually for a while and, since we live too far away to meet, we thought it would be a great idea to exchange a little piece of ourselves through ATCs. I can’t tell you what a breath of fresh air it was! There’s something so therapeutic about sitting down to make a small piece of art; it brings me back to the days when I was kid lost in my colouring book… when nothing else in the world mattered; where time had no relevance and I felt free. I’ve been working on my textures blog part II on mediums that’ll be coming out soon so I decided it would be a wonderful idea to test out some texture mediums. Texture and sparkle would be the premise of my cards – nothing too cerebral or elaborate… just having fun, going with the flow and experimenting with some delicious mediums… two of which I already had in mind. The first I discovered in Susan Ashbrook’s Acrylic Mediums Workshop this summer. There I found I loved the effect of the glass beads medium…. an array of teeniest, tiniest transparent beads bathed in a viscous white gel (which dries clear); this texture looks stunning on a surface painted with metallic colours – the glass beads reflect the metallic colour giving off a brilliant sparkling light. The second thing, I ran across was art glitter. The other week, friend Olive Jones surprised me with a beautiful ATC card from a series she made with art glitter inspired by patterns found in the galaxy! With these two inspirational sources, I made copies of my all-time favourite image of a Frida Kahlo-like model dressed in a Reem Acra gown and went to town! The result is the above… unfortunately, my scanner couldn’t capture the brilliant effect of the glass beads, but I promise these magical mediums will add yummy textures to your art!
How My Frida Textured ATC was Made:
– Primed 130 lb HP mixed media type paper with acrylic gel medium;
– Painted background with Tri-Art Iridescent Pale Gold acrylic paint;
– Glued papers and poetry with Pebeo Studio Acrylics Bindex Gel medium;
– Applied layer of Liquatex glass beads medium with a pallet knife; let dry over night;
– Brushed Pebeo Bindex to front of dress and dragged card through Barbara Trombley’s art glitter; let dry and brushed on more gel to hold glitter in place;
– Added further texture through dots with Sakura Gelly Roll metallic coloured pens.
"Me" at Michaels from Kev's Cell
Leave a Reply