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Mixed Media Altered Canvas
Hello my dear crafty friends!
My name is Irit and I am an Israeli artist who is going to inspire you a bit today with my altered canvas and ETI products.
First of all I want to say thanks. Thanks for Ann Butler who arranged us to get those gorgeous ETI products to play with. Thanks for ETI for the most generous box of goodies I ever got. Thanks for my little sister who is an American and helped me to get those fantastic ETI goodies during my USA visit. And thanks for my my jet lag that helped me to finish this project pretty soon after I came home.
So now let's see the project.
I know that usually resin art means jewelry or something connected to the wearable art. Not this time. My project is totally Mixed Media altered canvas and it shows you the way to use products that generally are connected to one kind of projects, used on another kind of projects and it mostly showcase the versatility of ETI products.
First I began with preparing ETI pieces as no one can shorten those products drying time.
1. Molding and casting exciting shapes
Make molds for some wooden cogs with Easy Mold Silicone Putty. This is the fast, no- toxic kind of molds and you don't need to use gloves (as most of them don't fit the mold components, containing Sulfur and will delay the chemical process). You do need two equal parts of both colors of the mold. Don't have any measure device? Here is my tip: use chip plastic tube; mark the line so even if you don't have an equal level of both products you will fill the tube with the equal amount of component.
Look how easy it is! I made two loads of each component as I made some bigger molds with this mixture.
And from the top- just to show how it works. Keep two tubes and mark them for white and purple component. Don't use the same tube for both!
Try to keep your room at like 21C/70F to get the best working time. Work fast! Mix both components and press your object into the putty. Leave it there for half an hour.If you use plaster or acrylic you can use it right away. If you are going to use resins, wait for 24 hours.
For this particular project I made molds for wooden lower left corner cogs. (Sorry, I didn't take photos of this stage as this is very easy step and I didn't want this post to be too long).
2. Casting EnviroTex Jewelry Clay into shop made mold is an easy part. Be sure to mix the equal amount of both clay component USING GLOVES . If you want you clay to be colored add some pigments or paints. My photos here are showing the general casting of Jewelry clay and just one single piece from here will be added to my finished project (the round amber piece on the lower left corner; all other pieces were made for another project). To get this amber color I added a few drops of Amber Transparent Resin Dye into a mixed clay, but you sure can use the raw clay and paint it later with different paints and mediums.
The metal piece on the bottom of the photo above is a polymer clay knife. I used it to trim off the excess at the top of casted clay. You can use any craft knife, but those special ones are not expensive and made for this very matter.
3. Using High Gloss Finish for embedding a chipboard shape
This is the most tricky part of this post: how to make a simple chipboard shape durable and even wearable (we didn't need it for this project, but I was on a roll...)
First cover the bare chipboard with pigment ink (I used Clearsnap Bark); then cover it with Clearsnap Clear Embossing Powder and heat emboss . Make it from the both sides if you are going to use it as a part of something wearable. For this project single side was sufficient.
Now for the part I am not sure about: I sealed the heat embossed piece with Ultra Sealer and I made it twice. I was not sure how much heat embossed surface is really sealed, so I made this step after all.
The next - adding resin step- was not photographed as I was very busy to keep this filled with liquid resin piece on its place. So just the explanation:
Use Enviro Tes Lite High Gloss Finish and mix according to instructions. Add a few drops of the same Amber pigment to the mixed material. Arrange the embossed chipboard over a non sick craft sheet and try to keep it on its place during the pouring process. As this piece is very low I had a lot of left overs flow around. Leave them for a few hours and then trim the adhesive piece around the chipboard and cut the leftovers. Do this about 12 hours after the pouring. Don't touch the piece of the adhesive for 12 more hours and then just peel it off and your piece is embedded into the light amber "glass".
4. Make your altered canvas with masks, gesso, embossing powders, mists and whatever you want. Add your casted and glossed pieces as shown. Cover the chipboard title and numbers with a thin layer of High Gloss Finish (make a small amount of it to add a glossy finish to the metal pieces and chipboards). For the Mixed Media project don't worry about " bleeding colors" ; don't use sealer over the chipboard title and numbers as we love this non perfect result.
5. And now for the fun part: use the used ETI brush as a part of you project. This is one of the brushes that comes with measurement glasses and they are disposable. After you use it once its just a trash.So let's use it as a part of our project! This is all about Create- use the brush to underline the title. (I changed the metal handle color with a drop of alcohol ink). Add some paint splashes and enjoy you creation!
And this is my final project:
I really hope you got some ETI inspiration from my canvas and see you again soon with another ETI project.
Labels: Altered Art, Easy Mold Silicone Putty, EnviroTex Jewelry Clay, ETI Pigment, Mixed Media
