Friday, December 5, 2008

A break from book pages

I took a break today from Cris's book pages and finished the two pieces I've been working on since before Thanksgiving. I'm really pleased with the way the snowman turned out. I'm giving it to my friend Sally, who loves snow people. This will have a large magnet on the back so she can hang it on her metal door, if she wishes. Does the bird look familiar? How about the cool snowman? My dear friend Dana (the artist) drew these on a substrate of six layers of thin cardboard (USPS flat rate envelopes). All I had to do was cut them out.
I began by prepping both sides of both of these mixed media pieces with gesso. Then I cut out the tree, but not the snowman. When the gesso was dry, I used some of the flexible molding paste that Kathy gave me to play with on both pieces. When dry, I decided to cut the snowman and bird away from the background, then added a second layer of flexible molding paste everywhere except the hat area. While the paste was still wet, I added the tree branches, buttons, miniature buttons, and glow stick thingy for the nose. When those were dry, I painted the hat black with dimensional paint. I used red paint on the bird and painted the "feet" directly on the hat using a bamboo skewer.
It's no secret I love trees, so I was happy as everything with this tree that I made for myself UNTIL I added the red dots. I wish I had never "decorated" the tree, because it really has a lot of texture and dimension. However, after I added the dots, I thought they cheapened the overall effect of the tree. I may just make another one, since Dana made a pattern. Click on either photo to enlarge.

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