Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Why I have this blog or playing with metal tape

I keep a blog for several reasons.
1. To share art with my friends.
2. To teach background techniques.
3. To document what I've done, as much for myself as for others.

Just about every art book you will ever read will tell you that when you experiment, you should keep a journal of the process, the materials, successes and failures. I'm not fond of journals and my handwriting sucks. There are times even I can't read it! So, keeping a blog helps me remember my experiments without having to hand write anything. The photos are also far better than anything I could draw.

To that end, I started playing with metal tape, used in air conditioning and easily found at your local hardware or home repair store. Some comes with numbers on it, other rolls are plain. It mostly depends on the width you want, since it comes in various widths.

I experimented with the metal tape, which I attached to a book cover and some plastic slide mounts (two green and two white). I used the same materials on the metal-tape-covered pieces that I did on the surfaces of the two remaining slide mounts (again, two green and two white). Below are the results:

Beginning at the top left:
Book cover colored with royal purple and pumpkin Staz-on re-inkers, plain plastic green, plain plastic white slide mounts, using the same re-inkers.
Middle row (left to right):
Two slide mounts covered with alcohol inks pre-painted and left over from another project, metal tape covered slide mount colored with purple fluid acrylic, green slide mount also colored with fluid acrylic.
Bottom row (left to right):
Slide mount covered with metal tape and colored with brown shoe polish and white slide mount using the same polish.


Quite a variation in results, even using the same products. I hope you find this experiment as interesting as I did. Click on image for a better view of each result.

2 thoughtful remarks:

Celia said...

Hi Elizabeth, how are you? I have been such a bad friend of late. Haven't done any altered art as I am learning more about watercoloring. May have a showing of my work with my mother in 2010 so trying to get as much done as possible. Hope you are well. Haven't been your direction much since my grandmother passed. I need to find a day when we don't have school go by Hutchinson and pick up Kat and come visit you. Hope you are doing well and am still enjoying your art!
Celia

~*~Magpie's Nest said...

You certainly are the Technique Queen Elizabeth!!! I am glad you blog, it's fun visiting AND I always learn something and get to enjoy the eye candy!