Thursday, January 17, 2013

Mixed Media Exercises

I am continuing to take baby steps into the realm of Mixed Media.  This morning, I decided to do a little experimenting with textures.  I have some gel medium in my stash from a previous project, and found some items to attach to an unpainted piece of card stock, to get comfortable with using the medium.
I tore a strip from some newspaper I had nearby, and used a small paintbrush to apply the gel medium to the back of the paper, then gently smoothed it down over the card stock. Next, I tore a piece of corrugated cardboard to create irregular edges, then removed some of the kraft paper covering the corrugation to expose the texture.  Again, I used the medium to attach to the card stock.  Then I took a piece of cheesecloth, removed the finished edges, poked holes in it along the length, then positioned it diagonally across the cardboard and paper.  I dabbed the gel medium through it with the brush.  And finally, I took some scraps of the craft paper from the cardboard, rolled them, dabbed the end with glue, then applied a little more to the bottoms, and placed them on the card stock.  I realize this is kind of a bland piece, but again, this is my first step into doing these techniques, and I'm more interested in learning how right now, than I am in creating finished pieces.
Next, I decided to create some 'distressed' papers, with the idea of testing how they work in making grounds for dimensional pieces.  I used newspaper, brown paper bag, aluminum foil, parchment paper and glossy magazine paper.
Wadded up once, then smoothed out. 

More wadding up needed!

Part of a brown bag before being distressed

One of several iterations

Pretty well distressed, with some tearing

This doesn't take a lot... I have had tons of pieces of foil in my past that looked just like this!


Parchment paper after a few rounds

A glossy magazine page.  The photo was pretty busy, so it's hard to see the crinkles to well in this one.
That's all I had time for today, as we are going to town for several hours, but I'm trying to get in at least a little time each day on this.  So you will be seeing more posts soon, as I continue my journey!
   

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