Sunday, March 02, 2008

Collage, Out of the Box Swap

I recently participated in an ‘Out of the Box ‘swap with my online quilting group. I had to take a shoe box and add some goodies to it and send it off to my recipient. Not content with sending a plain shoe box I decided to decorate it with collage. The ideas I took for a recent article in a ‘Cloth, Paper, Scissors’ magazine I subscribe to. The artist's technique I was following was Kelly Rae Roberts.To begin I covered the shoe box with a layer if gesso to seal and provide a ground for the paper to adhere to.

Once this had dried, the box was then covered with scraps of scrap booking papers using PVA glue to adhere the pages to the box.


Once the papers had dried the top edges were then sanded back with a small sanding block to make them level with the top edges. The lid underwent the same treatment.
I then covered both the lid and box with a layer of PVA glue to seal the papers making them ready for the next addition of paint.



When the glue had dried, an outline sketch of a lady was drawn on the lid with charcoal. The ‘flesh’ parts of the drawing were covered with gesso, again to provide a ground for painting. The wings also received some gesso to add texture.




The sides of the box received the same treatment as the lid. Small inspirational sayings were also added.





Paint was also added to other sections of the lid and lower box. The head and arm details were painted on. Once the paint had dried the outline of the figure was drawn in with a black marker pen.


When I was finally happy with the result the lid and lower box was covered, again, with a layer of PVA glue and left to dry. The final step was to add some highlights on the top of the lid with different coloured foils.


The box was now ready to be filled with a selection of stuff representing the things I like creating.
It was so much fun painting the box, the following weekend a girlfriend joined me for an afternoon and evening of collage painting. This time rather than a box we created small pictures on mat board so when finish we could frame them to hang on the wall.
To have a look at Kelly Rae's stunning work visit her blog site at: http://www.kellyraeroberts.blogspot.com/






Sunday, January 20, 2008


After a long absence from my blog site I am back but then has anyone missed me? I guess not. I am sure the people who read this blog are far and few between. This blog is an outlet and idea post for me to record stuff. Anyone who actually reads this, well that's a bonus and I do hope you you enjoy what I post. So, what have I been up to while I been away from this site.
A 3 month trip to France from mid June 2007-mid Sept 2007 for starters, which resulted in the small sum of some 8660 images. Well ,that lot has taken some sorting out. Some of the resultant images reside on my webshots albums at; webshots.com./user/mazaquilt .
This weekend, just gone, has been a creative one. I've ripped paper, pasted it onto a shoe box, slathered the box with PVA glue, then painted, foiled and drawn on it. The result I am very happy with. Wait for the next post to see the result when I'll give a blow by blow account of what I did.
As well as tizzying up a shoe box I also created some fabric from left over fabric scraps and thread then used it to create a few mini quilts, 5" x 7" in size. A fun weekend. Wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow. I am in the mood for creating, sewing, beading, painting, ripping paper, glueing and creating a mess. So til next time I bid you adieu and like the sunset above I'll depart in a blaze of creativity.
The photo at the top of this post was taken in my backyard a few days ago.