The theme for this exchange book is to design a page around a technique you learned from an Art Unraveled class taken within the last two years. This was easy for me, because my most useful class from 2011 was Karen Michel’s class Altered Photos.

The premise and tools are so easy, I really can’t believe I didn’t figure this out on my own. But it’s one of those things like, well, you don’t think about taking your photo, purposefully getting it wet and scratching emulsion off in layers when you’ve been taught your whole life to treat it so gingerly. I got to tell you, this is right down my alley!

Anyone who’s ever processed photos before, or even heard about how it’s done knows that at the end of all the chemicals you give your photo a nice water bath. Before it dries it is especially vulnerable to scratches.

So you get your photo printed from a commercial center like WalGreen’s (my new favorite printer). My photo above was originally color, I cropped in and made it B&W for this project. Even though it is B&W you want it to go through the color process so that you have all the color layers there (cyan, magenta and yellow). Don’t worry if that doesn’t make since, you don’t really have to know that, just get the color process anyway!

Why do I have so many? Because I have to do 28 of these for the exchange of course.

My tools of choice, the photo, a shallow dish of water that is larger than the photo. Sand paper. And a clay carving tool. Thank goodness I got that in college! You can see some black floaties in the water, that’s some emulsion I’ve rinsed off. When you do a lot of photos you need to change your water often.

I scratched away some detail, made her whiskers more prominent and suddenly she became a lion! The scratching took about three or more hours to do. My hands hurt, but I got over it!

I forgot to show my coloring tools! I just used my kids water colors and cheepo markers mainly. I like to use unnatural colors. About the only natural look is her green eyes.

Not quite done yet. Still need a backing, some Fantasy Fiber fun and glitter of course! This is my prototype above, however, I’m all done with the 28 for the Chunky book and they are sent off, but I didn’t have time to take photos.  I still need to make a few more for my friends and family, so I’ll get on that and take photos.

Did a quick post on it for ArtGlitterBlog.blogspot.com here…  But I promise to give more directions and photos soon. Enjoy!

BTW, a personal thank you to Karen. It was a wonderful class, you are a caring, helpful teacher and I had a blast!

I brought my camera because I wanted to get a shot of the ground where it had become muddy and then crystallized in a pleasing way, to me anyway. If you know me you know that I really enjoy natural textures and take lots of photos that would bore most, so I’ll show you this one that has some paw prints in it, possibly Scotty’s, but see how cool the ground looks around them?

This is looking back from one of our favorite hills to walk at our little town. Our house is in there, you just can’t see it. Well, it’s so far away you really can’t see anything! The field you can see is the upper ball field at our school.

Can you spot the Scotty? Can you tell if his tongue is hanging out?

This is one of my favorite yucca plants we walk by all the time. It is pretty large and fun to watch the changes it goes through. I just love the white curly sinews!

Here we are at home. Scotty is attentive, only because he is expecting a bone from me. His feet are dirty from the canal at the school he always run through. Can anyone say…out door dog?

This is the little bit of sidewalk that was replaced in front of our house in 2000, not long after Jackson was born. I put their initials in, wish I’d had them put their hand prints in.  Oh well. It is supposed to snow 3 or 4 inches tonight, that’s a real blizzard around here. Maybe it will stick past noon. I’ll take photos if it does.  Enjoy  ~emm

It wasn’t all that bad. I figured it was better than getting a call telling me I had to come pick my son up in Phoenix like last time! Yes he has bus sickness, not car sickness, just with buses. As we started off one teacher looked at me and said, “Doesn’t he…” then she made the universal motion for throwing up*, last year he threw up 3 times, poor Mrs. Clark! Yes, his reputation proceeds him! Although I drugged him up, I still felt obligated to go just in case. So I was his soft shoulder to sleep on.

We went to the Tempe Center of Arts to watch the play “The BFG”, the big friendly giant. It was a hit, lots of humor, even a ‘fart dance’, so of course the kids liked it! This is son number two, Jackson. He’s not so much the touchy feely kind like Ethan is so I was surprised when leaving the theater he held my hand. Then he held my hand in the bus and was full of cuddles while talking about the bug, ahem I mean insect, (don’t want to get that wrong!), Jeffrey, who was hitching a ride back with us on our window.

We got back a few minutes early somehow and Jackson was depressed about having to go back into the classroom when the teacher let him leave with me, making him very happy. As we walked up to the house he said he was very happy for two things, one, that I was there so he could leave with me early and two, that he didn’t have to walk home in the hot sun. So that’s what the whole day boiled down to, getting out of school early and ridding home. Oh yes, and one last parting thought about Jeffery, he wondered if Jeffery had moved from the window and yet, and what made him want to ride with us? These questions will just have to become part of the great mysteries of our lives. And I’m sure when I drop him off at school tomorrow he’ll pull away from me like usual when I give him a kiss goodbye, but I’ll always have today.

*Hands to mouth moving out in quick, horizontal thrusts.

During the class as I was demonstrating, I was talking about how difficult it is to get a hole sometimes in a film piece this thick. Well little Miss Sharon says, why don’t you poke a hole where you want it to start? And there you go, a new technique is born. It worked wonders. You can control where the hole goes and it is easier to control the size of it too! So thank you so much Sharon! I can’t wait to take a class from you soon too!

Sharon also helped me take photos and I took some too, but I’m exhausted now, there were a couple of hic-ups during the class turning it from a 3 hour class into 4 hours – ouch – sorry all. Live and learn. I’ve been told to get over it so I’m not going to dwell over my disappointment and enjoy the fact that everyone absolutely loved their butterflies. That I am very happy for. I’m adding Sharon’s blog to my sidebar so you can visit her from here at any time. She has wonderful work.

So more photos later. One last thank you to Nancy, our store manager and teacher of most all Art Glitter classes. You were a fantastic help and my comic relief as usual. Enjoy!

Mixed Media: Fabric, chain, beads, Art Glitter black micro-beads, AG Krystallos Vintage Glass Glitter Shards, AG Microfine Opaque Black Wing Glitter, Dried leaves with AG Microfine Transparent Winter White Glitter on top. I think I liked my original design better. Oh well.

Spherical Sanctuary. I turned this in for the show too. A digital B&W I took a few years ago. Momo jumped in, I took the photo and she jumped back out. She loves the laundry basket because it represents the possibility of warm clothes to lay on.

Here’s my new treasure. I dipped these fragile leaves (that I got for real cheap after Christmas in a package with red and green ones too) into a mixture of Designer Dries Clear adhesive and water (2:1 ratio). Drain off excess glue and place on a piece of wax paper to dry. Let dry (don’t try to move early!) for 30 to 45 minutes and pull off gently. Presto, flexible, sturdy leaves!

Here’s a taste of something to come. I started these Fantasy Film (Satin) butterfly wings for the B&W show but just couldn’t get motivated to finish them. Finally got inspired and got this far this weekend. Will show you more as they progress. They may not stay B&W, don’t know, will ponder this some more later!

Enjoy – emm

Here are my boxes. To see the color versions on my Art Glitter blog go here. They were also featured in an article on Scrapbooking.com here. Enjoy!

Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version, then come back here!

I know, you are probably tired of my butterflies, but I’m not tired of them yet! Here are my black and white versions.

Thanks for stopping by! Later -emm

Pretty easy so far.

Had some rough spots getting the rain fly on. As you can see this tent has a doggy door. If you look close you’ll see Jackson in there. He thinks it is a Jackson door.

The cops came by to make sure we weren’t trying to camp overnight! Brad of course knew the nice gentleman. He knows all the cops. Now don’t think bad thoughts, it’s because of his job at the radio station. He talks to them every day! So the next hurdle is making this thing fit back in the bag it came in.

Had to re-roll it a few times, but we got it to work! Now we just have to wait for nice weather.  It’s been rainy and cold since our trial run but we know, the warmer weather is soon to come! Brad still sniffles some on Sunday morning.

I also bought some items on eBay. That was fun. And I’ve received several items in the mail. A couple of art pieces from some friends in a small swap and my pages from the chunky book swap. I’ll post pictures later, really cool stuff! It is so great getting real mail! I am so humbled by the enormous amount of talent out there!

I worked on these butterflies right after I finished my pages. Had to, got started and couldn’t stop! What actually happened is I took them to work to show off and my friend Nancy said (having seen the pages already), “Oh, these are nice too, but no wires.” So naturally I had to put wires on them, then beads and findings found their way into the project too!

I have almost given them all away so I guess I’ll have to make more! I’m working on some black and white ones now for a little show coming up in my little town. Again, more pics later! Enjoy!

Done! Ya-hoo! I spent most of the weekend finishing up my babies. Who’s departure I started to mourn as soon as I was done with them. I laid them all out to dry and had to photograph them. If you can make it through this whole post, I have a few close-ups at the end.

By the end of the last blog I decided that I wanted to use another technique from Michael’s class than just the background. And that is where the wiring comes in. A very simple technique of punching a hole through your background, (or drilling for a more formidable surface) and wiring it down. Usually you want to hide the wire, but I used it as part of the design.

I have an old clay tool that worked perfect to punch holes. A folded cloth under the page worked wonders; I was able to move quickly. (And for the squeamish of you please ignore the broken pinky on my right hand, long story).

Then just feed the wire through like you are sewing. With the two open ends I added a tiger eye bead. I wrapped the wire around it as quickly as I could and had pleasant results!

Then I laid the butterfly on and punched through the wings and the page at the same time.

And wired him on, starting with the back side, crisscrossing the thorax, under and back out to the front again. (FYI – the wires on the back, covered with my techniques info sheet make a smile. I should have taken a photo of that too, but I had to draw the line somewhere!)

I wound the excess ends out on to a wooden dowel, starting about an inch from the page.

Then rolled back down to the page. They are not perfect and I love them that way. You may have noticed the tape on my fingers, a necessity for this step! While rolling the dowel down you need to hold the coiled end and it is sharp.

I love seeing them all piled on top of each other, it’s like they have a life of their own. My little children, preparing to take off, so I named them “heading out”. I have to state again how much I love mass-producing. I love perfecting a technique and the growth process involved.

I tried several things to finish the background and again fell back on glitter. I guess I just can’t help myself. To change it up a little I did use Art Glitter’s Elements – Tailings, which is more of a tiny glass nugget, not technically glitter. (Glitter is cut from thin films.) Just draw on the Designer Dries Clear Adhesive and cover with Tailings. Oh yes, and I forgot to mention at the end of my last blog that I did use a matt finish spray after the textures on the thorax dried. Elements is an organic substance and has to be sealed. And I got a wonderful metallic look to the fantasy film that was an unexpected, happy surprise.

Done! Now what am I going to do?

Here are the close-ups I promised. Thanks for indulging me!

Here’s my mountain. Mingus Mountain. This is about as much snow as we ever see on it. It reminds me of Wyoming, where I grew up. It’s been a while since I’ve been back there. Have gone on a couple of trips by myself, but not with Brad and the boys.  We’ve planned several trips, but something else always comes up. So Brad promised me we will go summer of 2011. Of course Yellowstone is #1 on the list of places to go. We have also been talking about renting an RV for any trip really, so Brad’s been hot and heavy about looking into making it happen this time.

I have dreams about Yellowstone all the time. But this last one really tops it all. We were in our rented RV, Brad driving, me in the passenger seat, kids somewhere in the back, enjoying Yellowstone. At first everything seemed normal then we started careening around the cliff edges and I was scared to death! So needless to say, I’ve decided we will NOT be taking an RV to Yellowstone!

So then we are parked somewhere and we rent…bears! Yes, we rent bears and are riding them along the roadside! And I remember thinking, “Oh, all the cars are going to create a ‘bear jam’ trying to get a look at what they think are wild bears. But they’re just rented bears, stupid people.” Then we come across a porcupine, a big porcupine, about 5 feet long! But he was very docile and quite happy to see us. He rolled over on his back and I petted his tummy with my foot. Something tells me this is a symbol of my spastic dog!

That’s all I remember. I’ve been smiling for days. Enjoy!