Tribal Themed Mixed Media Canvas Art using Polymer Clay and Moiko Silkscreens

It's Tuesday...yes, studio day!  (even though I spent a fair bit of time in their yesterday).  This is total play day today.  I'm actually feeling a bit yuk so just had half a day but considering it started at 5.30am I think we can count that a full day!

Ok enough of that...what did I do??  I've been playing around with Moiko Silkscreens lately (huge thanks again to Gosia for that) and decided to play with a bit of mixed media.  I wanted to explore the "dirty silkscreens" more so have been thinking for a few days about how I could do that.  I love the idea of creating small, individual artworks that can stand alone or become part of a larger piece so that's what I thought I would have a play with.

As always, let's tell the story in pics.

Firstly I created a bunch of polymer clay pieces all with the same theme.  I chose black, cooper, ecru and gold clay.  I silkscreened some of the pieces, I cracked some, I used chalks, embossing powder, acrylic paint and foils.  I didn't really care if I didn't have a specific purpose for each piece, I just wanted to create a range that could mix and match...so I basically went into this blindly and simply played.

Next I created some tyvek pieces.  For those of you who have never heard of tyvek paper, it is a sheet of bonded, spun polythylene fibres which comes in 3 different weights.  You can colour the surface of the paper in any number of ways and then with the application of heat, it changes form, shrinking, bubbling and distorting, to give a range of very cool surface texures.  Painting with metallic paint is incredible.  The addition of glitter paint is mind blowing!!  I love this stuff.

I gathered together a collection of rust and tannic papers (these were gifted to me by my friend Lexie Lazenby) and manipulated them with foils and paints.

 I gathered a range of hand dyed silk strips, hand dyed calico, wool, metallic cord and a few other bits and pieces.  I didn't use all of them but wanted to get a selection together so I had a good variety to choose from.

 I grabbed a whole bunch of yummy beads - oh I love this selection.

Some twigs and sticks might come in handy.

and of course, recylcled copper wire.

Finally some extra embellishing bits - feathers, wire lace, skeleton leaves.  I could have gathered more stuff but thought this was probably plenty.

Once I had everything out on the table so I could see it all, I started putting bits and pieces together.  I didn't really care how elaborate each piece was, my main intent was to simply explore different construction and assembledge options.  I just played - that's what it was all about today.  

The pieces gradually started coming together.

Some very simple......

and others more elaborate....

As I was making each piece I played around with the composition of my finished piece and found lots of different ways they would work together.  I liked this one the best.  I haven't attached these to the canvas yet...not even sure if I will....it was just fun to create them all.  I've left my studio as is and might even explore a few more options.

So this is my finished (well sort of) piece.

and I just had to chuck some extra pics in here for fun.

These are my two favourite pieces so thought I would share a close up.

and another close up...

A close up of the orange tyvek paper piece.  This was painted with silks acrylic glaze.

and this was my favourite piece of tyvek - yum.

I hope you enjoyed ready about my little Tuesday play...I had fun sharing it with you.

Love Deb