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

Moiko Silkscreens - Using Black Acrylic Paint and Chalks

The lovely Malgorzata (Gosia) contacted me quite a while ago and asked if I wanted to try some of her silkscreens and finally I've had a bit of time free to sit and play...and wow do I love them.  The tribal pattern and faces are some of my favourites and they are exactly what I had in mind for what I was planning.

I've had an idea in my head for quite some time to create "dirty" silkscreen components that work together and I'm so happy with how some of these have turned out.  I'm still in the process of creating components and haven't turned everything into finished pieces yet but thought I would share what I have done so far.

Gosia has such a large variety of silkscreens that would work so well for different themed pieces - these designs are just perfect for the theme I wanted.  The screens come packaged beautifully with a colour instruction sheet as well and I must say these screens are very easy to use.  There is a shiny side and a dull side and I must admit, I found it a little bit tricky to tell which side was which - hmmm maybe that could be my "old" eyes.  I've used the screens both ways and have found they've worked well either way and I haven't had any problems with the screens being damaged. It's obviously recommended to use them the right way though.  These screens will take acrylic paint and powders of any sort and they wash off easily. I've found they don't curl up when dry and I've used one particular screen about 30 times (phew lots of practicing that's for sure) and it's still in great condition.  If you look after your screens, they should last a long time.

I must say a huge thanks to Gosia for her incredibly generous gift and I certainly hope I've done her screens justice.

Grab Moiko silkscreens here Moiko Silkscreens

Huge Thanks to Central Regional TAFE in Geraldton

I wanted to again stress, how incredible it was to utilise the ceramic and glass studio at Central Regional TAFE in Geraldton over the weekend for the Christi Friesen Workshops.  This space is huge and it easily accommodated the 20+ students we had for each workshop with room to spare.  There was certainly lots of eye candy for our students to oggle over as well which we all sure did.  Thanks again to Lexie Lazenby for allowing us to use this space.  Many thanks again to Kimmy Tetlow for clearing and organising the space for us - simply amazing and also thanks to Peta Riley for coming along and joining us for a small portion of the weekend.  You guys are awesome!!!

Peta Riley

Lexie Lazenby

Christi Friesen Workshops in Geraldton (My Home Town)

After a whirlwind visit in Melbourne with Christi, we flew back to my home town in Geraldton, Western Australia where we had organised two days of workshops.  Always love organising workshops in Geraldton because then I get to spend time with some awesome people who I dearly love.  The workshop space was so very kindly donated to us by Central Regional TAFE and I have to thank here Lexie Lazenby for organising this for us and Kimmy Tetlow for cleaning and organising the space for us to use.  This was such an incredible place full of artistic inspiration and creativity.  The lovely ladies from 2Wards Polymer Clay also joined us and many of the locals took advantage of having polymer clay related goodies spread out on the tables for us to purchase - heaven!!!

Let's just share some of the pics shall we.