"Wax on. Wax off."

Hahaha, I bring to you, not a reminiscence on Karate Kid, but a project I've been SO excited about trying since I clocked it on Pinterest some weeks ago (there are many, many links to this).... Making art out of melted wax crayons! I'm quite sure my dubious sidekick thought 'Oh my god, what has she got me roped into?' when I mentioned we'd be playing with hot wax, but I waited for us to do it together because I secretly knew he would have fun too. He did. I did. It was great. This is one of the many how-to-do-it links available out there http://megduerksen.typepad.com/whatever/2011/08/you-knew-i-was-going-to-make-one.html , and this is the result on the canvas. 'Such Fun!':

You can go as far as you like with the melting process, but I really liked how this turned out with the retro chic of the 'Crayola' graphic remaining in the wax crayon stubs. I bought to boxes of 24 Crayola wax crayons from Rymans. I think they were about £1.24 each. The canvas I'd had lying around for a while. The important thing with this project is to do it in a well ventilated area as the fumes from the wax and glue are pretty stinky. We did this outside in my yard, on a dry, sunny morning, with the help of an extension cable for my heat gun. I had glued the crayons into position on the canvas the night before with plenty of pva glue, then propped it up against a wall over some newspaper before we started applying heat.

We altered a hardback book cover too, that was just dying for this treat, with the remaining crayons (waste not want not and I kept the white crayons for wax resist). I think I'm going to play around with rubbing on some metallic oil pastels to bring out the contours created on the cover and then cover with gel medium to seal. More on that at a later date, but here is the result, I LOVE it!:

Playing Walkabout With My Creativity

Yesterday, I had so much fun painting out the first colour layers of my art journal. I had picked up a childrens book last week from a charity shop for 50p. It was one of 'The Secret Histories' series. When I blocked out the cover image, I kept 'The Secret Histories' title. I like it. It has nice thick paper pages and a padded hard cover. I covered the front cover panel with a lovely Suzanne Woolcott, Gorjuss, card illustration, which says on the lower right corner 'I found my family in a book'. I love Suzanne Woolcott's illustrations and this image just seemed to fit the purpose of the art journal.

I thinned the book out by taking out a number of pages, and the remainder I pasted three pages at a time together, so I was left with, including the inner back and front covers, nine double page spreads. Most evenings last week were spent applying white gesso to the pages and I only painted one layer of gesso fairly thinly to allow some of the print through.

I went through my set of Derwent Art Bars, scribbling groups of colour across the double pages. Then, using a small spray bottle (travel size from Superdrug), spritzed water over the scribblings and blended with a paint brush. Because I am way too impatient, I then applied my heat tool to speed up the drying process. I worked this way throughout the book. The Art Bars, when dry have the look of a dense water colour wash, but with quite a matte wax finish....

Aside: I completed a page in another journal with Art Bars a couple of weeks ago. After researching online the best pens to use for journaling, I purchased a set of Sharpie 'Write on Anything' pens. They do not write on top of an Art Bar layer! The wax residue from the page lifts off onto the pen tip and this prevents ink flow. Had a very interesting conversation with the very knowledgeable gent, who works in the Blackwells book shop art department (Newcastle Upon Tyne), about the best pens to use. He highly recommended the Posca pen... Yes, it works fine on an Art Bar layer....

Back to my art journal. Where was I... Ah, yes, so after creating my first layers, I went about creating more layers with collage. I'm always cutting things of interest out of magazines and junk mail, which I sort into three trays: Imagery, Background and Type. I have quite a range of collected (hoarded) ephemera.

This is the first double page spread:

I am rather pleased that I had the type print to be able to put this in. 'I am playing walkabout with my creativity' encompasses the exploratory theme of this art journal. Enthused, I started playing about with another page spread. I went a bit wild with this one. I have no initial plans for the page designs, I just let my mind wander and see what comes up. This next picture I will entitle 'Dark Romance'. It began as an Art Bar layer of blended Alzarin, Primary Red and Black. I collaged areas with some torn magazine paper in shades of red. Pasted some type, imagery, flower dies cuts and sequins on. Sprinkled some lovely fine burgundy glitter here and there. Then I wondered if applying white tissue paper would add a distressed look. I am pleased with the result:

So, this is what I have done so far. I cannot work in silence and I find listening to podcasts in the background keeps me productive. Yesterday I listened to various episodes from 'Layout a day: The Simple Scrapbooking Podcast', 'Stash and Burn' (wonderful knitting podcast), and 'FAMM Radio' (Fiber Arts and Mixed Media podcast).

Okay, so, I am cat sitting Harris from upstairs and he has just plonked himself on my knees, front paws on the lap top. I think he wants to blog too! I'll sign off now and give this gorgeous boy some attention. Bye for now.

Finds & Makes

This morning I was browsing around Oxfam not expecting to find anything in particular. My curiosity was peaked by a book that was lying spine-wise hidden

I righted the edition to find an Odhams Press Ltd 1940s knitting manual (Margaret Murray & Jane Koster). What a find! Mum will be getting this next week.


I have just taken this shot of the Under The Sea collage I made. Grout filler is lovely stuff to paint on, producing wonderful textures in the putty. It does whiff a bit though when you apply it, so ensure good ventilation if you use it. The grout base for this dried over night in the airing cupboard.
At the moment I am working on 'Scarfy Come Home' By Spilly Jane (Jane Dupuis) of spillyjane knits All her designs are lovely to work up. Thankyou.