Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Explore

This year, Spellbinders has begun to Explore Beyond, encouraging artists to break through their own personal artistic limits and go beyond their usual comfort zone. In the same way, I am encouraging my crew of mixed media artists to also explore beyond and see how products designed primarily for card makers and scrapbookers can become part of their tool chest and used in a way that make them unique and all their own. To this end, today I am showcasing a piece called 'Explore' that reflects the theme of exploration.


I started off with a 6.5 x 6.5 inch piece of hand painted paper that I grabbed from my stash. It was made on watercolor paper using gesso, acrylic paint and acrylic glazes. I mounted it to a piece of book board to make the piece more sturdy. The backside of the book board was painted and the edges were finished off with a gold leafing pen.


Next I decided to find a focal image that echoed the theme of exploring. I found a great image of a plane, which I cut out from a 12 x 12 inch piece of patterned paper from the Off the Wall Collection: Travel from 7 Gypsies.



I have a huge pile of metal hardware, both found and bought/altered and I scooped up a batch of rusty metal washers.


I then die cut circles, cogs and gears using multiple colors of card stock and patterned paper.



Finally I spent some time creating the page, moving the pieces around until I found a composition that I liked. I glued all the paper and hardware to my hand painted background and then added the word 'explore' with rub-on letters.











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Supply List

Spellbinders Paper Art Supplies:

GC-001 SpellbindersTM Grand Calibur® Machine
S4-116 Standard Circles Small Spellbinders Nestabilities ®
S5-048 Sprightly Sprockets Spellbinders Shapeabilities ®
S4-386 Cogs Spellbinders Nestabilities ®

Cross Promotional Partners: 7 Gypsies patterned paper

Other: watercolor paper, card stock, book board, gesso, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, paint brush, adhesive, leafing pen, rub-on letters, found metal washers 

9 comments:

Jo Murray said...

The old art versus craft debate is always raising its head. There are certainly many ways the two can be integrated. Well done.

elle said...

Great mix of materials!

Sue Marrazzo Fine Art said...

I love the washers, etc...They look awesome, Seth!

Marjie Kemper said...

Gorgeous background! Love how you roughed this up with your washer stash.

Unknown said...

It's funny that you should talk about people thinking that scrapbooking supplies can't be used for art. Of course they can! I use scrapbook paper often in my collage work, rub-ons are a big part of one of my product lines as are rubber stamps and self adhesive 'jewels.' As so many artists know ANYTHING can be used in making art (even stuff we'd rather they didn't)--just read any art magazine like Art News and Art in America. The trick is to transform it into whatever you want it to be. I remember someone I knew dismissing scrapbook paper, saying "I never use preprinted paper for MY art." Well, fine that's your thing, but don't make fun of it wholesale.
Art is whatever you make with whatever you want to use. There's a world of stuff out there to be used. Why not use it?

hollyllama said...

I love your use of the rusty washers, Seth! They're among my favorite things to use in my mixed-media pieces. :)

john said...

Your piece represents freedom....freedom to break away and discover new perspectives symbolized by the airplane. Lovely piece!

snazzyoriginal said...

Love this piece, those washers shabby up the die cuts a treat!

Patti Edmon Artist said...

awesome! you never cease to amaze me:)
have a great time in the northwest!!