Sketchbook Challenge--Adding More.......

St. Louis Cathedral, viewed straight on through Jackson Square

I think, with this challenge, the high point for me will be tinkering with methods I do not usually use. Take for instance transfers from transparencies. I tried this ages ago and had a horrendous experience. Well, to be honest, I had SLOP.

So I pitched the pack of transparencies into the ever growing paper pile and computer supplies and forgot about them.

Until making the tags.

I really wanted images for the front and back and somehow, those transfers kept bubbling to the surface. Thus, I took a deep breath and tried them.

Tag with soft finish transfer and remaining image on transfer plastic.

St. Louis Cathedral turned out excellent. I had done a nice wash of earth and sky color on the tag and all I had to figure was where I wanted to place the transfer. I opted for a little further toward the bottom to get the feeling of the image sinking into the soil; everything built in NOLA is slowly sinking. It's just a fact of building on waterlogged soil. I was pleased with both the colors and the image on this tag! Yes!

So then I was a bit too cocky, and when trying to transfer the image of Jean LaFitte's Blacksmith Shoppe (a tavern serving exceptionally potent drinks......exceptionally...) it decided not to transfer worth a HOOT. 

The transfer plastic shows how little effectively went on the tag, though the amount of red left is interesting.

I had a very vague image on the tag, which I had colored with sea and reef colors, and the remnants of the image still stuck on the transparency plastic. Okay, the unavoidable is happening. I am forced to take out Sharpie and gel pen and DRAW.
Hey, Anne, it is supposed to be a sketchbook.......hmmmmmm......

Yes, this building really sags. BAD. And you don't need a few drinks to see it either.

An aside.
You may think that LaFitte's is drawn cockeyed. Truly, it is not. The building sits at angles that defy logic. It is one of the remaining original structures from the very very OLD Vieux Carre, from the time before the massive fire that destroyed most of the city. The plaster has fallen off the brick, the timbers have sagged with time, the roof has not one straight line.
I probably have given it a bit of a facelift.......
Anyway, back to the tags. These will now be the front and back. There is still a bit to do on LaFitte's rough drawing, but that will be finished. The area where the soft gel transferred the image takes ink fairly easily, but the parts without it are much more difficult to draw on. And it is not easy to see where one ends and the other begins. Nor do I remember what all I used on the background..... I also edged out the tags with colored Sharpies, so areas where the white primed ground showed through are now covered and part of the design.
Totally unrelated to ANYTHING in this post, another *odd things in my hand* photo.

I should super-glue these to my forehead.....

I did a little work on the bench grinder with these crab claws and now have a perfect set of horns for some mixed media project, somewhere down the road. They were just too good to throw away. But I think they need to sit in some baking soda for a while as they still smell like, well, a CRAB.
So this has covered sketchbook pages, a Pirate bar and reuse of a dead crab shell.
Things are just normal here at El Milagro......yep. Life is good!

Pax.... 

Pieces of Fortune

I promised I wouldn't tease too much with the current box canvas, so above you will see what I started with. A transparency (which I had never used before) the toned and somewhat collaged canvas and some pieces of Paperclay, stamped and painted. My original intent was the girl on the front, the large clay piece in front of her --like she was emerging from it, and the two small pieces on the side.
That did not work, so off I went to the back.

I had built up layer after layer of color, laying in, rubbing off, to get the depth and patina shown here. This is not an exact science in any way. The back was originally painted 50's aqua with the inner band of the wood being bubblegum pink. Why? They make good colors as bases to add a different tone to the colors that follow. I also had, in the process of rooting about, found a page of butterflies that were the right color and size for the piece, so out came the scissors and away we went.

I rubber stamp with Golden fluid acrylics; they dry almost immediately, do quirky things I cannot control and love how they mix (or don't, as the case may be) with the other paints. They will fade away or provide good contrast depending on the amount of paint applied.

BE WARNED! Those stamps must be cleaned IMMEDIATELY and with a soft brush and paint soap, or the acrylic in on there forever.

The side gives an idea of how many colors were used, some over and over, building the appearance of age and wear. There is no simple recipe for this; it is just practise and patience and experimentation. Yes, after a while you know that this paint will do *this* or you want a particular dark for the edges, but most of it is trust and time to let it happen.

Some German glass glitter ended up in the bottom of the recess; I am not sure why, I just knew it needed to be there to complete the feel. There are also fragments of gold leaf on the inner edges of the wood, not visible in this photo but in the one from the previous post.

And here is how the front changed from my original thoughts! The transparency was sprayed with workable fixative on both sides, then the back was loosely painted with a mix of collage medium and light gold fluid acrylic. It made a shimmering but transparent layer that literally brought the image to life! I found the edges too dark and harsh, so took a nail file (the soft paper ones from the dollar stores) and sanded away some of the ink in the upper portion of the figure, and selectively sanded a bit inside the figure as well. The resulting image was what I wanted. Then it was a matter of tinkering, again, with layers of paint and applying butterflies, which were originally coated with Nickel Azo Gold but then toned down once on the canvas. Everything was pulling together in a most amazing way!

I had decided that *something* of significance needed to be above the butterfly, and then knew the back called for the clay panel. The wishbone is one I have had for years, cleaned, whitened and laying in the bowl of pearls, awaiting the right piece to go in. And it definitely was this one. Although it may not show, it is suspended from a twisted piece of dark copper wire, and the copper ties in with the other warm, orangey colors used. It balances the heaviness of the clay panel at the bottom. The side pieces of clay were not used---in this incarnation, they had no place.

I have not titled the piece yet, though I am favoring something along the lines of "The Ghost of Fortune's Souls" or anything reasonably close. Suggestions are welcome---I may pick and choose words.

I hate to brag, but this is one of the most delightful pieces to hold in your hands and turn over and over, enjoying all the detail, much of which cannot be seen here. But I hope I have provided enough for you to see, enjoy, move along with the process and maybe let your next project guide you as opposed to you trying to guide it.
May fortune guide you! Make art!