Elle  is our guest blogger today... again she has done a great job! She has taken  the concept of texture and ran with it. She how she has used texture to enhance her work... Check out

Elle at Mother, may l marry?

(noun) - Texture, an element of art, is used to describe either the way a three-dimensional work actually feels when touched, or the visual "feel" of a two-dimensional work.

 In the visual arts, texture is the perceived surface quality of a work of art. It is an element of two-dimensional and three-dimensional design and is distinguished by its perceived visual and physical properties. Use of texture, along with other elements of design, can convey a variety of messages and emotions.

 Texture refers to surface and is in fact surface. Everything that has surface has texture.  It can be 3-D, tactile, touchable.  It can be 2-D, visual, an illusion.  Texture makes things interesting.  Texture can be felt or it can be seen as light skims the surface revealing the texture.

I hope to use both kinds of texture as I work on my mothers and daughters memory pages and honour them as the princesses that they are.

Lutradur has texture.  It can be seen and felt.

Lutradur can be run through an embossing folder and die cut machine.  More texture.

An ink spray will not add texture because it soaks into the fibres that already show texture.

But paints lay on the surface and if applied thickly will add texture.  This example has a thin layer of paint that adds a matte texture because it obscures the fibres.

In keeping with flat techniques, foils add 2-D shine.  I tried double sided tape.  The first bit was an example of how not to apply foil.  The score tape holds VERY fast so there was no second try.  :O  I imagine that one could make their own washi tape or even Lutradur 'ribbons'!.

But then there are all the wonderful products that are actually formulated to add texture.  Tactile texture.  I have a small sampling of Golden products to try.

The dimensional paints are lightweight and grab the Lutradur easily when they are dotted on.

My wee bottle of  Puff Paint was old so I ended up spreading a glop of it through a fine stencil.  Then I used a heat gun on the front and on the back.  This produced a very cool (hot) happening because the close heat dissolved some of the light weight Lutradur  and added a lacy effect that isn't really showing in the photo. Another surprise was the how little actual weight there was to the finished product.

I coloured  fibre paste and used it through a stencil on some Lutradur that already had an image stenciled printed on it.  

The fibre paste enhanced the rough brick look. My sample jar of coarse pumice gel would have done something similar I imagine. The molding paste and the extra heavy gel would have been smoother.  Good for snow drifts or wedding cake icing.  :^) 

My first try with the clear tar gel revealed that it is a thick but runny substance.  I tried confining it to a stencil but it 'relaxes'.  It would make a good drawing substance, again like icing squeezed from a cake decorating tip.  I did sprinkle some glitter on before it dried.

Embossing products do the same thing but with a flatter effect.  Again I sprinkled glitter on.

This example uses both kinds of texture.  I used the leaf mask and over sprayed.   When it was dry I smeared the glass beads through the stencil.  Masks and stencils with the same motif more than double creative options!    These are from Joggles which is a GREAT source of techniques and products.

The texture gel, Glass Beads adds some weight to the finished fibre art.  I choose not to colour my beads.  I felt like I had it way too thick so I carefully laid the stencil back down and scraped some off.  It is pretty stiff stuff.  Micro beads and gel would likely produce a similar result.

I was most impressed by Lutradur's ability to support heavy materials.  I squeezed a lot of Glossy accents down on the Lutradur and piled lots of beads on top.  No problem!

And we can add texture with fabric, threads, beads, etc.  I had a large selection to choose from as I worked on my brides page.

I am feeling like I have leaped from kindergarten crayons to marrying straight out of school.  I kinda did but the learning curve usually has more steps in it.  Again I have a lot to put on one page.  Four generations.   I stenciled onto a sheer fabric for my background and then ironed it onto a thick base that had an adhesive on each side.  Four photos fit if I cropped and did ovals.  That took a week alone to figure out. :^)  I was all for lace and beads but this seemed to require a more subtle effect.  The size decreases and the frames are cardboard.  I tried to make them fit each bride's sensibilities.  The photos will be cut and added later because I am printing my own.  In the process I smeared one in my hurrying.  :( I may fiddle a bit more as I couldn't find a bit of velvet ribbon to represent my own dress.   I daren't linger overlong because there are ten more pages to prepare and if I tarry too long my granddaughter may find a nice groom!  lol

This page required some mindfulness as the palette is creamy white.  The interest must come from the texture but it also required an understated elegance.  The bride may look like a princess in frothy laces but I do believe most mothers manage to get some good solid stiffening into the bride's backbone and corset which supports the softer layers and shows off all that lovely texture. 

Lutradur is kinda like that as well. 

So when we lift the bubbly to toast the beautiful bride lets give a wink to the mothers, the teachers, the supporting cast that helped bring another princess into the kingdom to show off the textures that enhance our lives.

(not so) Heavy Metal - Pt 4 cont.

Now that we have the bases done, it is time to add all kinds of embellishments to them.  We'll take them in the order posted yesterday.

First is the candy wrapper one. I took the bits I had adhered yesterday, then added some textile, and an antique button hook. I hand stitched the couching to hold the button hook on. I chose a metallic reddish-pink to bring out the same color in the candy wrapper.

Next is the candy box foil lining. I took the blue fabric (a piece of silk organza I had done some clamp shibori on during a symposium) and stitched it on to make it more like two squared.  Then I hand couched on some of those capiz shells to make the piece look like a domino.

Now for the accordion folded piece. I had some sage that has been in my studio for several years.  I wanted to have the juxtaposition of the organic with the metallic. The sage is hand couched to the foil accordion.

And last but not least...The woven piece.  I chose some of my fabric and wove that in with the metal foil strips.  It needed something else.  So I got out some of the belly button rings (something else that has been in the studio for some time). I had three red ones so I put them into the metal foil. Three of them are down the middle of the piece. Difficult to see too well because of the reflection with the camera flash.  Then I attached the piece to some African bark cloth with adhesive spray and secured the whole thing by twisting the fabric strips on each end with metallic eyelets.

The three pieces mounted on the bark cloth will eventually be parts of one work. Perhaps I'll even have it done by the end of the month so I can show you.

So it just took a bit of auditioning different bits and figuring out the best way to adhere them.

Oh and here is a woven bit I did previously. It also has copper wire and metallic paper woven into it.  It will be in a piece all its own later.  And the blue one,  "The Domino Effect' will be a major part of its own piece as well.

So, that is what it is like to be Foiling Around with metallic foils.  The weekend is coming up so I'll give you that time to play around with these inspirations to get your creative juices flowing. I will be checking in on the blog so please leave comments or questions.  I'll answer them as soon as I possible can.

Next week we'll be looking at another fun way to be creative with metal in your art work.  It's really HOT so don't miss it!

Hope you are having fun!

(not so) Heavy Metal - Part 4 - Foiling Around

YEAH! Here we go on Part 4 and it's halfway through the month. Still lots of time for fun ahead!

Metal part 4 - Foiling Around

Did you save some candy wrappers?  Some foil liners on candy boxes? Or you can use the foils that are available for purchase at craft stores.  I'm using both just so you can see that you don't HAVE to spend money to get some metal!

Today I'm going to show you the beginning of some small pieces that I will later decide how to use.  One I did a while ago, kept it in a safe box so it wouldn't get messed up....but you will see that one when I show the completed steps on all of these pieces.

So let's get started.

First, pull together the foil bits you want to play with. I have some aluminium foil, come candy wrapper and some foil candy box lining, some copper foil sheets from the craft store.

Now let's see what we can do with them.

I'll take a couple of the candy wrappers first.  The background one I left whole but I did hit it with a heat gun just to scrunch it a bit. The others I tore by hand because I didn't want straight edges. Then I just put them down where I thought looked cool.  For these very light weight foils, glue sticks seem to hold quite well.

Now for a larger piece from the lining of a candy box. It was a more-or-less  rectangle with two bits that looked like little wings. I crinkled up the "wings" and here is what it is so far.

The next two pieces I used the metallic foils available at craft stores. These are just a smidge heavier than the other foils used above. They are easier to manipulate without tearing.  But you still have to be gentle because they also will tear if you want (or don't want) them to.

First, I just took a rectangle of the heavier metallic foil and folded it in an accordion style. (Hope you can tell that from this photo)

The next piece will be woven so we will prepare for that today.  This is just like weaving fabric or about anything else I suppose.  The difference I made in this one is that I didn't cut it all the way through to the bottom. I left solid borders on both ends and I will weave stuff into the middle slit.

Because I want a difference in texture between the base and the strips, I took my small hammer and with the rounded end, tapped dents into the back side of the base piece. The strips I left smooth. For this photo, I left some of the base piece un-dimpled so you can see the effect.

Now you have some ideas and I KNOW you can come up with some more of your own.  Tomorrow I will show you what I did for the next step on all these pieces.  So don't forget to drop in tomorrow!