Faux beeswax

Greetings!

I thought that I would post another "Beeswax" collage that i just finished. This collage is created by laying down a layer of the beeswax mixture first. The image was glued down with regular matte gel medium. I over painted (just a version of scumbling) the image. More texture was laid around the image in regular matte gel medium then painted with acrylic paints. The words "create magic" were written directly into the wet gel medium with a rubber shaper. After this layer was dry I then covered the entire collage with a thick layer of the beeswax mixture. Because the beeswax is translucent my scanner can penetrate this layer and show the image much clearer and it doesn't look as beeswaxey (is this a word?) as it really is. However I was hoping that you could see that the beeswax layer is much thicker, less subtle than the last collage. In fact in some areas I left lumps of the beeswax instead of smoothing it down. I have to say that I really love this rough look. If I didn't know it was fake I'd swear that this is a real beeswax collage.

As a reminder I am offering this class at Scrapbook U in Fremont this weekend. All the information is posted below.

New collage

Greetings, I thought that I would post this collage. I just finished it today. This collage started out as a designs in Gesso collage. So all the design that you see around the focal point is stamped and hand written in gesso. I then finished this collage with the faux beeswax finish. The vintage beaded trim and flowers are embedded directly in to the "beeswax". This is an example of how you can mix the techniques and mediums.

Classes this weekend

Greetings everyone!

Thank goodness that sun is out here on the coast even though its still windy and cold. But sun is good. Its also Ghosthunters night. Yahoo! But its also time to remind everyone about my classes this weekend. They range from Shrink Plastice to Faux beeswax collage. I will be teaching Stone Petroglyphs in Santa Cruz on Saturday. Many people will overlook the project in this class because the look is so very subtle. But its also very beautiful. It also happens to be the precurser to the next class "Fossils". In the fossils class we will be tweaking the Petroglyhs technique to produce a totally different look. Here's a sample of the petroglyphs bracelet and earrings that you have the option of making.

This bracelet is seriously beautiful on your wrist. But for anyone not interested in making jewelry you could always make some decorative ornaments for collage, cards or scrapbooks.

Sundays class in Fremont is Faux Beeswax Collage. Yes it is Fake Beeswax made from Soft matte Gel medium and acrylic paints. You can find the receipe for making the" beeswax " in Chris Cozen's book Altered Surfaces. Chris Cozen's example in the book is great but I like to take the beeswax one step further- teehee! I want to stress again that there is no beeswax of any kind in this class. Here's a sample and You will see my favorite at the top of the page.

The cool thing about the fake beeswax is that you can imbed items into it just like beeswax. But unlike beeswax you can add acrylic paint on top of it and it will stick. Also the collage won't melt in high temperatures or sunlight.

Intrigued Yet?

Here are the particulars of both classes:

Saturday March 13th Where: Scrap-it in Santa Cruz Class: Shrink Plastic #2- Stone Petroglyphs Description: Can Shrink Plastic really look like stone? Of course it can. In this class you will learn the art of coloring white shrink Plastic in such a way that makes it look exactly like rock. You will also be introduced to intaglio. Intaglio is the art of embossing directly into the material to make raised designs. You will walk out of the class with a bracelet made out of what looks exactly like ancient stone Petroglyphs. Please bring Scissors all other materials will be provided. Time: 11:00 to 2:00 Fee: $30.00 If you wish to sign up for this class please call Scrap-it at 831 475-2380 or email me at connie@isbjorn.com Sunday March 14th Where: Scrapbook U in Fremont Class: Gel Medium Beeswax collage Description: Do you love the look of Beeswax but really don’t want to bother with the mess and heat of having to melt the beeswax? If so this is the class for you. Come learn the recipe from Chris Cozen’s book Altered Surfaces for making simulated beeswax using gel medium and acrylic paints. We will pair this recipe with a small collage and voila!-a Faux Beeswax Collage. Supplies to bring: paintbrushes and scissors. Time: 1:00 to 4:00pm Fee: $40.00 To sign up for this class please call Scrapbook U at 510 490-5065

How about signing up for a class this weekend? Come and play!

Latest stuff

Greetings everyone!

Strong winds are blowing right off the ocean making this one chilly night here on the coast. But there's a lovely fire burning in my wood stove turning my small house into a toasty cozy place to be.

I have been silent this week in an effort to finish some of my new shrink art classes and to create a little extra product to sell in the places that I am not currently teaching these classes. Here are some examples

These samples are Wood, Wood and Bone, Bone and fossils. In reality they are all shrink plastic. As you can see I've been having fun with all the natural materials white shrink plastic can mimic.

The last classes for the month of February were Altered Books #1 here in Half Moon Bay and Shrink Plastic #2 at Scrapbook Depot in San Carlos. Everyone in the altered books class got a great start on their respective books and they are going to be absolutely amazing. The subjects range from Victorian fashion to Zombie Film Noir. Stay tuned for pictures of these books as the artists complete their first spreads. In the Shrink Art class we were creating stone petroglyph bracelets. Every bracelet was totally unique even though all the students were using the same set of instructions. It was incredible! I want to thank the owners and staff of LaDiDa Cafe and Scrapbook Depot for allowing me space to teach in their establishments. I also want to thank all of the students that attended the classes. I sincerely hope that they all had as much fun as I did!

I have also been working on my next altered books class-Windows and Doors. You can see a preview of this class from my current altered book: Alone and afraid of the Dark at the top of this post.

This week is collage week. I want to create a new sample for Faux Beeswax collage and finish my new Collage Challenge 1 class. Stay tuned for more about this class.

Have a great week and Collage on!

Classes, classes and more classes!

Greetings Everyone!

Saturday and Sunday (20th and 21st) saw two classes filled with incredibly talented students. Saturdays Designs in Gesso class at Art Max was small but powerful as we collaged and then stamped, dripped and drew free hand into Gesso. Here are a couple of collages created by the students.

Sundays Altered Books #1 class at Scrapbook U was a blast. At the end of class all the students had picked a book, subject, prepared some pages and were well underway to the completion of their first spread. I can't wait to see how their books turn out! I would like to thank all the students that came to my classes this weekend some of them in the pouring rain. I also want to thank the owners and staff of Art Max in Seaside and Scrapbook U in Fremont for allowing me once again to invade their space with all of my stuff.

Also in this post I want to take the opportunity to remind everyone about my classes this weekend. Saturday's class will be Altered Books #1 again but this time in Half Moon Bay. For Sunday's class I will be teaching class #2 in my Shrink Art series. This time we will learn how to make white Shrink Plastic look like stone Petroglyphs. Please see the top of the page for samples from both classes. Here are the details:

Saturday Feb 27th Sorry I’ve had to close this class***this class is totally booked up Where: LaDiDa café in Half Moon Bay Class: Altered Books #1-How to begin Description: Have you ever heard the quotation “so many books so little time”? It’s never more true than when talking altered books! So what is an altered book? An altered book is creative reuse at its best. Think of all those unwanted books ready to be thrown away. Why waste them when you can turn them into works of art! In this first class in the altered book series we will focus on what book to choose and where to find it, content, how to prepare and strengthen pages, what materials can be used and finally a full collage spread. In this series of classes students will gradually build up an altered books “kit” of favorite supplies that will be handy for use at any time. This “kit” should be brought to every class. First kit items to bring: Paint brushes, scissors, and gel medium. Time: 6:00 to 9:00pm Fee: $35.00 To sign up for the waiting list please email me at connie@isbjorn.com. Sunday Feb 28th Where: Scrapbook Depot in San Carlos Class: Shrink Art- Stone Petroglyphs Description: Can Shrink Plastic really look like stone? Of course it can. In this class you will learn the art of coloring white shrink Plastic in such a way that makes it look exactly like rock. You will also be introduced to intaglio. Intaglio is the art of embossing directly into the material to make raised designs. You will walk out of the class with a bracelet that looks exactly like ancient stone Petroglyphs. Please bring a pair of scissors. All other materials will be provided. Time: 12:30 to 3:30 Fee:$30.00 If you wish to sign up for this class please call Scrapbook Depot at 650 592-2767 As you can see I've had a very large response to Altered Books and I have a couple of names already on a waiting list. If you are interested in this class please email me. If I have enough people waiting for this class I will look into teaching this class a second time.

It's going to be a great weekend-I hope to see you soon!

Designs in Gesso and Altered books

Greetings everyone,

I wanted to highlight the two classes I'm teaching this weekend. The first on Saturday is called Designs in Gesso. In this class I will teach the technique that was just published in Somerset Studio in December 2009. You know Gesso is an incredibly versatile medium. It can be used to prime a canvas or glue the pages of an altered book together. It can be used as paint and in the case of Designs in Gesso it can also be used to make texture. And because it dries matte its not sticky which makes it the perfect medium to add texture in an altered book. Here are a few of my samples:

Here are the particulars of this class: Saturday Feb. 20th Where: Art max in Seaside Class: Designs in Gesso Class description: Further exploring the use of Gesso as texture we will create a small canvas with Gesso and collage. We will stamp into, stencil with and draw freehand in gesso. Will you choose to color your Gesso or leave it white? Come and Explore! Please bring scissors and paintbrushes and gel medium. Time: 11:00 to 2:00 Fee: $40.00 If you wish to sign up for this class please email me at connie@isbjorn.com.

And while I'm on the subject of altered books; my second class on Sunday is Altered Books #1-How to begin. This will be the first in a series of 5-6 altered books class. Each class will highlight a new technique to help bring variety and interest to your altered book art. At the top of this page you can see some scans from my new altered book: Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Sunday Feb 21st Where: Scrapbook U in Fremont Class: Altered Books #1-How to begin Class Description: Have you ever heard the quotation “so many books so little time”? It’s never more true than when talking altered books! So what is an altered book? An altered book is creative reuse at its best. Think of all those unwanted books ready to be thrown away. Why waste them when you can turn them into works of art! In this first class in the altered book series we will focus on what book to choose and where to find it, content, how to prepare and strengthen pages, what materials can be used and finally a full collage spread. In this series of classes students will gradually build up an altered books “kit” of favorite supplies that will be handy for use at any time. This “kit” should be brought to every class. First kit items to bring: Paint brushes, scissors, gel medium and a book if you have one in mind otherwise I will bring a box of books with me. Time: 1:00 to 4:00pm Fee: $35.00 To sign up for this class please call Scrapbook U at 510 490-5065

Yes as you can see its going to be a fun creative weekend. How about treating yourself to a class? See you soon!

Scumbling, altered books and ghosts

Greetings Everyone,

I have a little break from teaching classes this weekend which gave me some much needed time to hang out with my dogs, work on my altered books class and just generally try to keep warm and out of the rain. Yesterday morning I woke up bright and early with three stanzas of a poem fully formed in my head! I quickly grabbed my notebook and finished most of the poem then went back to sleep. Wierd. But here are a few lines of the poem which has now given me the direction for my new altered book:

Greetings fellow traveler, but why do you start?

Is it because you're alone and afraid of the dark?

The fog is thick and it's difficult to see,

Never fear I will guide you just follow me.

To this lonely lighthouse crumbling and forlorn,

Do you know what walks here in the midst of the storm?

Yes you've guessed it. Its about Ghosts. By the way Ghost Humters International was on San Lucas Island in Costa Rica last night. It was a prison island like Alcatraz and one spooky place. Its a place filled with bad memories and restless spirits.

Stay tuned for more on this altered book.

I also wanted to fill you in on a new technique that I've been skirting around the edges of for a very long time. Its called scumbling. Scumbling is a technique used to even out or soften the edges of a painted or photographed image by applying white gouache thinly with a dry brush. In this case I am altering vintage travel postcards by scumbling, collaging and then repainting the background to make the collaged images seem like part of the original postcard. I then add rubber stamping and ephemera like postage stamps and victorian scrap to complete the piece. This technique also has the effect of aging the entire piece. You can see some of my efforts above. What do you think?

If I can get enough vintage postcards I think this would make an awesome class. Like I said Ive been playing with this technique for a long time but using gesso in my Mystic Gesso class. I like using the gouche better because it stays open longer and you can work with the colors more. I have long wanted to alter vintage postcards and have been buying a few here and there specially for this purpose. I got the idea of combining the two from Maryjo and Sunny Koch's book called Vintage Collage-Works-artful ideas with Antique Ephemera. This is a wonderful book filled with great ideas particularly if your a hoarder of vintage ephemera.