a few weeks ago my sister and I decided to work our way through the prompts
covered in the book "The Surface Treatment Workshop"
and already we are on week 3 which explores using aluminium foil ...
the sort of foil most of us have in our kitchen drawer
most of the prompts include embossing patterns into the foil first
before experimenting with colouring the foil
for the embossing part of the exercise I mainly used stencils
and textured surfaces found in my studio such as corrugated card and blister packs
the samples below were embossed with a seedhead stencil I had
and then coloured with acrylic inks that I bought at Festival of Quilts
I only bought the three mixing colours of turquoise, magenta and yellow
and blended them on the foil to create these tones
the inks were quite runny so they don't work with all stencils
but they did sit quite nicely on this one which had enclosed patterns
below is another piece of foil textured with corrugated card, blister pack and leaf stencil
I applied black shoe polish to this one which achieved a lovely "vintage" tone as it dried
I rather like these tones and mixed patterns
in the sample below I embossed the foil with circles from a stencil
added a layer of pva glue, then, after the glue had dried I painted a seascape with acrylics
to help the drying process along I heated it with a heat gun which created tiny little texture bubbles
I noticed this was the pva glue bubbling and also the white acrylic, but not the blues
you can see the embossed circles coming through the paint
the close up detail below looks like seagulls and sea foam
(you have to use your imagination a little bit ...)
this is another sample below of the same process but without using the heat gun
and painting into the pva glue while it was still wet
the paint blended with the pva to create a feeling of movement in the seascape
(I definitely prefer this version)
this is the whole scene below ... a landscape
and a detail of the seascape with white sand beach, rolling waves and wintery sky
it's all I had time for this week as I also worked on covering my sketchbook
but I do have a couple more samples in progress which I hope to finish at the weekend
these are ... drawing and mark making on the reverse of the foil instead of embossing
and a 3D piece where I stuck some limpet shells down on a base
covered with aluminium foil to get the shell textures coming through
then I painted the shells white and just need to work more colours into the shells
I may share these at some point
in week 4 we are exploring mark making with masking tape
week 1 - printing
week 2 - stencils
week 3 - aluminium foil
week 4 - masking tape
my sister didn't enjoy using the foil this week but she did create a lovely original sample using
foil wrappers from stock cubes which she painted with acrylics and oil pastels
you might like to see ...