Surface Treatment Workshop - weeks 7 and 10

I got a little behind with the Surface Treatment Workshop last week

I did work on various samples but struggled with my fibro, headaches and asthma

and generally felt under the weather through exhaustion from preparing for Stitch St. Ives

it meant such a lot to me to be able to take part in the show and to meet people

and afterwards I felt I was ok at first but it caught up with me ... so I had to give in and rest

if you follow along ... you will be used to me disappearing without warning now and again

but it is my intention to push through it this year and get back to a working routine in my studio

and this project - The Surface Treatment Workshop - has really helped me

to get in the studio, to develop my art practice and work with new products

we also got a little out of sequence

because, sometimes, we have to order new products in specially

and have to wait for them to turn up in the mail

so you may have noticed that we skipped to week 8 to work with gesso
while we were waiting for gels and fiber paste to arrive

for these samples we decided to combine week 7 (gels)
with week 10 (making our own speciality gels)

as a lot of the prompts for gels were quite similar

and as there were quite a few ideas for using gels I decided to work smaller samples

and created a series of hand made tags to help me contain them

for the tag below I used Golden medium gel mixed with a little gold acrylic paint

to embed tissue paper and paper lace onto a collaged background

I covered the collaged tag with quite a thick layer of transparent matte gel
and added pressed flowers into the gel

the gel acts like a glue and a sealer in one
and after using it to secure placed paper or objects
the excess gel medium can be wiped away for a neat finish

it was a particularly good product to use with the delicate flower petals

you can see I have applied the gel really thickly on the tag / sample below

using the gel to adhere a green sweetie wrapper and some scrim to the tag

I also used the gel to collage a tapestry yarn wrapper to the tag

and sprinkled gold mica powder into the wet gel

the gel dried transparent and then I added a pressed flower
and you can just make out subtle hints of shimmery mica on top of the tag

and here I'm using up excess paint from my palette
which I mixed into the gel and used on my tag backgrounds

and pressing more springtime flowers in the gel

I used a palette knife to apply the paint and gel on the tags

feathers embed in gel quite easily and lay nice and flat
I added an extra layer of gel to seal ... so I could paint over if I wanted ...

now moving on to speciality gels ...

these are really just shop bought textured gels or
hand made gels made by adding "bits" to the gel before painting and applying

I mixed up some gel medium to which I added turquoise acrylic paint
and then applied it to the little tag through a stencil
once dry ... I added ash (from the wood burner) pressed into the wet gel
then tapped the excess ash off before applying more gel to seal
and when dry I painted with h2o watercolour paints

this one below is broken egg shell pieces stuck down with lots of gel

and I also used fine sawdust for one sample

this is Golden glass bead gel below ... a rather fun product to try

Golden glass bead gel looks like quite a runny white / semi-transparent paste

which can be applied as thickly or thinly as you wish ...

it has tiny little glass beads already mixed in ...

as the gel dries it turns transparent but with a sort of wet look

which really enhances the shimmery little glass beads

before it dried out ... I sprinkled mica powder into the gel

and, because it is basically a glue, I embedded a shell and a little piece of lace

in summary I would say gels are a lot of fun to play with
and are useful for layering and acting as a glue and a sealer in one
that's not to say that there may be cheaper products out there that are just as efficient

also this week ... I got some transparent Powertex liquid to play with

it's basically a product that stiffens and hardens fabrics and threads

so that it can be moulded and sculpted into vessels or art forms

I've had my first play with it and created a small bowl

(which, I have to say, I'm not enamoured with)

and I'm not sure I'm all that keen on the smell of Powertex either

but that may be muted when the vessel is painted

however, I have also applied it to this piece of metallic lace

which did interest me greatly for the project I have in mind

I'm looking for a lacy fine art texture with distressed holes and threads

to which I can add some stitched barnacles and/or seaweed for vessels for exhibition

next up ... I will share week 9 - fiber paste samples (by way of catch up)

and Evelyn has already posted hers if you would like to see

then we are back on track again

hope you enjoyed seeing the samples

and following along with the Surface Treatment Workshop