Don't Be a Picklebump

In Part One, I talked about prepping the Cigar Box. In this part, we’re going to talk about paper and other media. But first a message from the Paula Safety Council:

If you have one of these:

Do not leave your paper towels where they are accessible. Otherwise you end up with a roll of paper towels that looks something like this:

Clean up will not so neat and tidy. Thank you for your time.

I have a small collection of papers that I got at Texas Art Supply and a collection of photographs and images that I got at Texas Art Aslyum, but I wanted something I created myself to decorate my boxes with. So while looking through my resources, I decided to upcycle some brown paper bags for this project and create my own finished papers.

I started with a medium sized bag.

I crumpled it up.

And then I took it apart at the seams so that it lays flat (well almost flat ).

At this point you could iron it out if you wanted a smoother surface to paint. You could crumple it some more. I chose to paint it at this point. I took the following Stewart Gill Paints and painted the surfaces of the paper (I had 4 bags). The paints are

1. Amourosa Metallica
2. Japanese Pink Pearlise
3. Cobalt Alchemy
4. Clamshell Pearlise

I love the gaps in color that crumpling gives me.

Here are my creations drying on the bulletin board.

Once the papers dried, I ironed them so they were “flat” for the next layering. I did a couple of different techiniques:

On the Cobalt and Clamshell papers, I tacked down a stencil with a little bit of Easy Tack (spray the back of the stencil so it lays flat)

I daubed on some contrasting colors (Stewart Gill Aquamarine Alchemy and Pauashell Pearlise)

Here’s one of the finished stenciled papers.

I also laid masks over the paper and used alcohol inks over them.

In part three, I’ll bring all the parts together.