Mixy – Page 64 – Mixy's Art Blog

the life cycle of a shirt

I’m an avid recycler. I was brought up before recycling was so easy – we have regular collections of waste paper and glass, not to mention the big bins to deposit unwanted plastic, aluminium foil and textiles in carparks and the such. But I was taught not to be wasteful from the youngest age. Be imaginative and think what something can be repurposed into.

A shirt has a life-cycle after its time as a shirt:

Unwashable stains? no problem for a decorating shirt. Brushed your elbow on the newly painted gloss paint? is still ok.

It becomes a gardening shirt. One sleeve gets caught on brambles and ripped? We really don’t care. Like a snake sheds its skin, a shirt sheds too, and leaving in its wake floor cloths and rags for mucky cleaning. Servicable scraps are useful for textile projects and test stitching and collage and patchwork (and more!).

Even the littlest cloth bits feed the clean rag-bag for snipping up into stuffing for cushions, made-up animals and all manner of stuffables. (I find snipping is as theraputic as it is productive, and goes well with TV or radio listening)

Buttons are harder to destroy through overuse, but will come off and be reusable in a future something.

Oh yeh, and that wholesome feel of self-satisfaction? you get to keep that for free! 😉

waking up to a new week

Y’huh, I know it’s Tuesday… but don’t we all get those weeks that won’t kick-start properly?

Ok, so I’m up n running now! Reflecting on the latest page-a-day pages….

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I took advantage of Satuday’s sunshine to photograph my pages in the garden (reminded as I type this as the rain pours outside my window!), so Saturday’s page with the typewritten hi, was only just begun. Just as soon as the lighting conditions permit I’ll bring you up to speed with the latests 😀

Monday morning theme: Where to begin ?!

I know I’ll need to get the otherside of another cup of coffee before things start making sense today, what’s what and where to go isn’t making much sense yet!

I’ve built up a few days worth of photos to share with you, even cropped them down and renamed them, but in so doing I realised I haven’t got a good grip on the production/posting here ratio! Bear with me, there could be an onslaught coming soon as I catch up with myself!!

Meanwhile, I hate to post a post entirely unillustrated, so here’s a little something else I’ve been working on but not shared before….

out of the sketchbook!

I’m so enjoying the page a day project, and the 12 in 12 (updates on that one soon) but it has meant that not so much art has been going on outside of the sketchbooks.

So I decided to venture out of my papery comfort zone and onto canvas. This is a first for me! It’s still a work in progress, but here’s how it’s starting out…

Being a deep canvas I want to incorporate the edges. With no particular plan I started out with acrylic glazes….

Starting out with collage bits the trial layouts begin then gluing commences!

Bit by bit…

More glaze to bring the bits together,

And some dyed scrim for a bit of texture

More paint, blending some of the raw edges together

More layers

More dyed scrim

And doodles in thread

I’ll post more as it develops, but so far I’m pleased with the way it’s coming together.

Mesh Mess

Y’know that sticky mesh tape stuff you stick plaster board together with? Yeh, sure you do! Here it is… It’s meant for healing up wounds in walls n ceilings, but I have a much better use for it.
Made from fibreglass it’s super-tough and water resistant, and the tape has just the right ickiness to it. If you’ve seen my last few posts you’ll know where I’m going with this…

It makes for excellent griddy stenciling and painty fingers!

Close ups….

Sat urday

With the rest of the alphabet stencils cut (ok… v, w, x, y, z aren’t done yet… it’s a bit fiddly and I wanted to get on and play!) today’s page is all about sat sat saturday…

Layering up the letters, positive and negative cut-outs

Using a mix of acrylics, glazes, watercolors, gouache, pastels and charcoal to see how they work out

Frisket stencils part 2

I left the Frisket Stencils overnight, and yesterday morning I unpeeled the results…

See what I mean about the deckled edges? See close up, there’s the trace of an outline where the colors bled under the stencil.

At a midway point in the process I added more stencils over the already colored page, it’s made a ghostly image

I also began cutting an alphabet stencil. I was playing about with the cut out letters……

The letters placed at the edge of the page were on flatter paper so weren’t so prone to under-bleed of the ink – slightly crispier clean edges!

Frisket stencils, part 1

I do love stencils, and after watching this vid from Julie Pritchard and Chris Cozens I was inspired to follow their technique using my own stencils. (I especially like the way they recycle the colors from the stencils onto tissue paper to reuse later on in collages)

So, I got myself some Frisket Film (if you’re shopping in the UK I can recommend Artifolk.)

Frisket is a low tack film that can be be cut to shape with scissors or craft knife, made especially for airbrush masks. (although I’m not air brushing, I’m using a spray bottle with dye.)

Used on a flat paper it sticks just enough to withstand leaks and dislodging, but on the bumpy lumpy surface of my sketchbook page it doesn’t have enough ‘cling’ to make a completely water-tight seal, but I’m happy with this – where the color oozes under it makes for a deckled edge to the stenciled lines.

Building up the layers is a lot of fun!

Dabbing the puddles of color to soak up excess liquid keeps it (slightly) under control!)

After letting it dry I added a couple more Frisket shapes, re-sprayed and a sprinkling of Brusho powder.

Check back later and I’ll show you how it developed from here!

more experiments with rice

This (Wednesday’s page)

Plus this (salvaged dyed rice + hot water)

Equals this (thickly heaped rice on dry paper – may try wet paper next time – sprayed with a little more ink for good measure)

Plus drying time…………. produced this, gently dappled patterning.

new things old things

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this was Monday’s page, recycling techniques in a new order, mostly acrylic with a bit of ink spray. Very much into stenciling just now. I’ve ordered some Frisket paper (and waiting on delivery as I type) and giddy with anticipation!!