Trying New Techniques/Collaging My World

This post will be about two of the new techniques I am trying and the beginning of collaging the mixed media piece.

Painting Fusible Web:

I had read in more than one issue of Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors about painting on fusible web and adding it to your artwork. All you need is some paper back fusible web, some diluted acrylic paints and a brush and have fun. I did learn that you could dilute the pain too much in which case the pigments don't stick to the webbing well. As you overlap colors of paint you get additional colors and values. The picture to the right is the webbing that I painted. The backing paper crinkles as it dries, since my first layers of paint were fairly wet my paper crinkled a fair amount. After this you can cut out a shape and fuse it to your art giving you a web of color on top of your work. I am planning on ripping my webbing up and using pieces of it behind my tree to look like leaves in the background.

Painting on Scrim (or cheesecloth):

Another technique I have read about was painting on or dying scrim. Most people dye it but since I don't have dyes but I do have acrylic paints I diluted them down and had fun. I put some tissue paper underneath to catch some of the extra paint, folded the scrim in half and started painting. I am not sure where this will get used on the piece. I may scrunch some of it and sew it down to be more background leaves. Another idea is to scrunch some of it up down in the grass area of the landscape.

Collaging My World:

The last photo on this post is the first step of the mixed media/ collage background that is the world that will contain my tree and all of my beaded journal blocks. I used my full sized drawing to help cut the paper pieces that I was going to use to the size I needed them. The sky, cliffs and hills are all mulberry papers that Wayne brought me home from a trip to Korea one time.
The papers for the beach are 2 different scrapbook papers that I tore up and combined. They have shells and sand on them so look nice and beachy. The paper for the water is one that I have had for a long time and that I have always loved but not know what to do with it. I decided that it would make interesting water especially with the shimmering gold on the surface. After tearing/cutting the paper to the sizes I need I got ready to collage it onto my backing fabric. I used a piece of off white poplin that was stiff enough to give the piece some stability since I will be adding more to it. I also don't want it so stiff that I can't sew through it to add embroidery and embellishments so I did not go with canvas. I used a mix of Acrylic Matte Medium and water to do the collaging. I applied a layer of "glue" to the fabric and then added the papers, layering them as needed. As each paper was added I used a layer of glue on top until everything was glued down giving me my rudimentary landscape and the background to future layers of paint, embellishments, leaves and the tree.

To check out the most current photos of where I am on my piece go to my web gallery or my Artistic Kreations and Passions website which I will keep updated with new photos of my Sacred Tree.