Another Textured Surface Journal Cover

I've finished another journal cover from one of my textured surfaces. For this one, I embedded cheesecloth into the molding paste, then painted it. Then I tried doing bobbin work on my sewing machine, but the thread kept breaking, so I decided that it would look better to just have the thread in the lower left corner. ;) And for one area where the machine skipped stitches, I glued the thread.

I finally got a chance to play with some Tyvek, and I put a piece of it in the upper right (for some reason it looks like Africa). I also used some Treasure Gold and then covered the whole thing with one light coat of polymer medium. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (and if you look at my earlier work, you'll see that I'm pretty consistent in my color choices - I really need to experiment with some different colors!). This surface is on Pelmet Vilene, so it's not quite as stiff as the one I did on chipboard (because I didn't know I was going to make journal cover out of it when I started it). But it's stiff enough.

I filled this particular journal with a paper that is good for pen and ink (Strathmore Bristol Smooth). I bought a couple of new calligraphy pens recently (Pilot Parallel Pens - which you can see here). I bought the 1.5 mm and 2.4 mm nib pens, and if I like them as much as I think I'm going to, I'll be buying the other widths too. We're heading to the mountains of Colorado on Saturday, and I'm planning on practicing my calligraphy while we're there. We're staying in a cabin at Silent Spring Resort, near Almont, which is between Gunnison and Crested Butte. We've been going to somewhere in Colorado almost every other year for the 32 years we've been married, and this is our favorite place to stay.

More Textured Surfaces

I finally finished my journal cover a few days ago. I put modeling paste onto gessoed chipboard. I combed into the lower left corner and embedded cheesecloth into the upper right corner, both while the modeling paste was still wet. After it was dry, I stenciled some more modeling paste in the center. I've been messing with paints for what seems like weeks, but I'm finally happy with it. By the way, this isn't the same as the one in my earlier post (here); as I painted that one more, it got too dark, and I wasn't sure I was going to like it, so I started a new one. I'm still messing with that one - and I still don't like it as well as this one. Eventually I'll post a picture of it when I finish it.



This one isn't made into anything yet, and I'm not sure whether it's finished. I put modeling paste on really thick onto pelmet vilene that I had gessoed first, then put another piece on top and pulled them apart. After it was dry, I painted it. It started out way too dark (again). I was quite surprised that I was able to lighten it a lot. I like it pretty well so far, just not sure what else it needs.

Textured Surfaces

I've been painting some of my textured surfaces today. The top one is molding paste with cheesecloth embedded into it, and the bottom one is molding paste that I combed through (in both directions). I have another one that isn't dry, and still another one that is quite ugly at this point - I hope I'll be able to save it, but I'm not at all sure about that.

I'm quite enamored with the molding paste - it's a really fun product. And you're supposed to be able to sew into it too, although I haven't tried that yet. But the pieces are flexible, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to. Probably not until the next lesson, however.

Textured Surfaces

click on picture to see it larger

This isn't finished yet, but I wanted to post my progress so far, because I've just been introduced to the coolest new product. Well, it isn't actually new, it's just new to me, but still . . .

It's Modeling Paste (or Molding Paste, depending on what brand you buy). It is for adding texture to surfaces. I put gesso onto chipboard. When it was dry, I added modeling paste. While it was wet, I put cheesecloth into the upper right corner and combed through the lower left corner. After it dried, I stenciled into the center with more modeling paste. Then when that dried, I tried to paint the whole thing. I used Golden's Fluid Acrylics mixed with Glazing Liquid, and I had trouble getting it into the cracks and crevices.

I'm taking (another) online class; this one is Textured Surfaces. I've had my first lesson so far, where we've learned to create LOTS of texture. The second lesson will be about coloring the texture we created in lesson one. But being the impatient person that I am, I tried adding color to this already. It's not bad (I actually really like the color combination) - I just want to get all of the white modeling paste colored. So I guess I'll have to be patient (as difficult as that is for me) and wait for lesson two.

This is going to be a cover for a journal that I'll bind with my Bind-it-all. I've already punched the inside pages.