Sunday, October 13, 2019

My Mixed Media Collage or Embellished Vases



I have to tell you that I have been having a delightful time "playing" with wood, glass, and paper-clay crafts for the past few months.   The two classes I took at Artful Gathering this summer put me in a creative crafts hyper drive.

I have been experimenting with collage and painting or doing both to many of the glass vases or bottles I have accumulated over the years or from my crafts supplies stash.   I finished all the glass vases or bottles I want to do right now and are currently creating paper flowers for them.  Some I love just the way they are so they will remain as mixed media collage and painted vases and/or bottles.

Shown above are three of the glass vases I had in my crafts supply stash that I've accumulated over the years.


The vase above was originally solid blue in color and I wanted it to be a combination of blue, teal, black and white sponge-painted colors.  Generally I like to collage the vase first and then add the sponge painting but, this time, I decided due to the shape of the vase I would just sponge paint it.


So, I painted it black acrylic paint first.  Then I added a sponge painted combination of metallic blue paint, metallic teal blue paint, and finally white acrylic paint.  I sealed the paints with a glazing medium.


I loved the way it turned out so much with just with the sponge painting that I decided not to embellish it any more.  I was going to add Victorian collage images but felt the beautiful colors should stand on their own.

Now all I need to do is decide what kinds of paper flowers I want to create for it.  For sure some will be blue..... lol


It should also come as no surprise that the vases you see in this post and subsequent posts were blue or a complimentary color to blue.  To say blue is my favorite color is an understatement....


For this vase I decided to collage it first with old book papers as I originally thought I would add a collage of Victorian images to it.  However, after looking at how the sponge painting turned out I decided to leave it alone.

As far as the sponge painting is concerned for this vase first I painted the old book paper collage with black acrylic paint.  Then I added a sponge painted combination of metallic blue paint, metallic green paint, cobalt blue acrylic paint, metallic teal paint, and white acrylic paint.  I sealed the paints with a glazing medium.


Now all I need to do is decide what kinds of paper flowers I want to create for it.  For sure some will be blue, too.  Do you sense a blue theme here?


The third vase I sponge painted was originally a clear light green bubble vase that I was going to leave alone and which is shown in the picture below.


As mentioned in a previous post I like creating holiday and seasonal crafts for the techniques I'm working with and decided large poinsettia's like the one shown in the picture above would be pretty during the holidays.  I wasn't sure how to fashion the little stamens and filament in the middle as I needed to support my large poinsettia petals somehow so I decided to just add bronze beads to the large round center I had fashioned out of paper-clay.  It worked well and and looked somewhat like a poinsettia so I was happy with it at the time.  However, in looking at it over the last two months I decided I wasn't happy with it - either the vase or the paper poinsettia flowers. 

I really wanted to collage it but couldn't figure out a way to do so with its' shape and bubbles so I decided to just sponge paint it.  I painted it with black acrylic paint first then I added a sponge painted combination of Christmas metallic green paint, metallic red paint, metallic grey-blue paint, and white acrylic paint.  I sealed the paints with a glazing medium.


Now I need to decide what Christmas papers I will make for it.  Perhaps some smaller poinsettia's....


I hope you like my collage & embellished sponge painted vases so far.  Stay tuned for the pictures of their embellished paper flowers.


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