I had an Amazon delivery the other day, and after Ruby had finished sitting in the box, I thought it might be useful in the studio to put things in. The flaps were too large to fold inside neatly, so I trimmed them down. The strips were a bit damaged, showing the corrugated core, so I stripped off the paper on one side to reveal the corrugations. I love the texture you get when you do this, when not all the paper is removed. Definitely useable for collage.
I was about to sweep all those scraps of brown paper into the bin when I asked myself my famous question, “Could I make art out of this?” The answer instantly came back – a resounding YES!
I tore up some of the larger pieces and once I was satisfied, I laid down a sheet of white tissue paper on a plastic sheet, and drizzled on some acrylic polymer. I spread this more or less evenly on the paper using a pastry brush, and arranged the paper scraps onto it. I spread another layer of polymer on top to seal the paper scraps inside, dabbing it on with the pastry brush so as not to disturb the arrangement of paper scraps.
To fill the gaps and to make it more interesting, I sprinkled on some gold and black gold gilding flakes, and added more polymer on top.
As usual, when making papers like this, I rubbed in the edges to make a bit of a ridge to get hold of to pull it off the plastic sheet once it was all dry.
Of course, in real life it looks a lot more shiny and sparkly than I was able to capture on a photograph.
Here is the sheet once it was dried, laid on my work surface which is mdf. The tissue paper has become quite translucent with the addition of the polymer, so between the paper scaps and gilding flakes, it is going to show the colour of whatever is underneath, giving a different effect in each case. This surface is fairly similar in colour to the pages of my Organic Journal.
Here it is against a white background. You can see the difference.
Here are some examples of it laid over some gel prints taken at random from my collection. When the piece is stuck down, the effect will be more pronounced.
I am pleased with how this turned out. I made it on the spur of the moment, and I can see a lot of potential in it. It’s amazing what you can do with scraps that most people would simply throw away!
Kitties
Talking of Ruby sitting in boxes, my hubby brought in a new box today, that he’d got at Lidl’s when doing some shopping for me. Ruby had to get straight in it. I’ve taken away two of the Amazon boxes now so there’s only #1 box left (which she decided was her favourite), but this has been abandoned in favour of my hubby’s new one! The whole room was in danger of being taken over by boxes.
