Acrylic Skin

Well, this post heading sounds weird I know...but....I was watching Laura Kemshall's video on making acrylic skin to use in her art work.  I thought I'd give it a go!

I won't explain the entire process...as I've said before, you can join DesignMattersTV yourself to see their videos and learn from Laura and her mom, Linda.  It's not cheap for a year subscription but I don't get any monthly magazines so this is my 'luxury' art item.

This was a quilt I dye painted (based on Hollis Chatlain's technique) quite awhile ago!

I still had the tracing of her face that I made to see where I wanted the quilting to be for her face.

So this is what I used for my first 'skin'.  You trace onto your substrate and then....

Apply a medium, which creates the skin.  Yes, there are steps here but you'll have to watch the video!  I haven't done anything with this 'skin' yet!

Next I wrote some text and created the 'skin'

I had this hard canvas piece with some zentangles on it so figured I would apply the skin this, just for fun!

I cut out a small part of the lettering and applied to the canvas.  And this was the end result.  I did apply some yellow watercolor to this piece but haven't taken a picture of it yet.

So what else could I make with this technique!  Leaves of course!  I had some paper leaves I traced and made the 'skin'.

I had this small hard canvas piece I made back in 2010...think it was for a challenge in our CCC group.  It was a poem printed on a piece of silk organza then applied to the stencil painted canvas.

And finished piece with one of the leaf skins!

So, is this something I'll use in the future?  Not sure...I don't do paintings on canvas and the only have one sketchbook I keep of the stamps I make.  But it was fun and always good to keep ourselves trying new techniques!

Funny, but when I went to type in the label for this post, acrylic skin, it popped up!  Hmmmmmm  So I did a search on my blog and what do you know!  I played with a similar technique back in 2009!  You can read that post here.  No wonder I didn't remember!  2009!!!  I don't remember yesterday!

"You're making what?" "For what?"

I'm sure the title of this post is something my friends will ask - along with my hubby, although I haven't shown him yet - just because I know what his response will be! I've seen a few articles on making 'acrylic skin' to use in collage work, etc. so I thought I'd give it a try! Why not, right!

The first step was to paint some acrylic paint onto a plastic material (I understand you can use freezer paper (I'd assume shiny side?) too. I squirted several lines of Liquitex soft body paint on to the plastic then used a squeegee to spread the paint. I let this dry for over 24 hours. It needs to be totally dry before the next step.
Next I only have InkAid for non-porous areas left from my sample kit (my next 'try' will be on to metal!) so I thought I'd give this a try (I have some Golden Digital Ground on order but it's not due in until Nov.). First I applied a coat of InkAid horizontally, then vertically, allowing each coat to dry in between. Again, you want each coat to be totally dry before you apply the next coat. I understand you can also try this technique using a matt medium mixed with acrylic paint and just apply that in one step.

And this was my result! The 'skin' did peal off the plastic fairly easily and you can see the InkAid (clear area) on the top edge of the painted area.

This picture shows the edge turned over. I wanted you to see how it picked up the print from the plastic I had painted on. If you click on the very first picture where I painted the acrylic paint, you can see printing. This plastic is from some flowers I received years ago! I use it to paint on. I just thought it was interesting to see the transfer of the print on the back of the 'skin'. Maybe InkAid can be used for transfer printing as well...something to research.

So now what to do! Print on it, of course! Not sure why I picked the next two pictures. I wanted black and white pictures but I was too anxious to see how the skin would print.

This was one picture I selected to print....it's a rubbing with oil pastels using a round place mat.

And this was the other picture I selected. This is part of my underwater fantasy piece I did in 2008.

I took the 'skin' and used masking tape to hold down a side and top edge. When I do it again, I'll use painters tape. I had a hard time removing the tape. And here they are printed out.

So what am I going to do with 'the skin' ? Heck, if I know..but I did it, it was fun, a new technique and I think I really will try it again. But I'll have a color scheme in mind and specific pictures I want to print. It really is fun!

This week I started another Art of Nature journal quilt using one of the gelatin mono prints we did last month at our Complex Cloth Club meeting. Here's a picture of the print I started with.

Here the piece is in progress. I'm going to continue adding some more hand stitching and some beads, of course! This might be the first of my bead journal project for 2010...I'm still not clear if we start in Oct. or Jan. Guess I need to confirm that. I do like the colors of the piece and the brown background fabric is from Dijanne (Cevall) which i thought added to the piece.

So that's all for this week. Sat., Carol is having five of us over for a lunch then we're off to see Mary's entry in the 'Our Town' exhibit. Can't wait to see all the wonderful art and Mary is part of this! How exciting! But justly deserved! Mary's work is wonderful!! Check out some of her work on her web site here.