Getting My Wires Crossed...

Worked a little more on my favorite new assemblage this past week. Now that Giselle is nice and aged with acrylic paints... I drilled some holes at appropriate points through her arms, legs and torso...

Then I wired the doll up so I could hook her into the vintage drawer-turned-box...

Added some eye hooks in key places inside the box...

And then the fun began! It was a little daunting at first. I don't always look forward to the technical aspects of art... like getting all these wires in all the right places... so that all the body parts are going in all the right directions... which for this piece are actually the wrong directions! Truth be told, I messed up a little, but was able to course correct. Whew! Nothing like getting your wires crossed... and it being a good thing!

Now that Giselle was all fastened to her marionette stage, I glanced back toward the bottom of the assemblage and noticed that Jesus was standing out a little too much. He needed to blend a little. I thought to add some Spanish Moss and... voilà... problem solved! I like the addition because it really grounds the letters to the base of the piece.

Tune in next week to find out what I do with my AMUSE MENT and some other tricks I have up my sleeve!

Gettin' Twisted...

Well... work on my Twisted assemblage is moving right along... and a little better than I had anticipated. That's always a pleasant phenomenon! I decided to go with Jesus as my "I" and I think I'm going to paint the letters ivory to match him.

I built a shelf out of a cardboard box, because I wanted the letters to be far forward, and not toward the back... in the shadows. Glued it in using my favorite multi-media glue.... DAP Tub & Tile Caulking! Wanna know why I love it so? Because caulking is made to fluctuate with temperature and humidity changes... just like the tiles in your bathroom. And so it doesn't get too hard and crack off. That's my little tip for today. Back to the assemblage...

I papered the entire inside of the drawer — and over the new shelf — with vintage book pages. For this piece I used pages from The Diary Of Anne Frank. But I don't really pick titles that are pertinent to the assemblage... I actually pick based on how aged the pages look, and how supple they are. These were perfect!

I also tried something different with this piece. Usually, I age the pages with some hue of brown acrylic paint... but these pages were rather delicate and the drawer had some ridges in it. I didn't want to be treating them so harshly as to rub on paint and wipe it back off. So I thought I would try using wood stain... and OMG!! Can I just tell you... that I may never go back to acrylics for aging vintage book pages again!

I got to work on Giselle over the weekend... added some volume to her skirt, distressed her like she'd been around for decades, and hooked her up to her new station all twisted and such. But I'll save that for the next update. Until then my twisted little mixed-media followers... Bwwahhahaahaa!