Claudine Intner | Tips & Techniques Tuesday

Art Tsunami

June 17, 2010

There is a really cool tsunami happening in the creative blogosphere… Tutorial Tsunami! It started yesterday on Melanie Testa, Jane LaFazio, and Diana Trout’s blogs. Today Lyric Kinard and Alisa Burke will do tutorials on theirs. The next day will be even more fun on other blogs!

Great idea! And I love that each blog is teaching something totally different! Melanie showed how to make a hand dyed headband, Diana played with sumi, and Jane demonstrated needle felting. I am looking forward to seeing more of this tsunami.

Butterfly Altered Book in Progress

In other news, my butterfly is starting to fly! I am really enjoying how portable this altered book is. The book is very freeing and I am enjoying flipping between different pages and adding more. I have been adding acrylic paint, markers, and collage bits. These pages aren’t done! Just works in progress…

Butterfly Altered Book in Progress

Filed Under: Blogging, Book Arts, Tips & Techniques Tuesday

Working with Butterflies

June 8, 2010

Butterfly Book

I have started working on my butterfly altered book that I recently posted about. I am taking the suggestions of a number of artists and web sites and trying not to work too wet in the book. I have gone through and strategically removed pages through out the book.

Butterfly Book

Then I used glue stick to adhere pages together. I was skeptical of the glue stick but it appears to be holding well. The nice thing is that it has not caused any warping that I know gel medium would cause.

Butterfly Book

Now I am starting to create first layers of color for the butterflies. Stay tuned as the butterfly book transforms!

And now I recommend you go check out The Artistic Biker on YouTube!

Filed Under: Collage & Mixed Media, Tips & Techniques Tuesday

Why artists don’t get manicures

June 2, 2010

Hand I have always been messy when making art. At Art and Soul, I found I had reached a new level of messy. I was using dye-based stamp pads and could not get my hands clean. I know stamps pads are for stamps not hands, but I couldn’t help myself as I learned to make my own rollers and stamps. Had I realized how staining the dye pads were, I might have considered gloves… Okay, probably not.

So after class, I went back to my hotel room and tried to figure out how the heck I was going to turn myself back to the normal color. Soap was not working. There had to be something.

Google to the rescue! There was a fountain of interesting suggestions including grape jelly. The best solution was Purell. It took off the vast majority of the dye! Good thing I just happened to have some handy… the joys of having boys, you always need antibacterial gel.

Do you have any other good clean-up tips?

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One more quick thing since I have been talking about making stamps… I have to share a link to Judi Hurwitt’s fabulous post. There is a wealth of information on her blog about making stamps. You definitely want to check it out!

Filed Under: Artsy Field Trips, Collage & Mixed Media, Tips & Techniques Tuesday

Stamp and Roll

May 25, 2010

Foam Stamp

Do you want to learn a quick and easy way to make stamps and rollers? You have come to the right place! As I mentioned yesterday, I have just returned from Art and Soul, and I am overwhelmed by all the new ideas. On Friday, I took Traci Bunkers’ Roller Printing MacGyver Style class. Traci is so creative and has so many ideas on how to create stamps and rollers.

Have you ever made craft foam stamps? If you have kids, you have probably seen craft foam. It comes in sheets as well as shapes and letters and is found in the kids’ section of the craft store.

To create craft foam stamps, you will need craft foam, scissors, ink pads or acrylic paint, and paper. No carving involved! Just cutting!

Foam Stamp

Cut a piece of craft foam to the size stamp you want and then peel off the back.

Foam Stamp

Cut shapes out of another piece of craft foam. You can also use the pre-cut shapes and letters from the store.

Foam Stamp

Apply the shapes to the background.

Foam Stamp

When you are happy with your stamp, apply ink or acrylic paint. Try the Staz On brand of ink pads because they stick to most surfaces, and they dry quickly.

Foam Stamp

Ooh! Aah!

Foam Stamp

You can take this a step further and make rollers for printing using a dowel, craft foam, and nails.

Foam Stamp

Here are a few more samples from the roller printing class. By adding several different patterns to the paper, you can create some really interesting paper. You can also use these stamps on fabric as well as do this project with children!

Foam Stamp