Glazing Discovery

Turns out that Tombow™ Mono Aqua liquid glue™ works well as a glaze medium.  While the end result is not as thick as regular glazes, it has the same even glossy finish and texture. The curing period for Tombow™ as a glaze is only about an hour.

Why glaze?

Glazing a focal point on your artwork is a beautiful thing. It’s shiny, what can I say?

When you glaze you are not only making an image shiny but you are raising the surface.

Critical factors in glazing:

The glaze finish must not be sticky to the touch after drying.

The glaze must not buckle the paper it is covering.

The glaze must be distributed evenly across the design.

Bubbles should never be present on the finished product.

Glazing Products

Many companies have great glaze mediums on the market. They give a thick glossy finish and should dry for 24 hours. My favorite is Crystal Lacquer™.

Clear embossing powder also ads a lovely glaze to an image. Embossing powder dries immediately, however, I find it tricky to get an even coat on the first (or second) pass. Embossing is messy for me and requires using products I don’t keep close by.

Glazing away

Impatience over drying time, frustration with evenness, and practicing my “within reach doctrine” led me to the Tombow™ discovery about glazing.

The projects above are holiday tags. Below is a stamped card feature using the same glaze:

Crazy Birds in the Studio

“You have to start somewhere.” Here’s the somewhere I’m starting.

There have only been a couple of products that I “had to have” in the last year. Crazy birds stamps by Tim Holtz was one of these.  Here are some samples:

The sequins make the magic.

There are dies to cut the birds that I did not buy but my friend Lynn did...

I wish more of the birds faced right

that would be more appealing on a

card.

These designs are very simple. The birds are just so adorable that there is no need to put tons of effort into cards. 

Coordinating papers from a paper pad

by DCW make assembly easy.

I stamped all of these in one sitting on white paper that had been colored with distress ink stains by Ranger via Tim Holtz. I cut some out and I left some right on the background.

Keep in mind, I prefer to make art than spend a ton of time taking photos of it--smile. Editing pictures distracts me for hours because after I crop then I want to adjust color and size and contrast and....

Starting Somewhere

“You have to start somewhere.” Here’s the somewhere I’m starting.

 Details of my departure

My brother died. I had no idea I would grieve for this long. I managed his meager but complex estate which took up a chunk of time as well as continuing to work through my grief.  He died in November of 2014.

I don’t keep a blog to make money. I tried to do it a bit in the past and it was too tricky for me to write and link and place ads and so on… I don’t edit my photos either. I’d rather be making art than creating a blog of perfection.

I lost my website. All 300+ pages. If everything that has ever been on the internet is still on the internet—would someone please find mine? I am relieved in some ways, but overwhelmed by putting it back up. 

I'm scheduling some posts ahead, so there is possibility of consistency for the next few weeks. 

David, me, and Sir Henry during our first summer with 

David (2011) in Florida. We loved eating tuna salad made with

our cousin Faye's homemade pickles.