For at least a couple of years now, we have been decorating the envelopes we use to send out our newsletters. Nan thought it was definitely time we shared them with our members! as usually she collects them from individuals and I get to see them when I do the mailing. Each a piece of artwork, we thought they should be shared (yes, I 'erased' parts of addresses...)
Wouldn't you like to see any one of those arrive in your mailbox?!
After the business portion of our meeting and lunch break, it was on to the program. Lucky our morning went quickly, giving us a bit of extra time to play / work. We were writing with bleach. Yes, straight chlorine bleach. Good thing we had a great day as we were able to throw the windows open to get lots of fresh air circulating inside the classroom.
Different papers react differently and you can't really predict what any one piece is going to do. We were given some Strathmore Art Paper and samples of different card stocks as well as whatever we had brought from our own studios. Randomly, some of the best results came on some of the least expensive paper! Perhaps the more expensive the paper, the better the dye job! Some papers worked much better than others and some didn't change colour at all!
I had some ruled gel pen paper, some black cards, a black envelope and some black post-it notes. They all worked super well! sure wish I knew where I had gotten the cards from. We had all manner of tools to write with, brass pens, regular broad edge nibs, chop sticks sanded down to make a pen, our "Dear John" pens (dowel with a slit cut in one end to take a doll house roof shingle, voila! a pen), bamboo cut to a broad edge, pieces of matte board and several other "tools" to try. Some worked better than others but we just had to try everything.
Here are our fearless leaders.........
Fay was demonstrating how you can add soft pastels to your work and Nan was talking about taking watercolour paper and laying down a layer of fountain pen ink - must be non-water-proof. When it is almost dry, you go back in with your bleach for some great results.
my evenope just waiting for an address! I tore a piece of paper to make the star and used it as a mask and then sprayed the envelope with bleach.
note to self........check which way the card opens before you write on the front!! enough said.
Margot's first layer, bleach on the Strathmore art paper.
Margot's piece after she tweeked it and added pastel for colour and decoration.
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Jean's card - hmmmm maybe some of Carrie Imai's techniques?
Rita's tree or was it lightning?!
such concentration!! every meeting too!
and finally, we stopped working to have 'show and tell'
Thank you Nan and Fay for sharing this fun technique with us!!
Our next meeting will be June 12 and the Program scheduled is to write in calligrams...lettering in shapes.
