VIDEO: Alcohol Ink: Experiment #1

A little trial and mostly error into a new medium to help spark my creativity. Remember that you can’t make beautiful art until you fail many times first!

Video transcript for deaf or hard of hearing:

Hi Art Aficionados! I’ve wanted to try experimenting with alcohol inks for a long time. A couple years ago I made these privacy screens for my apartment. I was looking for brilliant color more than fine art, so I was really happy with the outcome.

I usually show you the progress on successful projects because I’m doing mosaics that I’ve been making forever. Today you get to see the failures, or as I like to call them, educational experiments.

I bought a bunch of inks when a local art store was going out of business, and on their last couple days when they were practically giving art supplies away, I picked up alcohol ink markers. I’m not actually sure how to use them.

For this experiment, I cut 11” x 14” Yupo paper into smaller pieces so that I’m not wasting a lot of time & supplies in practice. Yupo is a cotton based paper that is non-porous so that alcohol inks can flow on top.

To me it feels like this paper is porous and absorbing some of the ink. I don’t know if the problem is the quality of my yupo or if I’m not doing it right.

There are so many ways to work with alcohol inks, but I really like the brilliant colors and circular patterns. I’m attempting to get that going here, but it’s not quite working out the way I wanted.

I’m just going to keep going because even though I’m frustrated that nothing I’m putting down is looking the way I intended, I can’t learn unless I try.

As I come to the end of filling the paper, I do like the saturation, especially the fuschia, so I’m going to pick it up and tilt it to let the ink flow. My plan is to come back to this paper in a few weeks or months when I have a better handle on this and use this saturated color as a background and add to it. The ink reactivates once rubbing alcohol or alcohol ink is added.

I’m going to try the markers again as a background. As I’m doing these voice overs, I’m realizing that since I’m someone that likes to work precisely, the alcohol ink markers may be a better option for detailing the foreground in the future instead of just as a background.

What I tried differently on this one is dropping on pearl mixative. I am not sure if it’s supposed to be used on its own like this, or mixed in as the name implies, but I dropped it on anyway. I don’t love the way I used it here, but the effect is something I will be able to use to help ideas in my head come onto the paper. 

I realize I didn’t show you the inks. I’m using Tim Holtz Ranger inks, which seem to be the most popular and recognized as highest quality by alcohol ink artists.

One last try for today. I’m dropping ink colors on that I want, then using a straw to try to blow the colors around. I was very unhappy with what I had going on here, so I washed it over with rubbing alcohol and I’m going to try one last thing: I’m going to sprinkle ink on by flicking a paint brush. This isn’t exactly what I want, but at least I can see that the tiny circles that look like those images of micrograph cells ARE what I’m looking for. I just want it more saturated and precise.

I am someone that needs to do things to learn, so I’m glad I pushed through this frustration of ignorance. Now I will do what my sister wisely does every time she is about to embark on a new endeavor… I will watch a million YouTube videos. There is no short supply of alcohol ink videos and tutorials, and now that I have played around a little, I will be able to soak in their techniques better.

Thank you for watching my trial and mostly error. Remember you can’t make beautiful art until you fail many times first.

VIDEO: Aluminum Foundry Visit & Making a Mosaic Pendant

When I was having bases made for mezuzot and pendants I got the chance to see an aluminum factory in action.

Video transcript for deaf or hard of hearing:

Hi Mosaic Fans! This week I’m going to show you a bit about making mosaic jewelry and décor. I have made a few pieces over the years like these pendants and mezuzot, but want to make more this year.

The first decorative pieces I made were two mezuzot for an orthodox Jewish client. He sends me pieces of his broken wedding plate and I use bits of them to incorporate into mosaic art as a gift for his wife on their anniversary. It’s so sweet and makes my heart melt.

To make a base for a mezuzah, I had a friend of mine make a mold and he introduced me to a man that runs a local aluminum foundry.

I made some sketches and a CAD design because the mold had to follow my exact specifications and have space to hold a prayer roll. After getting help to making the commission, I had a fancier mold made for future mezuzot.

Right now I’m also in the process of having molds made for these jewelry pendants because my supplier has discontinued them.

Here’s the exciting part… the footage I took at the aluminum foundry about 4 years ago when I first went to see the process. Basically, they put the mold in a box, pack the box really tight with sand, then take the mold out. Then they pour the molten aluminum into a hole in the box, and when it cools you have aluminum in the shape of your mold.

There are a lot of details that I’ve been told but don’t feel I understand well enough to explain. I do suggest visiting a foundry to see how it works if you ever have the chance. It’s fascinating.

Once they have the aluminum item, they will polish it or grind it, whatever is required to achieve the effect for that particular piece on a variety of equipment like this.

The foundry owner used two scrap pieces and his belt grinder create different textures for me to take home and sample which grit was better for the antique look I wanted.

These two were 180 grit and 36 grit.

The choice was very obvious with testing. After antiquing with black paint, the finer 180 grit just looked dirty, so the 36 grit will be my choice as it allows for little dark streaks while the aluminum is still shiny.

Next I’m going to show you the making of a mosaic necklace pendant. I used Apoxie Sculpt as the adhesive. I am still waiting on my new molds and haven’t pulled any new glass, so I just want to make a beaded mosaic with one of the pendants I already have to feel like I’m moving forward with things.

This one is very simple, but I’m really happy with the colors. As you know, I love the copper and turquoise combo. Hopefully someone else will like this one too.

As an update, the aluminum pendants I had poured didn’t work out well. They have to have an angle to the pour so that they’ll release, and I didn’t find that appealing, along with the weight and imperfections. I found pendants on Etsy that are working out much better.

As of this recording, this pendant is available at my Etsy shop. Thank you for watching!

3D Spiral Mosaics

I don’t have progress pictures of making my 3D spiral mosaics because I made them in the early 2000s and my technology made it hard to take good pictures in my studio. You’ll see this during the one progress pic I’m including in this post. I’ll have to rely on descriptions of the process.

I had the idea of making mosaics with more depth, that leapt out of the 2D realm, and couldn’t let it go because I hadn’t seen anything like that before. I remember that my first successful 3D spiral mosaic was the seventh attempt. I was relatively new to mosaics and had to do a lot of trial and error to make it work.

I used iridescent pink stained glass tiles for this first one because it’s what I had on hand. I learned later that molded glass tiles such as Sicis Iridium work better because the smooth edges make for cleaner grout lines along the spirals.

 
 

I don’t have pictures of the metal structure underneath, but this is a picture of Ruby Aspirations in progress so that you can see the spirals isolated. The metal structure that finally worked were these metal strips I found at an art supply store. I think they are for building models. They are just flexible enough to bend when I warm them a bit, but strong enough to hold the shape and not warp enough for the tiles to pop off. I started by cutting the strips in half with metal cutters. I then warped them into shape and used a metal punch tool and hammer to puncture holes where the tack nails would hold the metal on the plywood. I used Household Goop and the tack nails to hold the strips in place in their spiral shape. Then I used a hammer to flatten the ends of the metal so that the transition from wood to metal would be as smooth as possible. I again used Household Goop to adhere the glass tiles onto the metal strips. There is some flexibility to the metal even when they are held in place, so I needed to use a very strong adhesive with flexibility. Please note that you should always wear an organic vapor respirator when working with toxic adhesives such as Household Goop or E9000. Finally, I finished the rest of the mosaic as I would any mosaic.

For Blue Aspirations, I decided on a monotone look. I used a porous vitreous glass with a matte feel in the background to differentiate between the background and the super shiny glass of the spirals and accents.

For Pods, I chose my favorite organic, earthy glass tiles for the background, and shiny stained glass to have the pod spirals grow out of the earth. I also used mortar to slightly raise the pods to give them dimension also. This is one of my favorite mosaics I’ve made, but I’ve noticed it’s not a fan favorite! That happens with art!!

 
 

Outdoor Shower Mosaic

I started this week on a mosaic for an outdoor shower that will find its home in San Gabriel, California. Here's a short video showing you a bit about the piece. This is my first video so bear with me. Hopefully I'll get better! 

 Video Transcript: 

Hey everyone! My name is Dyanne Williams and I just want to show you a little bit about my current mosaic commission. So this is going to be an outdoor installation. It will be about 3 square feet, um, it's about 8-1/2 inches tall by almost 4 feet wide and it's going to be for an outdoor shower. It's going to be like this little band in the middle of the shower stall. The um, tile for the back is already installed and they're going to put a border that's cobalt around it. This is some of the tile for the pool and then this is on the stairs, so it has these pieces that come together with cobalt and kind of a speckled color. I'll show you a close up in a second.

So first I started by asking the homeowner what kind of artwork she likes, what kind of design she likes, what kind of color spectrum does she like? Well she said that she's been doing a lot of midcentury modern in her home and who doesn't love midcentury modern? And she wants to use some of the cobalt so I put a design together. Oh, and that she likes circular things and since I love circular things we came up with this. So we both agreed that the orange looked really nice against the blues and so this will be the strip in the middle.

Let me show you how it's coming along. So, this is what I have so far. Originally the design was to include four colors of blue. Well, unfortunately one of the blues was discontinued and it ended up just being really crowed and I wasn't seeing, you know, when you put the tiles next to each other it looked like a lot of contrast, but in practice it wasn't looking like as much so I cut out the second to darkest blue. I also did try, I have a lighter blue color than this that I could have used for the background and I did try but it didn't have the impact. Then when she sent me this glass sample, and as you can see, it has that same lighter blue as the lightest level of blue in there, so it turns out to be the perfect choice for this project.

So I finished all the oranges, I'm working on the cobalts right now and then I'll go out and finish everything else. So it's all looking good. I should probably be done in about a week or so. I'll show you the progress and then after I ship it out I'll have an installed picture.

I did mean to tell you a little bit about how it's done. Basically what I use is just a little Elmer's glue. Elmer's glue does not hold it, what it does is hold it in place while it is being shipped and installed. Then they will use thinset mortar to install it and that will hold it in place. With the exception, the only thing I didn't use Elmer's glue on are these little gems because they are translucent and I despise the mesh showing through the translucent glass. It drives me crazy. So what I do in this circumstance is foil back it. So then I use a clear adhesive that is waterproof and what I use usually is called Goop. And that's about it. I will keep you updated on the progress. Thank you and have a good day!

Tiny Tiny Tiny Shards

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I hope everyone is having a great week and making amazing art!

I started working on this mosaic of my awesome pug Velvet a while ago. I'm back to work on it, and hopefully I'll have time to finish before I start on my next commission. 

I have to admit, even as someone that fusses over mosaics for a living, this one has been trying my patience! I'm about 80 hours into fighting this battle against these tiny little shards of glass that do not want to cooperate. It will be worth it in the end because Velvet is the best little monkey ever and deserves to be immortalized in mosaic. 

I always get involved in projects and forget to post WIPs (work in progress pics) even though I adore looking at all the ones my friends share of their mosaic projects. So with this project I'm going to start making it a habit to share the progress.