Pretty Paper Pretty Boxes In Green

I was counseled by a gallery owner on how to market  my  art so it would actually sell.

A very generous owner who is interested in showing and hopefully selling my humble work.

Her idea was to attach copies of original collages to gallery wrapped canvas or wooden boxes that are freestanding.

I really like the box idea. I think it would be cool for my pieces to be able to sit on a shelf next to books because I use a lot of words and vintage book pages in each piece. I shopped at Dick Blick and purchased some 5x7 and 8x10 American Easel Wood Painting Panels. 

These are not cheap. I need a husband who can do some light woodworking between doing the dishes and massaging my feet.

teehee.

Moving on.....I gesso'd these first.

First up is the box for "Man Business".

This is a print of my original 

Vintage Book Page Art. 

See etsy link in upper right corner if you wanna buy it.

*yes, that was a shameless plug*

In my studio, where I can usually find NOTHING,

I came across this red mesh bag that I think held onions or lemons at one time.

I save everything. 

I thought it could very coolly represent

fishnet stockings. Cuz fishnet stockings

come in handy when your mind is set on

"Man Business". 

Over the white gesso, once dry, I used a spatula and placed a layer of Golden's Self Leveling Gel down. I had the mesh cut and ready to lay down, smoothed it with the spatula and sprayed a light mist of alcohol on top to eliminate air bubbles. Which mostly worked except for when it didn't. 

The Gallery owner said these boxes on display will help sell the matted prints.

Geez, I hope she's right. 

Here's the process in pics:

In the above photo I am holding the print that when sized correctly, doh!, will fill the front of the box. 

The next set of boxes are COLORFUL!!

The first box is gesso'd and then sprayed with acrylic paints thinned with water, and glimmer mists for a touch of well, uh, glimmer.

This next box is covered with my hand painted paper towels I made 100 years ago in an amazing class given by Traci Bautista at Art and Soul Virginia. I think it was actually 2007. I've been hoarding these. Too pretty to part with. But it's time. Time to try to sell this stuff I've spent millions of dollars learning how to create and another million dollars on the supplies to make them!!

This back (below)

which should be the front is a napkin. I decided to think outside the box, teehee, and put the print over the whole in the box in the back. If it's standing on a shelf the back should be covered right? Well one worked out, the other was an EPIC FAIL. stay tuned for the Gorey Details.

The last of my paper towels...crying....

I think The Universe KNEW I was being stingy about using my paper towels, cuz, well this is the one that turned out to be the EPIC FAIL.

The suspense is growing now, can you feel it? I knew that you could. 

Below pics show a technique I learned from my newest favorite book,
Surface Treatment Workshop,
by Darlene Olivia McElroy and
Sandra Duran-Wilson. 
The supplies I used are pictured. For more detail go to Amazon and get the book!!
Now here is the start of the Epic Fail, 
I forgot to seal the ink jet print!!
So when I did the soft gel pour, the 
inks ran!! It looked like crap, so I poured off all the gel into a cup, and laid a transparency of the same image over top. 

 

Gel pour:

Drying:

It almost worked! When I hold the piece at one angle it looks ok.

If you look closely to the side tho, you can see The Lump. Where the transparency didn't adhere. At this point I'm not sure if I should try and "pass it" or if I should tear it off and reapply the image. 
What say you, wise artist friends?
BTW, I used Yes Paste to adhere the images to the wood. That stuff is great! Just make sure to put wax paper over the surface of the image and brayer from the center outward.

Due to the epic fail, I chickened out of doing gel pours on the next 2 pieces. Instead I brushed on a thin layer of self leveling gel.

Done!!

The next pic shows 3 8x10 boxes, in this case, the images are laser copies. Clear gesso on the sides. Next step is painting the sides.

Next post will be the story about the magnet debacle....
xoS

Ink-Jet Transfer Play

While waiting for the paint to dry on the canvas I just sneak peeked you, I played with transfers. My tools were ink-jet images printed on Apollo 7039 transparencies, Golden's self leveling clear gel, and acrylic painted ATC backgrounds. I also used some of those cardboard postcards I posted about earlier. You know, the cardboard from the cat food cartons that I gesso'd and painted with sprays and glimmer mists. I sealed them with PYM. I had to, cuz when a spot checked the paint with the GSLCGel, the sprays smeared. Bummer. Out of the attempts that night only ONE was a failure. I'll show that first:

Not sure if the problem was too much GSLCGel or what. But the next ones turned out Grungy, not perfect, and therefore exactly what I wanted! Thanks to Andre, of Aftermath, for sharing the steps: apply GSLCGel to substrate, let Gel get slightly tacky for barely a minute, lay down transparency, burnish with paper towel, lift and rejoice!! I also used a bone folder to burnish. This is the only method that I have found to provide consistant successful transfers on top of acrylic paint. Hey, Marianne, I haven't tried the Elmer's Caulk yet!!






Here is the image I used:

Feel free to use this in your Art. I changed the color to black and white before printing to get rid of the background color and to save ink. Also, don't forget to mirror the image before printing, so the transferred image is not backwards. Trust me, I forget to do this often and get so mad at myself for wasting ink!! The next ones are the catboards, oh I mean, cardboards, teehee:




I think I'm going to bind these into some kind of book, some day. A lot more transfers, experiments and embellishing have to happen first. Below is the image I used for transfer. Feel free to use it.
Next on the horizon is thinking about trades for the upcoming Art and Soul Retreat!!! I'm so excited!! Who's going?? Give Me A Shout!! xoSusan