Cloned Heart

                    

I recently posted an image of a mixed media piece I created titled ‘Heart String'. I had placed a found heart shaped stone on it. I liked it so well that I decided to make it a permanent part of the composition. Unfortunately, the actual stone was too heavy for the canvas and its thickness did not work with the piece. I decided to try to duplicate it. I did not have any mold making material so I used what I had instead of buying more stuff. I had some moldable foam that you heat to create foam stamps from three-dimensional objects. Although it worked well enough to please me, I would do it differently next time or buy the proper mold making material.  Below are the steps I took.

First, I heated the foam with a small heat gun, and then pushed the stone into the soft surface. The foam only allowed me to get a shallow impression, which turned out to be okay.

Next, I sprayed the mold with some old mold separation spray called Unstick. I do not think it is available anymore, but some other silicone spray or Vaseline would probably work, and maybe even better.

Then I filled the mold with Liquidtex light modeling paste. I should have cleaned off the excess paste around the edge of the heart as it ruined one side of the foam and made it difficult to remove the heart. I do not know what I was thinking. Maybe that it would give me some extra material to work with. Who knows?

This was the finished heart. Although the texture of the cloned heart was very much like the stone, I decided to use the backside, because it laid flat on the canvas better than the other side and I like distressed texture the palette knife made.

You can see the results on my website. www.evamacie.com under 'New Work'.

Procrastinating Fun

With my taxes done, filed and accepted, I could not put off updating my web site. You want to bet? I am the world’s worse about quitting when I come to a troublesome problem that I do not want to deal with. There was a time when I enjoyed tackling things like creating my own web site, but in my old age, my patience has become extremely short. I guess time is so important to me now that I rather spend it doing things that intrigue me in the moment. For example, I went grocery shopping yesterday and ended up reading magazines at Barnes and Noble. I spent so much time there I forgot half the stuff I wanted to buy when I finally got to the store. But, oh how I enjoyed those two lost hours!

I read about an online collage site in one of the Digital Arts magazines at the bookstore. I doubt if anyone could use the collages they made as most of the elements you use are copyrighted. It is mainly a way to have fun, connect with other people and promote products. The collage I am showing is one I started creating online using only non-copyrighted textures, then I captured it and added some more elements of my own, including the crow, in Photoshop. The site is called Polyvore. I haven’t figure it all out yet, but like everything else I plunged right in and kept clicking on tabs hoping something would happen. It is the same way I learned the little I know about Photoshop. Check out the collections for some neat collages. Most of them are about fashion, which is the driving force behind this site, selling clothing and accessories. Enjoy!