El Capitan 2

     It's been a busy week.  Lots of family happenings this year.  Our oldest daughter is getting married in May and that same month our other daughter is having a baby.  This will be the first grandchild and we are all excited!!!  The baby is a girl, so I get to make girl stuff.  Right now I just finished knitting a huge blanket and I am busy working on the babies first hand made journal.  The journal will be a preparation record of shower presents and furniture and all those fun things on the way to the due date.  This book will also have room for the babies first days.

     As for the bride to be, I already made her a nice size dyed watercolor paper journal for her to add all the stuff she picks up on the way to the wedding.  Collage has been used all over the journal flat and in standing up texture. It is becoming truly quite a nice book.  Now I am working on a hand made journal for all her gifts and shower parties, etc.  I will be traveling to both of our daughter's houses for the showers next month.  Busy, busy, busy!!!

     Which brings me to my latest mixed media work.  El Capitan 2 is 15" x 15".  This piece is backed by hardware cloth.  There are several digital prints of an abstract that I created from a photograph I took of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.  One of the digital prints is on water color paper (Fabriano Artistico) that I hand dyed then coated with inkAID semigloss precoat.  Another print is on Velum paper that is ready to print from Creative Papers Online. The last print is on a substrate I created from gel media, dyed cheesecloth and inkAID semigloss precoat.  

     The velum print is attached to copper mesh with sead beads and quilting thread.  The watercolor print is layered on the top of the hardware cloth with the mesh and velum layers over the watercolor print.  mesh.  On top of those surfaces my substrate is attached with beads and some more copper mesh.  To attach all the layers I used brass wire and then crocheted brass wire over the top surface.  

     Velum is one of my favorite surfaces to print, I just love the look and the feel of the surface after printing.  This piece came about because of a velum print I wanted to use.  The textures of all the surfaces are very different and become an interesting combination.  

     Hope you all have a great weekend!

El Capitan

My focus continues to revolve around texture. This piece, El Capitan, is part of the Forest Surfaces series. Textures for the piece are built from various digital surfaces including tyvec, organza, handmade papers and a substrate created from gel media, dyed cheesecloth and semigloss precoat from inkAID.

The digital print of El Capitan is created from a photograph taken in Yosemite National Park. The photograph has been broken into layers in Photoshop, then the layers are combined with colors and shapes from some of my previous artwork. Once the layers are altered and assembled in, the main print is created and the prints are finished on the various chosen surfaces.

Depicted are the main piece and details.