Kintsukuroi and a Neutral CAS

What is Kintsukuroi?  It is a Japanese art form or more specifically "the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The idea behind it is that the piece becomes more beautiful and valuable because it has been broken and has a history." 

This technique or practice was the subject of the Mix57 challenge on Splitcoast.  Below is an example of a piece of pottery that was repaired in this way.  

I have had these papers out on my work table and found some inspiration with them.  I started out by stamping the Wild Flower from Amuse Stamps ramdomly on the Baked Brown Sugar paper with Soft Suede Ink.  Then I took a gold Prismacolor pencil and highlighted the right side of the design and filled in the little blossom ends.  I then took a white gel marker and highlighted the left side of the design.  (This makes it almost look like the bandana technique.)  I touched up the original images with a Soft Suede marker.  I used the pencil again to make the "repair" lines and then went over them with a gold glitter marker.  

Needless to say, it was a little difficult to photograph this with all the metallics.  I used a piece of woven scrapbook paper at the bottom and, in looking over the bits and bobs I had laying on the table, found this letter X in Early Espresso over which I painted some gold shimmer paint.  The final touch was to add the gold glitter dot in the center of the X.  Perhaps you can see the sheen a little better in the picture below.  HWNSNBP asked what the X was for and I told him nothing really, I just thought it would make a cool embellishment.  It kind of looks like a buckle or some belt loops or a slide.

I have a large coffee cup that I got some years ago at IKEA that has a small chip in the rim near the handle.  I keep on using this cup because of it's size and I don't really mind the chip, but I wouldn't mind getting a little gold touch-up on it.  With or without the gold, in this case, I'll just keep on using it. 

Today I stamped that Wild Flower image on another piece of Baked Brown Sugar paper and this time only filled in the blossom ends with the white gel pen.  I also extended the stem.  The CAS262 challenge was to use neutral colors.  So I took the stamped image that I had been playing with and added the scraps from the first card in a nice simple design.  I had thought about stamping the image in VersaMark on the card base but I wanted to keep it uncluttered and let the textured papers shine.

I can add a sentiment to it later.  

Swans - Mixed Media

Try as I might I just could not get a good picture of this card.  I used a technique I kind of made up by combining something I had seen recently with the desire to create a certain effect.  I'm calling it Embedded Glitter Embossing.  

I've been searching for the last two days for the picture that inspired me, but the closest I came was to Monet's Swan which is actually a photo by Richard Nadeau.  Had I seen that picture originally I would have added the lighter colors at the top of the panel, but let me get on with this.

The picture that I saw had a swan or a pair of swans against a dark background that was completely glittered.  As I am not very fond of working with glitter this was a stretch for me.  I wanted a background that looked like sparkling water without the loose glitter.

So after having recently seen a video on Dreaming About Rubber Stamps detailing how to add glitter with embossing folders I thought this might work. (The link has the video.)  But since I was not using an embossing folder it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it initially.  

The first thing I did was to swipe my ink directly onto the paper.   I used Island Indigo, Baja Breeze, and Lucky Limeade making sure that there was no white visible.  Then I swiped the whole thing with my VersaMark pad.  I mixed my crystal glitter with clear EP and generously covered the entire panel.  I found that if you don't want your glitter flying off the paper, don't point the heat gun from above, hold the heat gun below the paper and watch the EP melt.  

The effect was nice, but the surface felt sandy and I did not want it to be textured.  I wanted the water smooth.  So I reinked with the VersaMark again and this time I used Extra Thick EP.  Again heating from below.  I got a smoother surface this time as the Extra Thick EP swallowed up the lumps and embedding the glitter.  

What you see in the upper right corner above is just a reflection from the light as I was trying to take the picture.  The swans from PictureShow Stamps are watercolored and the whole thing cut out and popped up on the background.

IRL it has a lot of sparkle.  Probably not as much as the original inspiration picture, but it's pretty close.