Painted Bondaweb

I never make a New Year's resolutions because I can never follow through, so my thought is why set yourself up to fail :) Instead, I make plans, have hopes.

My plans, this year are to be more involved in a couple of art groups that I belonged to last year but never really participated in much. I feel that these groups can really help me grow as an artist.

In Dyehard Surfacing, we were to create 4" by 6" pieces using painted bondaweb as a technique. These cards did not have to be finished. It was more about learning the technique & what you could do with it. If you felt that the card needed embellishment, you were welcome to add whatever you felt the card needed.

I really struggled with this swap. For me, bondaweb was a tool that I used to fuse Angelina Fibers or dyed cheesecloth to other fabrics. To use it for anything other than that? This was going to be a challenge.

I started by painting several pieces of bondaweb with Golden Fluid Acrylics (thank you Lynda for introducing me to these wonderful paints) & others with Lumiere paint. After the paint was dry, I bonded Angelina Fibers on top of the painted bondaweb. After everything cooled down from applying ironed heat to bond the Angelina to the bondaweb (key words here..........wait until completely cool before removing Teflon pressing sheet). I didn't, so some of the web stuck to the pressing sheet & I ended up with the torn pieces as seen in the card below. Luckily, I was able to make it work for me.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

I flipped the bondaweb over, so what had the Angelina on top, now would be bonded to the black cotton background. The Interference Oxide Green (yes it comes out orangy brown looking) painted web looked to bold against the black, so I placed another thin layer of Angelina Fibers & a layer of black Misty Fuse over the entire surface. It seemed to help mute the copper color & I think it helped pull the piece together. I still had some of the Oxide Green bondaweb left so I used it in the piece below.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

Problem was, there wasn't enough of it to cover the entire card, so I cut the web into pieces & before bonding it to the black cotton, layered Angelina Fibers under the painted web. After I pulled the Teflon sheet away from the card, it looked horrible. The cut edges were too sharp & again, the bold copper against the black was just too harsh. I was at a complete lost at "what next?" I grabbed a piece of bondaweb that had been painted with black Lumiere paint & bonded it to the top, hoping maybe it would calm down the copper color, having NO idea what would happen. I pulled off the Teflon sheet & wow!! It came together. The negative space created in between the cut bondaweb reminded me of tree trunks & the horizontal black lines & the coppery backgound, that of a sunset. I had created a landscape without any planning.

Normally, the way I approach creating art is by having an idea, drawing sketches & before I actually start working on the piece, I pretty much have an idea of what it's going to look like finished. The piece may change a little through the process, but not by much. I know I should work on this & try to be more flexible & let things just happen. It did with the two cards above & I'm totally thrilled!! I had no idea going in what was going to happen & I really like the finished product.

With the second card, I went back in & thread painted some trees, to give them more definition.

© 2009 Tracy Borders

© 2009 Tracy Borders

Both of these cards, I used Golden Acrylics Interference Oxide Red. I also left them on the backing paper that you find on the bondaweb. I liked how the web pulled away from the paper when it was painted so I thought I would work with that idea & free motion quilt around the lines. It reminded me of tree bark & that rock where you see variations of reddish brown & white throughout. I also added Angelina to these cards to give it a little bit of "shine."

I can say that I learned a lot & it has allowed me to learn that you can use a material for more than one thing, but I think I'm going to go back to using it as a mechanism to bond other materials to each other :)