Duotone Shy Girl

I tried use different medium to transfer the image and went for a more distressed look. The pencil drawing and acrylic dots were added after. I'll later varnish it with gloss varnish which will really bring out the black and the details.

Girls on Wood Panels

I put the girls on wood panels over the week.





And also we went to check out Dick and his booth at the Westport Art Fair. Look what we got. Isn't it awesome?

Girl on Wood Block

I put her on a 3" by 5" wood block! I haven't done this for awhile and doing so just reminded me how much fun (and delicate) the process really is! I am planning to do more characteds on the wood blocks in the near future.

Birdie Necklace + Brooch

I couldn't help but make more of these really fun wooden accessories.
This batch of goodies includes a necklace and a brooch. The brooch has the same scalloped copper foil tape that I use for soldering, and I applied black patina to it so it looks old. I use the black patina on all the metal parts of my design cause I like the worn-out feel that it gives. I am gonna try to make some bookmarks later as well, but I need to run to the craft store because I ran out of the wooden nickles... It's so addictive!

Yumminess report for you who live in America:
If you have a Border's near where you live, you have to try the "Coco Trio" from its coffee shop. Oh my, it's super delicious! It's like drink clouds that are made of chocolate!!! Mmmmm... Also, IHOP's stuffed french toast with blueberry sauce is so sweet and good, I am off to have one right now! Lucky me!

IF: Zoo #1-Brooches

I started doing some doodles for this week's IF. And one thing led to another, I began to make tie tack brooches instead of doing the illustration... I first did little drawings of animals in stripy shirts on punched-out circles using the paper from an old book, but then I just couldn't help but make them into little wooden+felt brooches! (By the way, besides polka dots and scalloped edge, I also LOVE stripes, too.) I think they turned out quite fun. I am still planning to do another illustration for this week when I have time, but I want to share this one with you first!!

IF: Superstition

I've been really busy plus I have guest in my house (it's the Thanksgiving week over here!) But finally I managed to have a little time this morning to make this collage for this week's Illustration Friday and I wanted to do something related to my culture. For Chinese, it's a big NO-NO to give clocks or umbrellas as gifts, no matter how cute they are. Because in Mandarin, "clock" sounds similar to the word for "death" and "umbrella" sounds like "separation" or "splitting up". It's very important to remember this if you are doing business with Chinese, or even just casual gift-giving between friends. If you want to learn more about what to give or what not to give in Chinese culture, here is a good link to visit!

Polka Dot Hat Baby

Here are the brooch and pendent I made using the collage of my recent IF entry. I took a really quick photo this morning... It's not the best shot because I was freezing outside and the camera battery was dying. But you get the idea. By the way, I finally got a flickr account and I am posting from there, so it might look a little different (I noticed the image is bigger)...

PS: Do you see the thick layer of leaves on the ground? I don't even want to think about picking them up later... I get so much leaves every year from my 7 huge old trees and my neighbors' trees; it's insane.

More soldering experiment

Today I took a much needed day off from work so I made two more brooches and a pendent. This time I used handmade images instead of computer print-outs. Do you think they work better with the rustic black metal?

IF: Scale

Paper collage and pencil drawing on 5"x7" stretched canvas.

Finishing touch

This morning I woke up with an idea to dress up my soldered Fall Fairy pin a little further so it would look more finished. (I got so excited, I didn't even wash my face yet...) I cut a piece of felt and glue it to the back of the pin and it hides all the messiness of the backside. And I really like the look of rusty black metal against the soft wool, plus it shows the pin better against black fabrics since I am almost always wearing black. Ah... I am happy and I can go brush now!

I love black patina...

I've been so busy at work and I am just really tired everyday after I get home. But I'd still like to do a little soldering experiment when I have time. I got a big bottle of black patina solution and tried it on the stuff I made. I love it!!! It gives the piece a nice dark antique black finish (which doesn't really show well in the photo; it's actually not as shiny as it appears to be). To me, the black finish has more personalities and charms than silver. But I am still facing another problem... when I use images printed out from a color laser printer, some of the ink get greasy and makes the art looks oily under the glass... I guess it's because the soldering iron is so hot, it made the ink re-surface to the top of the paper. I guess if I can't get it solved, I will have to do little collage art for every piece by hand (like the "Dairy Queen" in my earlier post) which I enjoy doing it anyway. But I'd love to know if there is any solution for my problem...

Another Try on Soldering

After I came back from my Sunday soldering class, I tried to do another one at home, but my brand new soldering iron just didn't want to behave for me and everything looked like a big mess. I got black goo-goo all over my iron, the solder was not melting nicely and I burned the wet sponge... I was really discouraged.

Last night I decided to give it another try. My friend at work told me how to get my iron clean and it really made a huge difference. Suddenly the solder flew nicely and everything was fine. So I made another one using one of the little collage I did during the class. I need a lot of patience and practice, but knowing that I can do it makes me feel a lot better...

Thank you all for your nice and warm comments on my posts!! They really mean a lot to me!! XO

Soldered Away

OK! I just came back from my soldering class... I didn't realize that more than half of the class was actually for making collaged images and the last 2 hours were for real soldering works, and I really only got to solder for like an hour cause we had to share tools. But I had fun and I do think taking the class is necessary (at least for me) than to learn it from book myself, and it will probably save me a lot of trail and error down the road. Even though I didn't make pretty charms like Sally Jean's (I'll never know how in the world she makes her edges so smooth), here are my very first attempt, front and back... Please don't laugh...

Wood Squares: Grow

I did some wood squares using my IF illustration. I was as gentle as could be but it is not easy to get a really clean image (most of the time there will be some rubbed-off spots here and there, as you can see on the blue one). I got lucky with the red one; it looks pretty clean. I am gonna make some more during the weekend!

I have questions!

I've spent my whole weekend experimenting how to transfer images onto a wood surface. I used to do collage artworks and the methods I've done include using pure acetone, gel medium, heat tool, and contact papers. But I have never tried to use iron-on inkjet transfer papers onto wood directly, so I tried, and as you can see in the photo, it sort of worked... but it's very very difficult for me to control the result. (I don't know if the problem is me or the transfer paper?) Plus the ones I've tried here are all pretty small images; I would love to do a much bigger piece if I know how.

I searched high and low on the internet and saw two products that caught my eyes: Lazertran (a water-slide decal) and Sheer Heaven. My problem is, I want the transfered image to look like it blends in with the material, instead of sitting on it like a decal. The information I got from Lazertran's website says to use real turpentine and the image will actually melt into the wood. That sounds pretty good to me. As for Sheer Heaven, it just looks like this incredible product that allows you to do everything you can imagine, but its website doesn't really provide enough information about transferring images to wood. So I am still confused...

Has anyone tried to transfer images onto wood and got really good result? (I really want to get a clean and crisp transferred image, and I'd like to paint the wood first, and then transfer images on top of it.) And if you have used either Lazertran or Sheer Heaven, could you tell me if they are worth trying? (They are not that cheap...) I will be so thankful for any pointer from you!

IF: Juggle

I had Kong Pao Chicken takeout for dinner tonight, and this was done on the little piece of cardboard used to support the bottom of the paper bag...