Altered Art for at A Vintage Journey

Today we have a new challenge at A Vintage Journey, hosted by the uber talented Alison of Words and Pictures - I am sure she needs no introduction! Our theme for the next 5 weeks is Altered Art.

We'd like you to get creative with recycled objects in a vintage; shabby, mixed media; art journalling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk style, . Turn something unloved and unwanted into a work of art. Try some repurposing - make something new out of something old, or incorporate an unwanted object into your artwork. Think tin cans and jars, old bottles, toothbrushes - the more inventive the better. 

Be warned this is a long post for me - lots of photos!

I decided to alter a tin that used to hold my favourite coffee - and started by giving it a coat of sealer.

I then added some black paint... I knew most of this would be covered but I wasn't sure at this point how perfectly I could achieve my patchwork effect over the curved surface so better to be safe than sorry!

To create my patchwork around the can I measured the height and circumference ( pi x the diameter or just use a tape measure!). So I needed to cover a surface of 23.2 x 12 cm.

I drew this out on some grid paper so I could plan where different colours were going to go - making sure the 2 ends were different as they would meet.

 I was mostly using Andy Skinner techniques and, of course, the idea developed after recently attending one of Andy's workshops. If you missed my Fishy project you can see it here:

I began on my different techniques.

Some I could do as an A5 piece - others I needed to cut to actual size as I was using Andy Skinner's technique or adding hair product around the edges.

These pieces are coated in a base colour, some hair product added to the edges and a second colour over the top. Once dry - scraping away the hair product reveals that chipped paint look. On many of the pieces I added some additional stamping.

Here they are all complete:

Now the difficult bit! Adhering to the tin in the correct order and hoping I had the correct amount of space. You can see some tiny gaps in places so it isn't perfect..

Once all the pieces were secured I coated the entire tin with varnish just to make sure. I took some That's Crafty greyboard cogs and added a little sand texture paste, some paynes grey, a little raw sienna in places and finally quin gold.

and a few close ups:

Eeeek I was a couple of mm out!

I hope you like my altered tin! I am back in a few hours with another Altered Notebook so do pop back. In the meantime there is lots more Altered Art inspiration over at A Vintage Journey.

I would like to enter Frilly and Funkie latest challenge - A Little Rusty.

Nikki

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