AGNES THE RED ART and CRAFT TUTORIALS
UK artist AJLee
Button Fairy
THE BUTTON BOX - Nearly everyone has a mom, aunt or grandparent with a button box, or are even lucky enough to have one of their own!. Hands up who spent many childhood hours sorting and playing with these boxes and tins ot treasure, threading onto string to make jewellery or button snakes, or as I did, creating mosaics and patterns with this bounty of colours and shapes.
As an artist, and inparticular - an 'altered' artist, button boxes are gold mines, full of precious things, gems, with endless possibilities for the creative mind. My own button collection is sadly rather depleted at present (I really must do something about it!) So when I was invited to create a Button Fairy for an Art Group Swap, my first port of call was my Mom! Oh wow that button box is immense and brings back so many memories! It was very kind of her to allow me to use them and I was practically given full rein and freedom to take what I wanted, but I did select with care. I am familiar with a number of buttons in there, kept in little plastic bags that are old favourites and hold too many family memories and history to use. She wouldn't want to part with those!
So after hours of just sitting and staring at them, sensory and creative overload bogged me down - too many to choose from, too many ideas and not all of them for Button Fairies! I needed focus so I finally sorted a number into groups of possibilities and put the rest out of sight to stop sidetracking me.
THE NEXT STAGE - Ok so I've got button and colour schemes - now 'Wings'. Despite my 'thing' about wings and feathers (love love love em!), I don't actually have many stamps and images to use, a few angel ones that didn't inspire me for the project, some butterfly ones that are possibly too small, various moulds - not appropriate for this project, so I realised I'd have to design and make my own - no problem, I can do that! But first, a face/head and once I start getting an idea of the fairy character, then wings can be designed around her (yep, mines going to be female). There are lots of options for faces, printed images, zetti style, moulded, even another button. I decided to work around an art face mould, give the fairy a little more depth and variety - the buttons are quite flat, the wings will be a flattish, so I wanted some variety and interest. Now, what to use in the mould - clay or resin (UTEE)? I ended up making both, keeping options open, seeing what came out best! Finally - embellishments and trimmings - well again, I kept my options open with these, sorted out various beads, bells and bits, (oh, and feathers, of course!) that co ordinated with my project colour scheme and just tried things out as I went along constructing the fairy, until inspiration pounced.
So there you go - Groundwork done, the following photos now show how it was all put together.
TOOLS and MATERIALS required - Assortment of buttons and beads, card, paper, inks, pens and paints for adding colour/detail, rubber stamps with various patterns/textures, art face mould, UTEE and air dry clay, feathers and other embellishments of interest, wire (thin enough to thread through your buttons), pliers and wire cutters, glue, scissors and heat gun.
RED ART NOUVEAU
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1. Selection of silicon art face moulds. 2. Adding red dye additive to the UTEE. 3. After making several coloured faces I choose red.
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4. I placed out the face and buttons to get an idea 5. Then cut an 11inch length of silver coloured 6. Threading the buttons on the wire was quite
of the shape and size. craft wire which I looped the end and attached tricky. The thinner the wire - the easier it is to
a tiny silver bell for the tail. manipulate the wire through the holes.
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7. The complete wired body. 8. I sketched a few wing shapes around 9. Then cut out the wing 'templates'.
the body until I found a shape I liked. It's looking Art Noveau - I like that.
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10. The lower wing segments cut out of matt 11. I used a button image stamp with silver 12. Tap the excess powder off the piece and
silver card. ink and then coated with silver embossing powder. heated to emboss the powder.
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13. Nice contrast against the matt card but a bit 14. Aging the silver card using Stazon In pad and 15. I just pick up ink with the brush and gently
looks a bit too shiny. I want a more aged effect. an old coarse bristle brush. work in around the edges of the wings.
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16. Attaching the button body - note the red & 17. I decided to make antenne and arms with 18. Then continued making the spiral bigger
black wings that I added - there seemed to be more wire. I started off the coil using round with flat pliers.
an expanse of silver that needed breaking up. nosed pliers.
