A La Vintage

Other than art supplies, I love antique and vintage items.  Not only do I use them around my home for decorating, serving or as storage, but I also incorporate some of them into the various forms of artwork I like to indulge myself in.  In my mind, not only am I helping the environment by up-cycling, but these type of items are unique and have so much more character.  Many of these items are often featured in my projects, but I don't always point them out.  The following are some examples.

My first photograph is of a tag I designed inspired by the techniques of Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 - July.   I created the background using Tim's instructions, and really like the depth I was able to achieve.  For my focal point, I altered Tim's umbrella man die cut, and added a hand cut flag and pole silhouette.  I made my pattern on plain paper, traced it on grungeboard, and cut it with an x-acto knife.  I used Crackle accents over my pieces, and when they were completely dry, I stained them with black India ink. As to my choice of metal embellishments, I distressed them with a silver dabber to add some patina.  I used some vintage ribbons I found at a thrift store as ties.  For added interest, I used a USA flag that I got in the mid 1980's, as well as an old tinsel star garland to stage the photograph.  I am also submitting this piece to Simon Says Stamp and Show - Green and Manon Visser's Paper Saturdays.

My second photograph is of my original Tag Tuesday - Roaring Twenties design.  (My talented colleagues had some amazing entries, so be sure and stop by.)  I was inspired by Erté, the Russian graphics, fashion,  and stage designer who was extremely influential in the Art Deco style of the time.  I began by drawing one of his gowns on an ATC size piece of Bristol paper.  Then, I layered various shapes, patterns and hand made embellishments to achieve an Art Deco feeling.  To further enhance the look, I staged the photograph with more layers of vintage items that could possibly be found on a lady's boudoir of the time and filtered the photograph's color digitally to age it.  I am also submitting this piece to Bella's 52 Photo Project Gallery 13 {Layers/Stacks}, Maria's Orange You Glad It's Friday #47, Jen Price's In the Studio, and Artist's in Blogland - Show & Tell Saturday.

Last, but not least, I have a digitally enhanced photograph of my parents that was taken in the early 1960's.  I opened a scanned version of the photograph in my iPad using a SketchBook Pro app.  The program works with layers, so I used a different layer to work on each of the different steps to complete my simple sketch.  In this manner, I could easily delete and start over on layers that I didn't like.  I used a layer for the photograph, a layer for the mat, a layer for the line drawing, a layer for the color blocking, and a layer for the text.  I used a stylus to draw, so that I could achieve a little more control.  As to the quote, I adapted it from a line in "1 Corinthians 13."  I am submitting this piece to the Play Date Cafe Challenge #191 - Cream, Melon and Cantaloupe, Alexandra's Sunday Sketches, Lorik's Mandarin Orange Monday #51, Ramona's Inspire Me Monday, and Take A Word Challenge - Memories.

I hope you enjoyed the way I like to play with vintage items.  Thank you for all your kind words in my last post.  Blessings!