Modern vintage: Junk art

A few days ago I was sorting through a pile of recycling and as I was pulling out papers and junk mail I was stacking then on the surface in my craft space. Once I was done, I looked up and noticed I had a pile of new trash next to a pile of vintage papers and ephemera. I was instantly struck by the differences between how we live now and how we lived back "then". Of course, my crafty brain then started working, wondering how I could make both work together on a project. Before I knew what was happening I was half way through making a canvas, incorporating the old junk and the new junk. Oh, and I now have a new pile of rubbish in my craft space to find a home for! ;)

I had so much fun that I thought it might be nice to repeat this exercise once a month or so, and share it here on my blog.

So how did I make it? I thought initially of hand cutting a geometric design from magazine pages, then realised, DUH! I didn't spend £300 on a Silhouette Cameo for nothing. So I cheated and cut my design several times from different pages with my silhouette. I used a mixture of the negative shapes on the canvas.

I wanted the canvas to appear as if the shapes were inlaid, so first of all I splodged a ton of modeling paste onto the background, and spread it on with a few drops of gold and dark blue acrylic paint mixed in there. Once I'd covered the background I splattered a few mists around and then got to work pressing the cut papers into the paste. I randomly applied the shapes, not filling the entire canvas. I used a plastic glue applicator to push the shapes into the modeling paste which forced the past out from behind to create a raised edge around the pattern.

 

Once it was dry (overnight) I drew a rough border inside the shapes to define them a little with a Faber Castell PITT pen and then applied a coat of mod podge over the whole thing to seal it. Finally, I added a cluster of vintagey bits and pieces, mostly from JBS kits, over to the side. The letters were cut from the cover of a vintage music sheet.

I can see I am going to need to make a space to display all my junk art soon, it's a lot of fun to make! Have a happy Wednesday!