Lessons

Lesson Info

Adding Beeswax & Ephemera

We're gonna do some work with bees wax and um what we're using today to do this is it's an actual melting pot from ranger and I just found out they're not making them anymore so if you don't have one now get it now find it online find it in your local store because once they're gone it sounds like they're not gonna be making them any more we're going to do something different I don't know but what I what I wanted to order more to have so that we weren't all sharing too and I was informed that they're moving away from it so if you have one hang onto it and if you don't get one you could use like one of those little mini crackpots too it's just doesn't clean up is well this is like a metal lining it's easy it's horrible it's it's great but other things will work it's not the end of the world but I do love this thing a lot um and that also means that the bees wax that we're using is thies little they make these two it's this little pellet basically of bees wax and you khun by kneeling kos...

tic waxes and things in larger chunks and beeswax and larger chunks and you can use that to I just like this because it melts faster because it's a littler the whole idea of surface area and things like that the tech tickets and me there but but the little beads will melt really fast so so stock up now if you don't have it already run out and grab it. Okay, so this is another part where it gets hot, so be careful. We're using hot okay, you don't want to stand up, I get it lay down taking out paint, work hard, okay, I'm clearing out because we're going from one to the other and I don't want to drip all over the place. So, um you need some phone brushes for this and the pot so you guys are probably gonna have to, like, take it in turns and shifts and kind of work and move around a lot if you're at home, I when I'm at home, this is how I'm set up so it's like one to the other right next to each other here you guys are going to be interesting and you know somebody, once I'm dying, you guys could come up and use this one to you and we can share so this isn't just mine, it is mine it's going home with me, but you guys can use it, so I've just got some buttons and some of them are kind of stuff like little beads and things in here, and this is not the time to cover up a mistake we're doing this on purpose this time so just know that I just like to add a leather a little layer of texture when I do projects um and I just love how buttons and things like that look and I this is another thing I buy it thrift stores is you know, when my grandma passed, I got this jar of skippy jar last skippy jar and inside was full of buttons and it's like you can buy those all over hers will stay in the jar because that's where they belong. But everybody else is grandma's. I use my grandma's going to stay your grandma's your game if you donated to goodwill. It's very aim for me, but I just love collecting that kind of stuff and using it on projects and just giving it a totally different look on life and spend so that's what we're going to dio so I'm gonna take my phone brush and you have to move fast with this two because it gets hot and you have to be careful and I just dip a little bit in there. I put a little bit of wax down and I put my button right in the wax, okay, we're just gonna dip and do this if you're really brave, which I am not, you could take tweezers and do this and move it I end up going fishing so I said I don't like to fish and hot wax so um that's just not that just never ends well, I'm not gonna let you just doesn't end well, so you're just going to dip it and drop some line and as it's trying just put your little bit or bottle in and you've got a little bit of time before it starts you can move stuff around and do it normally what I would do and I just didn't do that is I would sit here and I would place everything first then go back and be like, okay, like how this looks so feel free to do that lay it out look at it, move stuff around and then start adding your wax um just to make sure it's all gonna fit and go where you want it to go I just started putting them down and indeed at this time and for a while that one doesn't have a so some of the beads and some of the buttons have like the little the little hooks on the back right here for that what I usually do is I build up a little bit of wax so I'll build up a little pool for that little bit to go swimming in so it stays kind of lay it in there like that, okay, so you guys have plenty of time to kind of figure out how you want to put these down and put him on and then so I'm going to do that to you I'm just gonna play and put these on for right now and then I'll show you how we're going to finish off the wax at the end and if anybody wants wax let me know I'm happy to bring this over there when you're ready if you get wax while you're doing this so like right here I got some on top of the pink button it's okay, we're going to take the heat gun to this we're actually put some more wax on top of the heap going to it so right now if it's a little sloppy and you've got wax everywhere we're going toe I'm gonna show you how to fix that, so don't even worry about it while you're doing this part, you have a question from online what about using a glue gun to drop a glue spot make it a little easier? Is that something that oh yeah but also dio you could do that for this with hot glue? Um sometimes it doesn't stick so great on different surfaces like this and you could pick it off really easy now that you couldn't pick these off pretty easily too you're almost better off with like a high end higher ended he said like um we're going to use um seventy eight hundred glue in one of the other classes and it should be in the supply lists for one of the classes or it's in that if you're online it should be in one of them to be clickable and it's just a much more um permanent adhesive so you could use something like that which is what I would use on something like this I don't think I would use a glue gun unnecessarily especially if you happen to glue the nice thing about this is waxed a wax so you're okay if you try to glue hot glue and you end up on like a big kranz butt or something I'm not sure how that will all react so kind of following up on that someone else is wondering how well do the button stay in the wax over time so far mind have all stayed because we're going to fill in the gaps and things and then steal it with wax and mine I've got a piece been hanging up in my house that's really dimensional with them that I sealed with wax years ago and I've never had a problem so once it's dry it's been fine for me and you'll actually find a lot of art pieces are sealed in a wax layer so we'll hope it holds up good then but I've never had a problem so but this is like that like this is like the hard part high range these everyone's diligently plotting their button adhesion, the hard decisions in life, you know that get us everytime where should I put the button? So I'm getting a spot where I'm getting like a ton of it kind of building up and I want to add stuff there, so I'm just gonna do this. I'm gonna heat it with with the heat gun, and this is where I said, you may have, like, one section where you'll start to see some runs because there is some korean under here, so we'll get some colorful drips, I'm gonna heat it so that it kind of spread it out a little bit and it's going to run a little bit too. And when you're tipping it up like this to show people that's what's gonna happen with the peace may fall, but you can put it right back on. So I'm gonna clear out that big chunk, and now I could go back in and add some more stuff in there without having a huge shonka wax. We'll just put you there, maybe wanna live there instead and that's. The other thing is, if you get wax, sign the tops of the buttons, just take your heat gun and go in and just melt it down and spread it out you can take some off, but I'll end up I'll end up dripping a little bit of wax over the whole thing and then when you go back with the heat gun gets its nice little shiny flow to it um looks really cool and it won't just be like big white blobs we'll have this nice shiny results well, they're getting brave, they've gone to the melting pot to try and help somebody has to be first it has been difficult your sponge brush will absorb it after a while, so I tend to like sit here and hold it on the hot pot so that it melts back in and doesn't get wasted in my sponge brush but you just have to keep moving it because it's hot and you don't want to melt the sponge too see right now is where we antunes way needs music jamming and this is everybody's so focused and so quiet we have ethan wondering who's watching us any examples of well known artworks created in this genre that maybe you are maybe people that you just follow in make cider with wax and media ex media um I always butcher her name I always feel like really bad julie faith and bowser I love her work she does amazing mixed media work um she's she's fantastic um and I love from an art perspective like I just follow artists in general and I am huge super stock re kind of fan of lisa condon and some of her early work is a lot of mixed media stuff where she did some deco posher than drawing over it or she'll use paper and pen and then different papers and like decorative papers and then pencil and sketch and how like these bold contrast between like a light pencil sketch mixed with bright color in another way kelly roberts is probably one of the most well known she has like different she's an amazing blogged um and doesn't absolutely amazing work um she's another one but I am trying to think who else I would say from a mixed media perspective I think that there's a lot of people who got into it from another directions they may have started out as a paper craft or like I started out as a scrapbook er I called it the gateway drug scrapbooking was my gateway drug and now I'm in and I'm addicted um but ah I think people start out and then they start playing around and they start experimenting donna down he's another one who started out kind of in that scrapbooking realm and now does a lot of more art based things so there's a few out there several out there but I'm just a big I just like to follow artists in general that brush is done so the nice thing about this is I have a nice clump of this on the table that when this is not quite hard yet when it hardens you khun just again you won't wake up back in the melting pot and that's what else was nice about this is you can just leave it in there and store it and turn it back on and use it again later so can you basic committing other mixed meteorites you follow that I'm just having a brain moment on and have you yeah I'm a does sami does do mixed media now too yeah and I don't know if I would call what tim does tim holtz does a lot of different things that fits necessarily mixed media but he does a lot with different textures and things you know wakely who works a ranger does okay, so I am gonna finish sealing these in here and then what I'm gonna do is just go over it very lightly with my sponge brush so it's kind of in cap it's kind of like the idea of the deco partially we're going to do it so you put some on the bottom when you're up a little bit on top just give everything a good coat here and then do you guys think this one out there cause I can bring it over there if you d'oh you're pretty good okay um so I'm just gonna so now it's very white if you guys look you know if you can see this sir knight it's like super white looking because all that wax is built up and I'm just gonna take the heat gun to it and they may slide and shift a little bit but not too bad tip it was just a tiny but this is where it gets kind of wanna have a little bit of a gentle hand go back and then you'll start to see the wax melts away and you'll just get a nice little covering coat on there rather than the big wait but now comes my favorite part so let's I don't want to take this wax home necessarily you can also do things like this yeah if you're daring enough and just for a little on there from underneath and this kind of let it run off I really have to scrape this table when we're done today we'll be very lumpy they they did not know what they were getting into when they asked me to come and do this you can just kind of pour it off of there if you go over the other karan and then hit it with the heat gun you can get a little bit of a color swirl in there too evidently I had like two yellow in this spot some getting some nice yellow wax and if there's any buttons or anything where you feel like there's just still a little bit too much like lumpiness of the wax just while it's still warm, take your baby wipe or a paper towel and just kind of dip it in there and you could just lift it right out q tips weren't great, but I didn't even think about bringing q tips, so that was a fail on my part only bad thing about the q tip is you just have to make sure that you don't leave behind a little bit, so you kind of got work quickly with it so that you don't leave behind any of that cotton me goodness and this was too dry when I have a question from online of pit pen versus a sharpie. What are the pros and cons of each and your eyes? Um, sharpie sharpie I mean it's it is what it is and it works on everything it's just not, um not necessarily want to be an art pen where these were meant to be our pens, pens, pens are meant to be our friends and I just feel like when I have used them on stuff like this, I get better cleaner lines and I get a darker it's a weird thing but there's varying shades of black and I feel like the black that you get from a pit pen is much more true when using on something like this that if you use a sharpie over it but I mean I've used sharpies but I just feel like the result I'm always happier with the result when I use a pig pen then I am when I use a sharpie from a color perspective um for sure oh you know it's like magic magic magic that we have you to look at that a little water on it actually that keeps the see the water bottle comes and amy again you can get in there if you need to touch up your makeup later we're set I just thought I always leave the wax of everything can't we scrape off the wax if you want to scrape it up I was always like that chunky look at the end when it's hanging on the wall it just gives it this other layer of texture but if you're wanting to paint the edges once this is dry feel free to scrape it off just be careful when you do it from here down just kind of take a little scraper and do it so you don't rip it up off of your actual art piece but some people do want to put that red john with the color or something you can just scrape it often go from there because that's the nice thing with the wax is it's very pliable unmovable so really at this point it's just about cleaning it up you could go back in and adding a little doodles that you want um if you want to clean up your edges, you can if you want to add pain to the edges, you can, but at this point we're really kind of just solidifying it and getting it down. Teo the end result if there's anything you wanna go in and do, you can do that adding paint with the q tip hello it this is fun to watch everybody make changes and make them all different and see here's my thing after I do this, I never liked the one when I'm teaching. When it's done, I never dio because I find that I've talked too much, I'd like that paid enough attention and I get sucked into what everybody else is doing and I'm teaching techniques that I go this one's okay, not a keeper, we'll be like, oh, I love that over there, so we'll have to scrape this s o now perfect time to go in and do any final additions changes anything else to it and make sure you guys at home turn off your hot pot easy to forget you put the lid on it and then out forget and leave it on and walk away and come back hours later and still have hot wax so are you done here? I'm done with mine, but I don't know if they want to be doing another feeling out there awesome I think if we could get like a nice view of yours while some of these girls were finishing up there finishing touches that would be awesome now are online audience wanted to see that that looks really cool it's just a lot of fun and like I said you khun deal so much with just random things that crans and stuffs right yeah that looks great alright if we could just get some of your guys displayed up so the camp's could see them for all of our online audience that has really been wanting to see what you guys have created and again I want to take the time to remind everyone to upload their stuff into the gallery will want to see what everybody made at home to share with the rest of the world just because they're just all so different to it's just it's really fun to see them everybody went a totally different way with the same materials her back is debating and do I turn it around tonight like I don't know if I want to show you how is it done baby hi it's fine it's fine there's air works in progress they are not done so they'll keep working if they want teo so much stephanie thank you guys this was really awesome it's great to see everything working progress any last final words on just this introduction mixed media course I think for me, the big thing is for people to not be scared. I think when they hear mixed media it's a very broad category, and so I think the people, sometimes we're scared off just at the thought of mixed media in general. But it really is easy to do it's a lot of fun, and the nice thing is there's, no rules. And and so if you're wanting to play around with art and and try something different, I think it's a great way to get started and you can do as much of this, or is little of this is you want. If you don't want to do the wax, you don't have to do the wax. If you just wanna try painting techniques, you can just do that. And I think there's a lot of freedom and that in learning and experimenting and there's no right way or wrong way to do this it's all about, um, just trying new things and just giving it a world. Why not write being creative? Exactly, exactly?