Ocean Mist Tramp Art Frame: I love this vintage color!

After lots of color considerations, I'm so happy I went with an original mixed acrylic color which I am calling ocean mist green.  After lots of sanding and antiquing, I think I achieved the "vintage" looking green I was looking for.  Kind of minty, kind of tealish, I love it!

 

After a couple of coats of ocean mist and dark chocolate, the freshly painted pieces were put out on the deck.  Gotta take advantage of a sunny day and speed up the drying time!  I played around with using gold leaf and found that it added some elegance to the face and a pop to the 4 corners of this piece.

 

 

 

This is pre-antiquing. Just a quick check of pieces. My cat likes to steal them!

 

 

After lots of sanding and antiquing, Here is the completed frame.   A soft teal with amber antiquing in all the right places, with bursting coral flowers and gilded gold highlights! 

 

 

The frame measures 14 x 16 and holds a standard 8 X 10 picture.  This one-of-a kind frame consists of approx. 66 hand chipped pieces, 6 to 9 layers and was built upon a sturdy pine base.  I added a 3-D piece to the flowers to give them some depth.

 

 
 



3-D Coral Flower Detail
 

9 Layer Corner Stack







I am so happy with how this one came together and am thrilled with my new color finds.  So what's next....a vintage coral-ish frame or a vintage yellow piece?  So many choices! This piece is currently available for sale.

Happy Tramping,
Angie

Ocean Mist Tramp Art Frame is UNderway!

My Ocean Mist Tramp art frame is well underway!!  I wanted to create a frame that consisted of simple but precise shapes, soothing colors and with a touch of elegance.  I wanted to concentrate on the creation of the pattern pieces, the consistency of the wood chipping and the palette choice. 

After many different color considerations, I decided on a palette of Ocean mist green, dark chocolate, and coral, all sanded and antiqued to look shabby.  I love these soft vintage colors!  Here is a picture of my palette test.

And of course a splash of gold leafing!  Yes! Gold Leafing!  Another way to add some elegance and pop to my frames!  My technique is going to need some practice though.





I have cut, sanded and chipped all of the pattern pieces for this frame and tried to keep the cuts and chipping as consistent as possible but not enough to ruin the "trampiness" of the piece.  Here is a picture of the dry run before chipping them.

Now off to do some sanding and chipping, in my lawn chair!









While sanding and chipping of the pieces, I made a couple of little design changes and fine tuned some pieces.

 The flowers will have a 3-D element.


Now off to mix up some shades of Ocean Mist!

Happy Tramping,
Angie

Completion of Birdsacre FRame

This tramp art frame was finished while enjoying spring break, yard work and the start of the softball season.  After a tweak here, a little more sanding there, and many coats of varnish later, the Birdsacre: Winged Ones tramp art mirror is complete.  This mirror has been donated to the Birdsacre fire recovery fund and will be a part of the facilities' raffle on August 2nd, 2014  to celebrate their annual Cordie Day.   So happy we could help!  Please go to their website at http://www.birdsacre.com/ to read about all of the wonderful work this facility does and help them in any way you can.  It's for the owls!

After creating the pattern pieces for each piece and layer, I transferred and cut out each one.  Here is a piece check I did before picking out my palette.  Some thicker pieces with some thinner wood for the detail pieces.

 

 

With this piece, I chose to leave some pieces un-notched hoping to give those elements some pop.  After a few changes here and there, I was very happy with the whimsical elements of this piece and how close it matched my original design.  After considering several different color options, I decided to make the tree elements a brown that gradually gets lighter towards the top with a darker background to help give the piece more depth and achieve the "dusk in the forest" look.  The owls were painted my favorite orange and the toadstools an antique red.  I gave some elements that glow or sparkle with metallic paints and light antiquing, and did tryout my woodburner on the toadstools.  Here is a picture of the final piece.

 

Birdsacre: Winged Ones Tramp Art Frame/Mirror



 

 

 

Sleeping Owl detail

 

Moon and Owls detail

I hope this piece finds a good home and helps make the fire recovery at Birdsacre a little easier.

 

Happy Tramping, 

Angie

 

Mission ACcomplished

The sunflower tramp art frame came together nicely;  soft and yummy colors, solid and sturdy, and beautiful all in one.  Thank you Marguerite for your great artistic adjectives!  I have implemented several changes in my creation process and have come away quite satisfied with the results and have saved myself some time and increased the quality of this piece.

Having predrilled some of the smaller pieces of the tramp art layers, the number of pieces having to be recut, rechipped and repainted during the assembly was reduced greatly.  The predrilling will also help create a tighter bond between layers and cut down on future potential piece damage. 

I also religiously kept all pieces in sealed ziplocks so that my cat could not steal them.  No missing pieces!  Assembly was quicker than usually by keeping the pieces organized by color also.

I sometimes can't make the really tiny pieces that I would like to include on my frames.  The wood pieces gets fragile, hard to secure and hard on my hands when they are too tiny.  I don't know why I haven't done it before, but I did some hand painted detail and line work on this piece to bring it all together.  Before I started creating tramp art layers on my frames, most of my frames had hand painted designs and motifs on them.  So I'm not really surprised that the hand painted details are sneaking back in there.

The sunflower crown was created by carving two layers of petals with a vintage brass knob as the center. 

After the pieces was assembled and had had enough drying time, I coated the piece with a coat of antiquing medium.  I always look to deepen my colors and add that touch of time wear to the sanded edges and nooks and crannies.  I then gave certain areas a second coat to darken the edges and notches.  Three coats of polycrit later and we have the finished piece.

I am really excited to have been able to fine tune some of my steps and also save myself some unnecessary steps.  169 wood chipped pieces later, I'm quite happy to be able to send this piece to the Big Apple to fellow tramp art lover, Marguerite.

Happy Tramping,     Angie

Some Assembly RequirED....

One of the most important decisions in the making of my tramp art pieces, is color choice.  I really like to have my pieces appear time worn, colorful but antiqued, and richly colored  Sometimes, when a commissioned piece is ordered, the collector is specific about the colors wanted and other times, I rely on my own color choices to guide my creations.   As I look back over my pieces, I definitely tend to use some of the same colors consistently but continue to try to introduce new, rich colors into the mix.  Oh how I love deep orange, reds, teals, and blues.

When I make my color choices, I tend to lean towards the brighter range.  These brighter colors, sanded and antiqued result in the richer shades that I love so much!  I tend to limit my pieces to 3 or 4 color choices, as not to create a pieces that looks too busy and takes away from the art work or photo it is displaying.


After each individual piece is painted, I do another dry run placement on the frame.  This step is probably not necessary but is due to my obsession to make sure everything fits properly and to catch missing pieces before I get to far along.  Having my work space at my kitchen table, my many tramp art pieces are sometimes dispersed and stolen by my cat!!!  We constantly compete for the table space. Bad kitty!  Good thing she is so cute.

Before assembly, I choose to take care of my sanding and destruction.  This step is easier for me to do at the individual piece level.  Easier on my hands too.  There is a fine balance between too much sanding and just enough.  Especially along the edges, a nice sanding job can really provide a place for the antiquing medium to take well.  I sometimes will actually destruct with a hammer and large bolts leaving some interesting patterns on the wood.

Then the assembly begins!  This step gets really exciting.  To see how the colors work together and to see that original sketch come to life is very satisfying.  I have recently started to predrill most of the pieces which has cut down of broken pieces exponentially.  Santa is going to have to get me a mini drill for this task!  My frames are secured with a combination of nails and wood glue, which has proven to be overall the best and strongest choice.  I also sometimes use epoxy for those embellishments that are not nail friendly.

Here is the sunflower frame in the mid-assembly stage, in its bright, fresh, unantiqued colors.  I purposely did not show the crest of the frame so as not to reveal it quite yet to its owner.

 

 

Off to do my magic with the antiquing medium!

 

Happy Tramping    Angie

With the help of Dexter, the woodchipping is DOne.

After a couple of spurts of wood chipping and several episodes of the series Dexter, the chipping of the tramp art pieces are done.  I think the tentative count is 171 pieces ... but the final count will tell the tale.  I've taken the time to implements a couple of new steps to save on the old hands and cut down on blisters and sore fingers.  Maybe its getting comfortable with my craft or maybe its just getting more serious about what I do, but I discovered that taking this little bit of extra time to protect my hands, improve my lighting and paying more attention to my materials (wood, nails, paint, etc.) always results in a better, stronger, and more beautiful tramp art piece.

Some things I have learned recently creating Tramp Art:

The best time to protect your hands from the sore fingers and blisters that sometimes develop after completing the wood chipping, is to wear very thin work gloves from the start of a project.  The key for me is to never even let the soreness have a chance to happen.

Always using fresh, appropriate grit sand paper can make a project go so much faster and saves on your arms.  Don't forget what a sander is for and use it.  I have also found that a very tiny spring clamp that holds the small pieces, can create an handle that provides a more stable wood chipping surface and soreness.

My best time to do the wood chipping is in natural light during the day.  I can wood chip at night with my super sonic lamp but it is definitely easier on my eyes during the day.  My preference.

It has become necessary to keep more detailed project completion folders that detail the material used, colors used, and keep all of the pattern pieces together.  If ever there is a case of one of my pieces getting damaged, I can pull the project folder and have all of the creation details at my finger tips.  A real time saver.

I have also started to predrill holes into the final layers of tramp art.  I'm hoping this will help me with breakage and the need to create extra tiny pieces to replace them.

Back to the Sunflower Tramp Art Frame!!  Here is a picture of the after wood chipping dry run.  I've had to go back and tweak a couple of pieces but it looks like time for paint.

Lets see ... lots of green, red and yellow.  And maybe I should use this old brass knob!  We will see what happens.

Happy TRamping,      Angie

My Next Challendge: Sunflower Tramp Art Frame

I have been asked to create a sunflower tramp art frame similar to this beautiful piece.

 

This original piece was created by G. Mayer and dated 1899, and is an amazingly vibrant piece and is very beautiful in its form and simplicity.   I have had this one on my to-do list for some time and am hoping that I can create a similar piece while adding some of my own touches here and there.  It does promote some challenges though and has a few elements that are going to push me out of my comfort zone. Carving a sunflower, creating strong wood joint, fit of the pieces, etc.

 

I started by creating the pine base adding on the pointed crown using dowels to join the two pieces.  My miters still need some work and rely on the amazing powers of wood filler and my trusty sander to help me out of these never straight miters.  They continue to look better with time.

 

 

 

After some sanding to level out the work surface and the edges, I did a light sketch on the frame of the layout and pieces needed for each section.  OOPs!!  I forgot to cut the bottom design outline.  There, much better!

 

 

It's starting to take shape now.  I've got my sharp pencil, ruler, scissors and my card stock paper already to create the tramp art pattern pieces.  Off to my lawn chair and glass of ice tea...this gorgeous October weather makes this sitting time easier!!

 

 

Happy Tramping!  Angie

 

 

 

 



Needed Inspiration this MOrning

Feeling kind of not creative.  The best medicine for that is a break in projects.  Nothing that a early morning walk wearing the muck boots, through the wet grass can't solve.  I found some amazing inspirations:  gatherings of new ferns, a sunbathing cat and a flowering quince bush.  After slowing down, grabbing the camera and the dog, and heading out into the sunshine; here are some of my favorite shots.

Flowering Quince

 

Uncoiling Fern

 



Fiddlehead

 

On the Prowl

What a way to rekindle that creativeness than to get outside in the sunshine and work on those photography skills!  I love this part of my work.

 

Happy Upcycling     Angie

 

Lacy Yellow Tulip Frame 5 x 7

This tramp art piece started with a very plain, basic pine frame that needed some magic.  I decided to create a lacey, yellow tulip frame that was inspired by my recent jaunts among my tulips and daffodils. 

After designing, cutting and notching, I ended up with approximately 70 pieces of tramp art puzzle pieces.

Here is my dry run.

 

 

I added a crown to the top and built the rest upon the basic pine frame.

 

Here is the finished tramp art frame.  Up to 6 layers, 70 hand chipped pieces later...

 

 

The finished frame.  This piece will be listed for sale on ebay.  Now to decide what the next project will be....

 

 

Happy Upcycling      Angie

 



Spring is Here and I Have PRoof!

Yes! Spring is here. After spending 15 minutes outside in the dank weather, I have photographic proof.  It's amazing the small signs that we don't always see as we are going about our busy days. Grocery shopping, taxi service, cooking, etc.  Who has time? Right? 

As the old saying goes, We should all stop and smell the roses. Well, I stopped and smelled the roses for those 15 minutes and feel 100% better.  I discovered that after a long, cold and sun deprived winter, spring has finally arrived with amazing beauty.



Pussy Willows - Soft and Fluffy



Daffodil - Heavy with Dew



Wet with Dew

Bud on Quince - Like a bouquet of roses

Just what the doctor ordered and the best thing for that creativity.  Back to my wood chipping...

 

Happy Upcycling,   Angie