Experimenting with heat gun

Using my new toy the heat gun, I picked out several layers of plastic bags from my overflowing plastic stash bags, fused them with the iron and then heat gunned them to distress; then I looked at the holes and realised it needed another colour behind to show them up, so I ironed a blue bag on the back.  I don't actually like it but it gives me some experience in this technique and I can see the potential when I start including sythetic textiles in with the plastic - the next step.  The layers then will look quite interesting.  It's going to be really hot all week in Adelaide (33 degrees to 36 all week) so don't know when I will feel like heating up the room again.

Experimenting - Altered Books - Money grows on trees pages.

Another thing I have been experimenting with is Altered Books.  Altered Books are any old book that you take and - yes - alter it, as you like.  For instance, paint pages, collage onto them, sew into them.  Obviously you don't do it to a book that is valuable to you or that you think someone else would like; but there are many books in charity shops, or you may have some at home, that aren't of much interest or may be outdated information or that are simply falling apart - these are ideal to use because you don't feel like you're destroying something useful.  I picked up a child's board book for 50 cents in a charity shop and because I thought an advertisement's text was so funny, I used that for my first experiment in an Altered Book page.  First I painted the page with a pale blue over the Christmas scene, then added the cut out headlines which I altered slightly with pen and some receipts to tie in the theme, adding a couple of cuttings of leaves and plants and drawing the tree branch. 

Experimenting with Tyvek

My latest experimenting is with bead making - I love making beads from fabric, and now I have bought a heat gun I can have even more fun.  I started with some leftover sheer fabrics, synthetic organza and so on, and this is the result.  The heat gun shrivels up the synthetic fabric creating interesting effects.

Then I bought some Tyvek, which is a strange synthetic solid type of fabric, painted it both sides and used that to make beads.  The heat gun again gave some great looks, even better than the last lot.  Some beads I made with just Tyvek and some I combined Tyvek with synthetics.

More experimental textiles

This is painted Vliesofix (Bondaweb) adhered to crumpled brown paper.  It has a great texture and I want to use it but not sure quite what to do with it.  Could just be part of a page with fibres added on top ... the great thing about experimenting is that you can do what you feel like.
For art journal ideas try http://www.tracibunkers.com/

Experimental textiles 2012

I have been experimenting recently with techniques unfamiliar to me, and relating particularly to my focus for this year's college, where I will be working on textile books and journals.  This is a focus I started in 2011 and I enjoyed making books so much (see my website for completed textile books) that I decided to continue and expand in 2012 with a third, recently acquired passion, Altered Books (my first two passions are books of any kind, and birds).  This experiment has a base of a mop-up cloth from fabric painting; then I carved linocuts of abstract shapes which I printed in acrylic paints; layers purple and blue crystal organzas, and a piece of text from a book which I want to use this year with the message "Don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff."  I used some contrasting yellow silk thread to attach the layers, in running stitch.  I outlined some of the shapes in their colours in silk.  To see larger, click on image.

Notice the loose threads - I don't do "neat" now if I can avoid it.  That was me in the past.