Art and Sole: New Stamps. Duct Tape Bag

Hi everyone, here is another of my launch samples. So I was looking for a new substrate to work on.. and into my head popped Duct Tape... I had no idea if this could be painted? I grabbed a roll that had been sitting in my craft room

The way to creat duct tape 'fabric' is to lay down strips of one colour, slight overlapping and with the sticky side up. Then lay down strips in a second colour on top, again overlapping. This gives you a sturdy 'fabric' and all the sticky is trapped between the 2 layers..

So I stuck 2 short pieces sticky side to sticky side, and tried out some paint. The 2 on the far left, one opaque and one translucent are painted directly onto the tape. As you can see they scratched off once dry. The 2 in the middle are painted over a coat of matte medium, and they resisted scratching really well. The 2 on the far right were painted over clear gesso, and again they scratched off.

So now I had done my experiment, I decided to try and make a bag. I worked out roughly what size I wanted the bag to be, added a little width for seams, and doubled the length.

I then laid out the strips of green duct tape, and covered those with strips of white tape. I folded the piece in half and stapled the sides, these were then covered in more green tape. I folded in the corners of the bottom to make a 'box bottom', and again covered the folds with more tape. Finally I added the handles, and the fastening strap, every join covered with more tape. This is what I ended up with.

As you can see the green side becomes the lining and the white it the outer. It stands up alone because of the 'box bottom' I then gave just the white areas 2 coats of matte medium to prep it.

I then added Beach Hut to each side, followed by Inky Pool on the outer areas.

Next I packed the bag with books, this squared it off so that I had a flat and stable surface to work on. I then brayered on some Orchid and Pumpkin Soup. I like how the brayer picked up the stripes of the joins in the tape.

I then used Little Black Dress and Inky Pool to stencil some letters and words. The word stencils are from Seth Apter.

I added a little Snowflake with the brayer, then stencilled spots with Orchid, once that was dry I bumped the stencil and redid them in Snowflake.

Next I added random stamping, using all the text stamps from my new collection.

Finally I used my 'van gogh' inspired stamp, from EDY13I wanted just the dashed outer rings, so I masked off the centre.

This is how the front looks now. The small white square is velcro for the fastening strap.

I added 2 coats of satin glaze at this point.

I made another piece of duct tape 'fabric', again green tape stuck to white tape. I made a rough template of my intended flower, so that I knew how big to make the fabric.

I painted the fabric with matte medium first, then with Snowflake. next I painted with Beach Hut and Inky Pool. I also make a smaller piece , painted it with matte medium then Orchid. on this piece I stamped the triangle leaf from EDY14. on a leftover scrap I painted Pumpkin Soup and then stamped the lower part of the birdhouse from EM15.

I then built up my flower using the large head and leaf from EDY12.

I added details with liquid pearls, and black and white posca pens, and added 2 coats of satin glaze.

I layered the small flower onto the large one and then added a piece of broken jewellery. I hand stitched between the metals of the jewellery and through both layers of the duct tape fabric.

Going back to the birdhouse, I folded over the duct tape and stitched around the house ( using my machine) Just before I stitched across the bottom I filled it with a little polyester stuffing.

I then used pinking shears to cut close to the stitching, I punched a hole at the top and added a black eyelet, then added 2 coats of satin glaze.

I threaded through a piece of blue leather thong, and tied that around one of the handles.

Here is the front of the bag, with large flower stitched into place. I stitched through the flower, right through to the inside of the bag. once done, I added another piece of the green tape over the stitches inside the bag.

Now for the back of the bag. As I did the front, I made notes so that I could decorate the back in almost the same way. I followed my own steps, brayering and stencilling.

I then bumped the dots, added stamping and finally added the leaf from EDY14. i painted some tissue paper with Orchid, stamped the leaf and added a longer stem with a posca pen to some of them. i cut the out and attached with matte medium.

I then gave all of the painted area on the back, 2 coats of satin glaze. This is to seal everything in place, and also to add a bit of sheen. The unpainted tape(the green one) is very shiny and of course the paint has made the white areas very matte... so adding some satin glaze brings the two closer together in appearance.