Children of the Gear

Welcome Steampunk fans to May and our monthly steampunk/industrial challenge at Sandee & amelie's Steampunk Challenges!

I've been having a blast lately playing with my gel plate and making mono prints, so I knew I wanted to continue with it to make some ATC's. I also was intrigued by a blue and orange color combo for some reason. 

I am not a fan of horror movies (I can read the books), but I do remember an old one called "Children of the Corn" that led me to call my ATC's Children of the Gear! Children growing up in a Steampunk Universe, where people were often augmented with machines to improve upon human failings. Perhaps a telescopic eye to keep watch, or a brain thinker helmet to make astounding calculations, a robotic hand to perform tasks much faster...take your pick. Can you imagine growing up in a world like this as a child? Maybe not too far removed from what children faced when they were forced to work in factories to help their families during the Industrial Revolution. This could be a visit to the darker side of steampunk, or...I will let you decide!

I started with my gel plate and Peacock Teal and Neon Torrid Orange. Quite the combination, but I love the contrast! I printed two papers from the plate.

Next, I went in with masks on the gel plate (Kaisercraft, Southern Ridge Trading Company) and my fave, Quinacridone Gold, to add a layer of gears and a clock. Then I used carbon black on the gel plate, and found items like a key, knob, handle and screw to create a layer of hardware images onto my papers. I pressed the pages down randomly in order to just pick up bits of the images.

I'm trying out the Copper Metallic sheen with a new stencil from Gwen Lafleur to add the next layer. Nice semi translucent quality to this layer. 

I'm kind of amazed at how much color you can get with just a few bottles of paint!

I wanted each ATC to look different, so I began with finding sections of my printed papers to cut out. I kept one whole, one cut into thirds, and one quartered, then pieced them together on the front and back.

Now the challenge is which side to turn into the fronts!

I used Seth Apter's Baked Textures to alter the Boozybear chipboard gears, edged the pieces with black ink, and created my steampunk children, using Tim Holtz's paper dolls. I have a batch of great findings that are perfect to add to these.

Children of the Gear

Thanks for stopping by this month, and I hope you are inspired to join us in our challenge at SASPC! I'm looking forward to it!

Maura

Thanks so much to our awesome sponsors who keep the gears turning at SASPC!

 

 

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