Iridescent Butterfly–Part 3

Since my last post, I have had a search online, and have sourced some lovely fine copper wire covered with cotton - it is .45 mm diameter, so compared with my DIY wrapped wire which measures approximately .9 mm, it should be a lot better. What's more, it's a natural, off white colour and I can colour it how I want.

I got it from www.wires.co.uk in case anyone is interested. Hopefully my future projects will have a slightly less chunky look! (Not sure if this present butterfly would actually manage to get airborne...)

After completing the smaller pair of wings, I was now ready to assemble the butterfly.

I deliberately used nice long pieces of wire for the main outline of the wing in each case, to give me more to play with during the assembly stage – any excess could easily be cut off.

To make the body of the butterfly, I took a piece of uncovered wire and threaded a small bead onto it. I then doubled the wire over so that the bead was at the folded end, and twisted the ends together a couple of times.

The two ends were then threaded through a series of beads to form the body, and the wires emerging from the head end were bend outwards to form the antennae.

I stripped off the florist’s tape from the long pieces of wire from each wing, and twisted each one a couple of times around the body to anchor it in place. You could shape the ends to form two pairs of legs, and add another length of wire, doubled over in the middle, to form the third set of legs; you would add a tiny loop at each end to form a foot, to complete the butterfly. This would make a nice finish, but in this case I’ve decided to leave out the legs and simply stick the butterfly to my project, as there will not be much room in the frame, and the legs wouldn’t be seen anyway, so I trimmed off the long ends.

After wrapping the wires around the body, the whole thing was far too mobile, and the wings were twisting all over the place, so after trimming the wires short, I ran a little Pinflair glue along the underside of the body, squashing it between the beads to anchor everything, and when it was dry, it was fine. I also superglued the second pair of wings along their edges, underneath the larger wings, to hold them in place.

When I have made wire butterflies in the past, I have looped the ends of the antennae around a tiny bead with my jewellery pliers, but in this case, I decided to repeat the Gallery Glass technique on their tips – just a tiny piece of cellophane, decorated as for the wings. There is no florist’s tape on this wire, and I was hoping that the Gallery Glass will stick OK; the butterfly will be enclosed within the frame so it won’t be subject to any wear and tear, so hopefully it will be OK.

The above picture shows the antennae bent into shape, and sellotaped down temporarily onto a piece of paper to anchor them in place, nice and flat against the cellophane. The butterfly needed a bit more support to keep the antennae flat, and in the next picture, you can see it propped up with scraps of mounting board, and I’ve also put some pieces under the cellophane to press it up against the wires. You can see the wet Gallery Glass on the antenna tips, still milky in appearance.

During the drying process, the Gallery Glass did seem to be slipping off the wires a bit, so I scooped it back with a stylus several times, until the Gallery Glass started to set, and after that it seemed to hold OK. I think this goes to prove that using covered wire is definitely better.

After the Gallery Glass had dried and become completely transparent, I removed the sellotape and mounting board props, and trimmed away the excess cellophane from around the wires, and painted and glittered them as I did with the wings. Here is the completed butterfly.

Here is a detail of the beaded body, showing the wing attachments. You can see the tiny bead at the tip, with the twisted wire.

The next picture is a detail of the finished antennae.

Finally, here is a picture of the butterfly on a piece of silver mirror board, showing the undersides of the wings reflected; this is how the butterfly will be on the shadow box project, but it will be on a piece of acetate away from the reflective surface so that more of the underside should be visible.

Please see my upcoming blog posts on our nephew’s wedding present to see how I use this butterfly.

I think this technique produces simply gorgeous results, and I’m so grateful to GardenOfImagination for her excellent 8-part Youtube tutorial on the subject – whether you’re into fairies or not, most people love butterflies! You could also use it to make flower petals, leaves, fish, mobiles, abstract shapes… wherever your imagination leads you!

WOYWW 112

I can’t believe a week has passed since my first post on WOYWW. (For anyone who doesn’t know what this is about, click on the WOYWW link on the right of my blog.)

Here’s my work table today:

On the left is a pile of ATC-sized pieces of mounting board that I’ve painted with gesso ready for use. I’ve been experimenting with texture in gesso over the past few days, and in the middle of my table you can see my first three efforts, and on the right, the final one, which I am really pleased with, and this is the technique I am going to use to decorate the frame you can see just above it – you can also see a selection of rubber stamps and some acrylic paints on the left, and a couple of acrylic blocks, which I have been using in my experiments.

The frame has been primed with gesso, and its box lined with silver mirror board in readiness for decorating. There will be a sheet of acetate suspended across half way up, printed with the initials of our nephew and his bride, and attached to this acetate sheet will be the iridescent butterfly (now completed) that you can see just above my gesso samples, together with some of the materials and equipment I’ve been using (gesso, iridescent gel medium, iridescent acrylic ink, foam brush, Gallery Glass…)

I have done blog posts about all these things, and will be updating them all over the next few days, energy and time permitting.

I’ve been having such FUN this week with all these techniques, and can’t wait to try loads more stuff. Although the frame has a deadline on it, and is for a specific purpose (our nephew’s wedding present), I have finished all the things I had to do in the first half of this year (loads of special birthdays etc. in our family) and I’ve been looking forward to having some time for what the scientists call “pure research” with no specific aim in view! There’s so much more I need to be doing than simply making cards in order to feel fulfilled (although the demands of family and friends make this necessary, and it’s not too arduous) and I am learning a lot at the moment about new materials and techniques and am keen to put them to good use.

Have a great WOYWW, everybody!

Iridescent Butterfly–Part 2

Back again – I wasn’t able to do any yesterday, because I was busy setting up my new printer. Today, the Gallery Glass on my wings has now fully dried, and I can move on to the next stage.

I have trimmed off the cellophane from around the wings. You can see how iridescent they are already, and they can be left like this if you want. Dragonfly wings would be gorgeous like this, but you would need thinner wire.

After trimming, the edges have to be heat set, so going carefully with the heat gun, with the wing edge on, I went round each wing until the edge of the cellophane melted.

On this close-up shot, you can see that the edge is slightly rounded.

Heating the wings does soften the Gallery Glass and superglue a bit, so it’s important not to handle them too much until they are thoroughly cooled, or they will get damaged.

The next stage is to paint them. I am using Daler Rowney Pearlescent liquid acrylic in the colour Galactic Blue, which is a gorgeous vibrant colour. The wings will need two coats, drying thoroughly between each coat.

Here are the wings after the first coat. You will notice that I’ve painted over the wires too. This makes them look slightly less obvious – they are a bit thick!

When you’ve painted the second coat, before it is dry, you can sprinkle a little ultra-fine poly-glitter onto the wings. It’s best not to use too much. Using the silvery-white glitter, it doesn’t look much when you first put it on…

…but once the wings have been set aside to dry thoroughly, the glitter is heat set using the heat gun, and this has the effect of bringing out all the gorgeous colours in the glitter. (Using any other colour of glitter, heating it would not have any effect.) I'm afraid the photo doesn't do it justice - I can never understand why sparkly or shimmery effects come out so badly on photographs!

I have not painted the backs of the wings. The blue acrylic on the front deepens the iridescence of the cellophane on the back, and I love this effect. It will not be lost in the project I am using this butterfly in, either, because the back will be reflected in a layer of silver mirror card.

You can paint the backs with black acrylic paint if you like, and this will make the blue on the front darker and richer. It’s all a matter of personal taste. I prefer to keep the surface colour as it is, because it will match my project better.

I am quite pleased with the result of this first pair of wings, despite the wire being a bit thicker than I wanted, so I’m going to go ahead and make the smaller pair. I am going to look around for some thin, already covered wire, which should make life easier.

To be continued…

Iridescent Butterfly–Part 1

This is a new technique for me, which I learned from this series of Youtube videos – fairies and all that stuff are definitely not my thing, but I thought the technique could be used to make beautiful butterflies. I love to adapt techniques for my own use, and interpret ideas to suit my own creativity. This technique is a fairly fiddly, labour-intensive business, but I’m sure you’ll agree from the videos, the results are stunning.

If this is successful, and suitable, I’m intending to use it on the shadow box I’m making for our nephew’s wedding next month.

Once I’ve mastered the technique, I shall get myself organised, and make quite a few at once, so that I can progress in stages as each part is left to dry, etc.

The materials required are vellum, iridescent cellophane, wire (preferably covered; I used florist’s tape), superglue, Plaid Gallery Glass (crystal clear), iridescent acrylic paint or ink, or fluid acrylic paint mixed with iridescent medium, and ultra-fine poly-glitter. Embellishments such as gems can be added as well. I found it easier to place the wires using a pair of fine tweezers, and you need a pair of wire clippers (I used my Tim Holtz shears which can cut sheet metal and wire). You also need a pointed tool to spread the Gallery Glass, some paint brushes, your normal drawing stuff and a heat gun. Finally, a warning – you do need quite a lot of patience!!

The first step was to draw the design. When I was satisfied with it, I traced it onto a piece of vellum, and went over it with a fine permanent black marker. Vellum is more substantial than tracing paper, but still translucent. The design has to be done on this so that it can be turned over, and a mirror image made from the other side. This avoids having to make a symmetrical drawing, which would take unnecessary time and effort.

The maker of the video suggested using wire that was covered, to make it easier for everything to stick onto it. I didn’t have anything like that, but I’ve got some 24-guage wire which I wrapped with black florist’s tape and hoped that would do the trick – it came out thicker than I’d hoped, so this may be a non-starter. If so, I shall try it with uncovered wire and see if it really makes any difference. I’m making only one pair of wings to try it out, so that I don’t waste a lot of time and materials if I have got it wrong.

The next step is to cut a small piece of iridescent cellophane and lay it over the pattern.

You have to bend the wire around, following the shape of the pattern, cutting off short lengths and laying them down so that everything is covered except for the outer outline of the wing. Cut the main, inner outline pieces of wire quite a bit longer than the actual wing so that there is plenty available to twist together to assemble the butterfly and form the body and legs. The wires are anchored down onto the cellophane with spots of superglue where they touch one another.

When the first wing is finished, the pattern is slipped out from underneath, turned over, and put back so that the second wing can be formed.

(On this picture, you can see my original butterfly wing drawings on the large piece of paper, with the vellum pattern piece on top,)

Rather than doing the upper and lower butterfly wings in one piece, I’ve decided to do them separately, and have started with the larger, top pair.

When the superglue stage is finished, it is set aside to dry – this actually takes a lot longer than I thought, maybe because I was using superglue gel. I finished that stage late at night and left it till the following day.

Next you have to use a substance called Gallery Glass, made by Plaid. This is a range of products for making faux stained glass windows – something I’d quite like to try one day! They have a gorgeous range of colours, but for our purposes, all we need is the crystal clear.

Using the nozzle on the top of the bottle, you follow the outline of the wires glued onto the cellophane. I think I may have made the hole in the top of the nozzle a bit big because it came out pretty fast, and it was more runny than I expected. (Another time I shall probably decant some gallery glass into a syringe or small bottle such as an empty Stickles bottle, which might give a bit more control.) It is important to do the wires first, so that they are thoroughly glued down when the Gallery Glass is dry. After doing the outline, the spaces are filled in, by dropping a bit of Gallery Glass onto the cellophane and spreading it out to the wires with a pointed tool. On the unwired, outer edge, the Gallery Glass can be feathered out a bit with the pointed tool, to give a thin, delicate edge.

It’s not critical to be absolutely accurate in following the lines, either with the gluing down of the wires, or the Gallery Glass; the pattern is a guide only, and in nature there are always slight irregularities anyway.

After the Gallery Glass is applied, it takes a good long time to dry, so it’s best to leave it overnight. It goes on white, but dries crystal clear.

To be continued…