Fearless Friends in Art- Guest Blogger Series- Beth Gaddis

Today is another Fearless Friends in Art Friday and I'm so happy to share with you a great artist that I've had the privilege to work with. Beth Gaddis is the Design Team Coordinator for Basically Bare and her work is exceptional. I think this mini is one of my favorites EVER. So without further adieu... Let me introduce you to Beth Gaddis 

I am absolutely honored that Erika invited me over to do this guest post! I've been fortunate enough to work with Erika on a design team for several months and, given the consistently awesome work she turns out, I was really flattered that she wanted to include me in this series of posts. I have been trying super hard to decide what to share in this post and finally decided on this mini album that I made into a travel journal.

I made the album about a trip we took last year to New York to see a concert and meet up with some friends. It was such a great experience, and I didn't want to just throw it into a plain old photo album. The trip was taken mostly to see a concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by my favorite artist. A group at the museum had invited him to write a series of songs inspired by photos from an exhibit that was currently on display there. The whole thing was amazing!

I started this project off by integrating altered versions of some of the exhibit photos directly into the envelopes that make up the album. I kind of wanted to make them the base of the album, since the exhibit was the starting point for our whole trip. On two of the pages I printed the altered photos directly onto the envelopes.

On two others, I transfered the images onto the envelopes using acrylic paint. The acrylic paint transfer is really easy, if a bit tedious, to do. All you need is a print out (on regular printer/copier paper) of a photo, some acrylic paint, some water, and some patience.

I coated the back of the envelopes with a fairly thick coat of metallic white acrylic paint and then, while the paint was wet, placed the photo face-down in the paint. Once the paint had dried, I dampened the back of the photo with a little water and rubbed very gently with my fingers to remove the paper. Once all of the layers of the paper were gone, the image was left in the paint. Some bits of the photo came off during the process but I didn't sweat it too much since the album overall has a kind of old and distressed look about it.

Since you ultimately end up seeing the back side of the printed photo, the image will appear backwards once all is said and done, so you may want to print a mirror image of your photo if you try this out with a photo that has a specific orientation.

I added photos and items from the trip on the opposite sides of the envelopes as well as on the covers and the middle page of the album. I'm always keeping little bits and scraps from trips so this album gave me an excuse to use them for something.

Thanks again to Erika for the invitation, and to y'all for having a look at my project! x Beth 
www.inkcoveredgirl.com