Monday, February 20, 2006

Creative project: Tinfoil Icons


Some of you have emailed me directly about the tinfoil icon project, so here are some directions in case you want to try this yourself. Keep in mind that icons are meant to be viewed by candle light and these are no exception. Also keep in mind that scanning a crinkly shiny surface is the pits. They look a whole lot better in real life. :)


Supplies you'll need:

Tinfoil (we used heavy duty, but any kind will work)
Sharpies in a good variety of colors (Staples carries a 24 pack with lots of pastel shades for appx $15)
A picture to trace (color book style pictures are great, but any picture you can outline will work)
Cardboard for padding
Soft pencil

Directions:
Lay down a sheet of tinfoil shiny side down on the cardboard. Gently tape the image you want to trace over the tinfoil, both top and bottom. (This keeps it from shifting while you work.) Your final image will be a reverse of this, so you may want to scan and flop your original. Now with a soft pencil trace all outlines you wish to include in your finished icon.

Remove the tracing and turn over the tinfoil so you are working shiny side up. Using sharpies, color inside the raised indentions created from your tracing. You can blend colors by outlining an area in a darker shade and coloring over it with a lighter shade. (Experiment on a scrap piece of tinfoli.) You can also add texture to your finished icon by laying it over textured material (braiding, loosely woven cloth, sandstone) and gently rubbing over the desired area with the top of a closed sharpie. This is called burnishing and it gives some cool effects.

1 comment:

seeking_something said...

Although I'm not going to try it, I do think it's a really cool project. Thanks.