“Art under glass” brooch tutorial

In my family there’s a tradition of carving images to make keepsakes and heirlooms. My granddad, our Papa Hall, lived in eastern Tennessee and carved and whittled amazing animals from pieces of scrap wood with his pocket knife—when he died, Dad found among his possessions the fancy carving tools we gave him one Christmas—guess they just didn’t measure up to the old pocket knife! Dad and my younger sister carried on the tradition by producing beautiful woodcut images. I’ve only recently taken up the carving knife myself, and found that my carving cut projects seem to want to take center-stage in multi-media pieces like this brooch.

Here’s what you’ll need: Glass microscope slide cover for each brooch, 1” x 1” + 1 square of lightweight cardstock for each brooch, also 1” x1”.

a favorite rubber stamp no larger than 1” square, or a 1” square piece of your favorite stamp carving medium and carving tools to match | artist’s paper for printing the image. I used watercolor paper here, but any light-colored, matte-finish art paper on which you can paint will do.

black or brown stamp pad | white craft glue | watercolor paints and a fine paintbrush | ¼”-wide metallic foil tape with adhesive backing | a pin back from a craft or beading shop

Instructions:

Select your stamp or design and carve one of your own, no larger than 1” square. A design with simple lines will work best. Keep in mind in selecting your design that the edges of this brooch will be covered by the foil tape in the finished product, and remember that the image you select will be reversed when you print it! In my example I’ve used a sketch I adapted from a black and white image of Mt. Fuji, and carved out of a piece of MasterCarve.

Stamp your carved design onto your art paper using a brown or black stamp pad. You may as well stamp multiple iterations of the design, since it’s just as easy to make a number of these at once (holiday gifts, you say?). Leave ¼” or so between the stamped images to make it easier to cut them out later.

This is my favorite part! When the ink is dry, use the paints to color in the image. In my example I painted each one a little differently to represent a different season, type of weather, or time of day. Use water sparingly as you paint—you don’t want your paper to buckle or curl. Here you can see one sheet on which I’ve painted the images, and another waiting to be painted.

When the paint is completely dry (if you’ve been cautious with the water in step 5, this won’t take long), lay your glass over each of your images and trace around it with a pencil. Cut out each image just inside the pencil line and lay it out with the glass piece that will be its cover, and the little square of cardstock that will be the backing. Now stack them up, glass on top, image in the center, cardstock on the bottom.

Holding them firmly between your thumb and forefinger, trim the two paper pieces to size as needed, then set the glass aside for a moment. Put just a dab of craft glue onto the cardstock, and attach it to the back of your tiny masterpiece. Give your little piece of glass the once-over, wiping it free of dust and fingerprints. Once the glue is dry and the glass is sparkling clean, restack the three working pieces as before.

Cut a strip of the metallic foil tape long enough to go around the perimeter of the piece, but don’t peel the backing tape off the adhesive yet. For a 1” square, you’ll need a piece of metallic foil tape about 4-1/2” long.

It helps at this step to think of your little glass/art/cardstock unit as a kind of square wheel, and the tape as a road. Making sure the glass, image, and cardstock are all perfectly aligned and as close together as possible, set the metallic tape, backing side up, on your work surface, and peel back about 2” of the paper backing.

Set the art piece down at the beginning of the metallic tape, and, peeling the backing off as you go, “roll” it so that the tape attaches itself around the perimeter of the artwork. Do your best to keep the work centered on the tape. At the end of the wrapping, fold the last bit of tape over the piece at the beginning, trying to keep them aligned. Don’t worry at this stage about the corners.

The metallic tape will now be stuck around the perimeter of the glass/artwork/cardstock sandwich. Start at the center of each side and press the tape down onto the surface of the glass in the front and the back, folding the tape over to frame the work and hold all three layers together.

As for the corners, your conscience will have to be your guide. I tend simply to squash the corners down, back and front, giving the piece sort of a rustic look, but if this is going to keep you awake at night, then a toothpick or bodkin can be used to make neater corners.

Finally, initial, sign, or make your mark on the cardstock on the back as you see fit, and use craft glue or super glue to attach a pin back. Let the glue dry, and you’re done!

Depending on what kind of metallic tape you used, it may age or weather into a different finish over time, but this only adds to the brooch’s charm.

About the author: There were always things being written, painted, sculpted, or carved at Nancy’s house when she was growing up, but she chose the pen over the paintbrush, and spends most of her time as a freelance health writer. When she turned 50, though, she remembered that her brain has a right side, too. Nancy blogs at floating ink.

If you would like to submit an article or tutorial please read the submission guidelines and email Kathreen at whipup[at]gmail.com

Tagged as: brooch, carving, stamping, tutorial