I went to Harbor Freight yesterday to see if they had gotten in more of their canvas drop cloths – what a find. My friends Chip and Jane told me about these – beautiful heavy canvas for stretching on stretchers (or just using loose) to use as a painting surface. The price is right, too – a 4 by 12’ heavy canvas panel for less than ten dollars or 9×12′ for $15.

While I was there, the aluminum tape caught my eye – probably a lot of people know about that stuff, but I had a great time playing around with it. You can crumple it, paint over it, scratch it – great possibilities. In these examples I used black marker, transparent acrylic, and acrylic ink and rubbed it over the surface, then buffed it off. Next time will check out my neighborhood hardware store and see if they have it there. I’ll definitely be using it on some book covers for Nueva Street Gallery – yay for hardware stores! They even smell good.

PS The Baby Bee dish is there just cause it looked nice propping up the examples – no foil used in clay – it would vaporize!