Do Not Ask What An Empty Wine Bottle Can Do For You...

Instead, ask what YOU can do WITH an old bottle... The question I have posed was ~ what if, what if I pour different liquid acrylics down the empty wine bottle? Then, later on, I thought to myself - what if I alter this cool bottle with paper and ribbons?

While watching-listening to the Chicago Bulls playoff game this afternoon I decided to indulge in some unexpected creative fun for couple of hours. I really like how the final version of the bottle turned out and I'm coming up with couple of different ideas for its future use. I think it could stand on its own as an altered art piece, but personally I like to find different ways to utilize art in my daily life. I believe that fine art, crafts, or whatever category we use to classify a particular work, carries within itself an inherent purpose of engaging its viewer, that purpose has been bestowed upon it by its creator, artist. It seems to me that there's an unconscious dialog we carry with an artist when we engage our attention in relating to an artwork.... and it truly is timeless. Profits of any auction house can attest to this assertion.

But let's get back to my wine bottle...

I used a plethora of Golden Liquid Acrylics, the majority consisting of multiple pours of Quinacridone Magenta and Interference Oxide Red, next followed by cobalt Turquoise, Titan Buff, Paynes Gray, Iridescent Bright Gold (Fine), and Iridescent Pearl (fine).

Let's start pouring! One by one, paint goes in, then some additional servings down the bottleneck... there's no rules here, just pour your heart and bottles down, down...

Paint mixing and rolling... be careful not to spill the paint out as I did, straight onto the LCD of my camera, what can I say. If you put the cork back in, you can play 'spin-a-bottle' and create some really cool paint patterns...

That's how my bottle handled a bit of spinning, though at its final stage the color has settled to become quiet uniform as I decided, against my better judgment, to pour few drops of Retarder on top of the paints down the neck... if you like the final effect, use that recipe. Personally I like the color variation better.

Next, I covered the bottom portion of the bottle with Golden Soft Gel Semi-Gloss as the adhesive of my choice.

I cut out a desired piece of hand-made paper and pressed it against the gel letting the texture to become a bit uneven in selected areas.

I repeated the above procedure at the top of the bottle's neck.

Using a make-up wedge-shaped sponge I applied Golden Liquid Acrylics Iridescent Gold (Fine) to the raised surfaces of the bottle.

I found a piece of scrapbooking paper depicting some handwriting and first I burned the torn out edges. Next, with a sponge I stained it with Iridescent Gold, trying to create variations in paint application.

Again, with some help from Soft Gel, I glued the above piece of paper on top of the previously attached paper cover.

I used glue gun to attache ribbon to all four edges of hand-made paper that I used in the earlier steps.

Ribbon attaching continues...

I formed a bow of the ribbon and glued in a manner that suggests that a ribbon is tied all around the perimeter of the bottle... and it's not.

I wrote 'Du Vin' in a stylized, antiquated manner using brown and black Fine Line Markers. While still wet, I wiped the surface with a damp sponge to smear the ink.... just a bit.

In the end I applied a coat of Golden Acrylics Varnish (Satin) to the paper covered areas.

Finished altered wine bottle.

Before & After wine bottles ~ side by side.