A Charm-ing Valentine’s Day

 One of my goals for this year is to not just pin craft ideas on Pinterest, but to actually use them as inspiration and create my own crafty things based on the pins. Almost immediately after I made this resolution,  one of the art groups I belong to, came up with a similar challenge to make something inspired by something found on Pinterest. It sounded like a good time to start working towards the goal.

The original Pinterest pin, from farmhousenotforgotten.blogspot.com , made from paperclay, painted, aged and made into jewelry.

My hearts were also from paperclay, but ornament rather than jewelry sized. I painted and aged them, but didn’t really like how they looked, so I rubbed a little gold ink over them as an accent.

A variety of stamps and stencils created the impressions in the clay, and I painted them in luscious watermelon and raspberry wine colors of Luminarte Silks acrylic paint. 

I was also participating in a valentine charm swap, and since I’m not very adept at working with beads and wire, came up with 3 fairly simple charms. 

I bought the components at the local craft store, glued in a bit from an old book page and added a hand-painted heart using the Luminarte Silks painted on tissue paper. There is mica in the pots of color, creating a shimmer to whatever you paint.

After the first simple charms were made, it gave me the confidence to make some little heart charms from my stash of paperclay. I painted them purple with a slash of Celadon green then decided I wanted to add a dangle bead at the bottom. I was willing to make the dangle myself, but found some cute ones at the craft store in the perfect color so I decided to use them instead.

I do think that the purple came out too garish, and I would have re-done them if I could, but these were to be mailed out and I was beginning to run out of time.

Two charms were the limit, then I read an article in one of my craft magazines about using a die cut machine to cut aluminum, such as soda cans. I really wanted to try out this technique and made a third charm to mail out with the other 2.

I cut out off the top and bottom of a couple of diet coke cans and used the smallest die I happened to have: butterflies. The die cut machine did a great job, leaving a slight bevel in the metal so the edges were not sharp. I added another little dangle and even though they were too big for the actual charm swap, I included them as an added bonus.

I tend to worry too much about wrapping wire for jewelry, and because it’s not something I do very often, it takes me hours to complete a project. Because most of the wiring was already done, I could enjoy the creative process and try out some new techniques.

The Secret Garden

This autumn, I completed the largest mixed-media piece I had ever worked on. The altered book art group that I belonged to had committed to an exhibition at the local library. We were to choose a favorite book and interpret it within a frame. I knew immediately that my book choice would be The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I also knew that I wanted a gate that could be opened to a garden inside of a shadow box.

First, I found the frame. It was a really hot day in July and I had decided to drive in my little Honda hatchback (no air conditioning) over to South Haven, about a 40 minute drive. There are lots of dusty old antique shops over that way and I thought they might have what I wanted at a bargain price. After stopping at 2 other places, I finally found what I wanted at the Junque Shop. It was a window frame rather than a picture frame and really big, much bigger than I needed, but it had this old neglected look and a beautiful arched shape which I felt would echo the arched shape of the gate in the story.

Finding the perfect shadow box was much more difficult. I wanted a shallow box with a side hinged cover. I found several but none seemed the right size for the frame. Time was beginning to get a little tight. Even after finding the right box, I couldn’t figure out how to reproduce the arch of the gate and make it work. I tried experimenting with papier-mache but it just didn’t look right.

I finally decided to use a large shrine that I bought earlier that spring, not for any reason except for the low price. It was not a shadow box in any sense of the word, plus it was a triptych – two smaller arches that opened up to a larger arch. It had no depth and I knew I wasn’t going to get it to lay flat, but I pretty much had run out of time and couldn’t quibble.

I created a double gate, used thin strips of poster board covered with bits and pieces of pages torn from the book. I glued a lock in the door and spent a huge amount of time trying to get a small key to fit into it, but when that proved an impossible task, I finally gave up. In case the audience wasn’t sure what book it was, I added a sign to announce it. Then I painted the outside with acrylic paint and a brown sharpie pen.

The inside was a lot more fun. I had seen a tree on pinterest, made out of a brown paper bag and decided to duplicate it for the half-dead tree in the garden. In retrospect, I wish I had added leaves to the tree, but didn’t think of it at that time.  I used several copies of old pictures of Gertrude Jekyll’s garden taken in the early 1900′s and cut up different elements to create a layered dimensional collage of an English walled garden in full bloom – just how I imagined the garden in the book. There was even a little robin in the picture. I glued a sky into the background and added some more 3-D interest by adding sphagnum moss spilling over the wall.

with the door open

I was still working on the interior when I decided that I wasn’t going to finish in time for the show. I was only able to work on it weekends and that was only sporadically.

So, I emailed our contact person and let her know that I wasn’t able to complete the project. She asked me how much time I needed. I thought about a week. She told she would look into it to try to get me that week. She did get permission to let me turn it in late, but by then, the 7 days had dwindled down to 3. I managed to get the main piece done and had also decorated the outside frame with iconic images from the book.

Mary’s hat and jump rope

The robin and the ivy that hid the gate.

 and the key.

It was Friday morning and I was trying to figure out how to “float” the shrine in the middle of the window frame, when I slipped down a couple a steps and fell into the frame.  The big toe on my left foot was seriously hurting and the whole outside of my right foot was swelling and turning a lovely shade of purple. However, the only thing I could think of at that moment was the frame, caught before any damage was done.

I was in considerable pain and had this feeling that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the library that day as I had promised, so I immediately called our contact and managed to postpone the picture hanging until Monday, then called my friend at work. I had been scheduled to come in the next day, but at this point I could barely walk. She told me to not worry about work and get to the doctor right away. So I did.

Somehow I managed to drive my standard Honda hatchback (the foot clutch was practically impossible) to the immediate care center where they x-rayed both feet. My big toe was fractured right up into the “knuckle” joint, the other foot badly bruised. The nurse showed me how to tape the toe up, told me to stay off my feet as much as possible and sent me home.

Broken toe – you can’t really tell, but it is pretty swollen. The right foot was worse.

Since both feet were swollen and very sore, I pretty much stayed in bed for the next 2 days. Finally, on the 3rd day I managed to hobble downstairs to finish up the frame. I promised to get the art work in so it could be hung and I couldn’t put it off again.

I was still taking sick time from work but I thought that if I could drive over to the library and deliver the piece, I could probably handle going back the following day. Driving was very difficult, but I did get there, got the picture hung along the entrance hallway, drove back home and fell back into bed. Made it!

on display

I didn’t really get a chance to view the piece until a month later when we had a reception for the displayed artwork; This, however, will need to wait until next time as this post has gone on much too long.

Weekly Drawing Challenge 3

I’ve been participating in a weekly drawing challenge, along with one of my art group friends Joanne, and her friend Jeanie. We take turns making up themes, drawing our interpretations then emailing the results to each other. This batch of sketches takes us up to mid-December.

I hope to improve my drawing skills but some drawings are good, some not so and the quality of the drawings seem to see-saw back and forth, rather than any consistant improvement. It’s kind of discouraging.

Here is a rundown of the current batch and my notes for each.

Am I Blue

I did this one quite some time ago, but I forgot it in the last post. Most of my drawings were roughly sketched out in pencil, outlined in a fine point Pitt pen, then colored in with Tombow markers. For this picture, I added some colored pencil shading and a bit of colored spray over a stencil to create a background.

Self Portrait

I really didn’t like how this one turned out. Cheap paper does make a difference in your work. Always go for the better paper. I had some real difficulties getting the tombows to blend properly when I painted with them. I had this picture in my head of what I wanted to do, it was a good idea but I just could not get it down on paper properly. I ended up cutting off a good bit of the bottom,then, finding the background boring sprintzed some of my water color spray which spattered in the wrong spot. I’ll try this one again at some future date and see if I can do a better job.

Grateful

Self Portrait, Grateful, Flight and Winter is Coming were all done on the same afternoon. Where I really didn’t like how the Self Portrait turned out, I really loved doing Grateful (I forgot the theme and called it Gratitude.) I had a lot of fun figuring out how to stack the books, how to color and shade them, even in deciding what the titles would be. And even though I used the same paper as the self portrait, the tombows behaved and I was able to spread the color nicely with my water brush. Then I got over zealous with the spray again and spritzed too much black water spray. I wanted a light mist, what I got was heavy splatter. I ended up with a picture difficult to see, but if you can see past the spray, it looks pretty good.

Flight

I like the drawing minus the birds. The birds didn’t turn out as I had pictured them, but I liked the autumn grass in the forground and the big autumn sun hanging in the sky. However, I didn’t sketch out the birds in advance and it might have made a difference if I had. By this time, I had figured out the sprays and this is a nice orange color that blends in as a part of the background.

Winter is Coming

Another fun one done on the same afternoon. I know winter is coming when I dig out my thermal knit shirts and leggings, my warm scarves, mittens and boots. The shapes were simple, but it worked for me, I liked the colors and shading and thought it addressed the theme with some humor.

I’ll have another batch of drawings in a few weeks.

Weekly Drawing Challenge

Continuing with my weekly drawing challenge, the three of us participating emailed our results to each other. Even though I’m usually a week or 2 behind, I feel that the more I continue drawing, the more confident and comfortable I will become with this medium.

My contributions to the trio include:

2 drawings for the chocolate themed week. I wasn’t happy with the colored pencil drawing of the hot chocolate, so I did the 2nd as a water-color of the chocolate mint plant in my garden.

The next week had to do with our animal friends so I took a photo that I had of my cat Sammi and worked a drawing of her using my Pitt pen.

Autumn – my favorite time of year. I love the colors, the clear crisp days and the stiff breeze that tries to blow all the leaves off the trees. I used the metallic faber castell gellato sticks as a kind of water-color. They left a glittery look to the leaves and wind, but you can’t really see it in the photo.

At this point, it was pretty close to Halloween, so I wanted to do a large Barn Owl done in white on black paper. It ended up evolving into a whole Trick or Treat scene. I used black gesso and a white water-color crayon. The crayon gave me a lot of problems and I couldn’t do much in the way of detail. I’ve got to work with white on black some more.

I do believe that this is my favorite drawing. The theme was I (heart) it, and Joanne had done a lovely zentangle piece. I had recently gone to see Peter Kageyama, author of “For the Love of Cities”and it got me thinking about how much I really love my home town and state of Michigan – despite all its’ problems. I decided to zentangle a drawing to honor my love for where I live. I like this well enough that I want to actually draw it again (to fix up the lettering) and perhaps do something with it. I used my Tombow water-color markers and Pitt pen.

I’m almost caught up. The last theme for this posting was a household object. I decided to do a drawing of my camera. It’s a good quality point-and-shoot Olympus and I rarely leave home without it. I did an ink drawing using my trusty Pitt pen in a composition book. It did come out a little lopsided but I’m satisfied with the attempt.

Some things I’m discovering about my drawings. I like watercolor (or the Tombow markers worked as watercolor) best; I tend to sketch the drawing out in pencil than outlining my work in a permanent ink pen before adding color; I’m better at drawing the imaginary than the realistic and my favorite drawings tend to have a kind of cartoony style. I also think that I’m okay with that.

I want to get better at this and in order to get better, I’ve got to keep working at it.

Weekly Drawing Challenge

I’ve joined a weekly drawing challenge. I like working with paints and markers but don’t feel very comfortable drawing. I thought that by joining my friend Joanne and her friend Jeanie in their drawing challenge, it would give me the incentive to quit thinking about drawing and actually do it. I missed the first couple of weeks but came in to draw on the 3rd; the theme being mismatched.

I don’t do a lot of collecting, (except maybe art supplies and fabric) but I cannot pass by a feather, a seed pod or a beautiful leaf without picking it up. I decided that some different sorts of seed pods would work for the mismatched theme. I think they came out pretty good.

This last week, the theme was “someplace else” so I decided to draw my dream house in the woods, next to a secluded lake. It’s based on a little cottage I stayed at in Grand Junction at Saddlebag Lake. It had been overcast and cool all day, but the sun finally came out just as it was setting, across the lake. My girlfriend and I had been hiking along the Kal-Haven trail all day, and it was a great end to a long day.

I realize that I cut off my little cabin on the right side of the picture when I took the photo so here is an earlier, less finished photo that shows the whole thing.

I originally thought it would take a short time to complete each challenge, but it usually takes me a lot longer, which means I have to plan more time in order to get things done.

The challenge this week is “am I blue?” I figure that it could be interpreted in different ways.

A Summer of Art

 An accordion book made outdoors with lots of spraying.

This has really been a miserable, hot summer. I finally had to break down and buy a room air conditioner so I could sleep through the nights. I am so grateful that I spent the cash because my age finally caught up with me as I started getting hot flashes as well. I never would have made it otherwise.

Of course, it is only one AC and it was in the bedroom. Though I can do some lettering and drawing in there, painting was out of the question. My craft room was just too hot so I began doing most of my work outside; either early in the morning or in the evening until the sun went down at around 10pm.

I live in the city, where the neighbors are close and noisy. Babies crying, spouses loudly arguing, cars zooming by without mufflers or music blaring are all a part of where I live. Still I have a small backyard full of birds and flowers where the background noises are muffled. I would settle in my deck chair, in the shade, with the sprinkler going to help cool the air and attract the chickadees and cardinals (who loved to bathe as the water moved back and forth) and I could paint and cut and glue and spray to my hearts content.

   A nice spot in the shade.

August has come, along with cooler weather, but I still prefer working in my spot under the trees. I think I’m more productive and I definitely have more room to work. I’m not sure I’d actually call it inspirational but it is very peaceful.

The days are getting shorter now and there is less time to work. Once the days get cold I’ll be forced to move it all inside. It will be more difficult to do any spraying and my craftroom isn’t as nice as the backyard. Still, I’ll do my best to keep it cozy and warm.

  Inspiration from nature?

Abstract Postcards

I’m Baaack!

I know, you never really missed me – but I ended up taking a very long blog sabbatical. Every night after work I would come home and say, “tonight I will work on my blogs” then end up vegging out and going to bed.

Even though I haven’t been writing, I have been creating arts and craft pieces and as always, taking lots of photos.  Now I feel inspired to write again.

So on with Today’s Topic!

 I belong to a few online art groups. Two of the groups are local, but I also belong to one that has membership from all over the globe. They are a very active, very supportive group of women. They also have monthly challenges and monthly online workshops.

This month’s challenge is abstract painting and we are to create 3 postcard sized abstract paintings. The smaller size is to lessen that blank canvas phobia feeling we can get when starting a new project. Once the postcards are done, we will mail them to the group administrator for a swap.

I’ve never intentionally created abstract art before, but the backgrounds I create for my art journals are all very abstract-y so it ended up a very easy and fun project.

Here is the final result:

I decided to call this one Spring Meadow

called Sunset

Reflections in the Water

I just used my Dr. Ph Martin watercolors, some water-soluble spray inks, and a little gesso. One cool thing I discovered about gesso is, if you apply it over water colors, the paints bleed through creating a softer color.

To be entirely honest, I did not actually plan on painting a sunset, I just played with the paint until it seemed completed; then decided that it looked like a sunset. Probably a backwards way of working – but I can be very contrary (it’s from being a southpaw AND an Aries!)

Now all I need to do is get them in the mail and wait to see what I will be getting in return…