the Art Blog of Sharon Kennick

The Rites of Spring

  The phrase elicits visions of firelit dance in shadowed groves, or pagan rituals graced with devas and dervishes and garlanded maidens, doesn't it? Not so much in the real world, I suppose, although Kris and I do occasionally light candles upon an impromptu altar amid a celebratory circle of sacred friends. In spring, we "bless the fields" in the old way,  planting red-dyed eggs in the vegetable garden after meditation and song, followed always by a symbolic feast of moon-shaped shortbreads. In a neo-pagan twist on the old "chicken-or-the-egg" question, our celebration inevitably concludes with ritual debate over whether we'll reap chickpeas or eggplant from our vernal observance. To date, however, we've seen neither...

  It's been a busy week for spring rituals of a more mundane sort. The reseeding of grass, planting vegetable gardens, watering, flowers to transplant, weeding, pruning, more watering, long term landscaping projects, and watering again. There've been rituals of "the firsts" this week, too: the first sunburn, the first potato plant, the first bean plant, the first penstemon blooms, the first hummingbird.

  As much as I enjoy them, the rites of spring haven't left much time for studio play. That will change with the summer monsoon rains, when undone yard work and gardening projects are set aside for the rituals of another season.

  I DID manage to finish that book I've been working at in an off-again/on-again way over the last few weeks, binding it with plain watercolor paper and an assortment of colorful beads. Oh - while trying not to bleed on the pages after inevitably poking myself with the needle. Happens every time...

  Earlier this week, I took a wild hair and became intrigued with the idea of interpreting my slot canyon photos in collage. Here's what came of it...                  

It's made from odds and ends of scrapbook papers and matte medium on a base of 140 lb. watercolor paper. Once the glue dried, I gave it some shading and shaping using Ranger Distress Ink dabbed on a Cut 'n' Dry nib tucked into the shaft of an automatic pencil, and then applied another couple layers of gel medium. I'm slowly working up the nerve to wash a little acrylic paint on it here and there. Don't know why I have such apprehension about it. An overcoat of gel medium ensures that the paint doesn't automatically become a permanent layer unless I want it to. Go figure... Oh - as the piece was drying it curled up pretty heavily at the edges. Quick fix: once everything has dried, spritz the back with water and set it under a dictionary for a few hours. Flat again! Woo-hoo! 

  It seems a little cosmic that, once I began playing with collage interpretation of photography, this book turned up. Although I haven't had the time to read it thoroughly, I'm definitely impressed with what I've seen. It's a comprehensive and clear guide to both collage technique and fundamental artistic principles as applied to collage. These are a few chapter headings: "Texture," "Gesso," "Line and Form," "Paper Play," "Imagery," "Unification and Composition." Collage Lab, by Bee Shay. I give it a solid thumbs up! You might also want to take a peek at Bee Shay's blog here.

  Studio play has been pretty limited lately. Early mornings, before I head out to play in the dirt, I've been working up arty envelopes using some of the "metamorphosed" papers Kelly showed us how to make.

  Fun, attractive, and durable, the gel medium surface will grab just about any of the inks we have. Can't wait to use them!  

  One of my favorite "rites of spring" is hiking. Every year, about this time, Kris and I commit to hiking at for least one day every weekend. Some years we do better than others; this year we've managed to keep that promise to ourselves pretty well. Here are some photos of Sunday's hike out to Keyhole Sink, about 25 miles west of Flagstaff.

  Keyhole Sink is a box canyon eroded into an old lava flow. An anomaly in the high desert ponderosa forest, it home to a year-round spring-fed pool, a riparian habitat in the middle of nowhere.

  The path in is only about a mile long over easy terrain, lined with fascinating reminders of ancient inhabitation. This is the remains of an unexcavated pit house near the trail, abandoned about a thousand years ago. A circular depression covered with stones is a dead giveaway. Nature doesn't generally make circular arrangements of stones by herself...

   The area is home to some pretty interesting plant species, too. This one isn't in any of my books! It looks almost exactly like a daisy without a stem. The flowers bloom directly out of a basal rosette! I must remember to take the photo with, next time we're out at Wupatki, to show the volunteer botanist.
   Recent excursions into the wild have always presented us with a lizard photo-op, and Sunday was no different. This fellow performed defensive push-ups on his log for awhile, before settling down for a portrait. Will have to look up his (actually, probably a her) species.

   One of the coolest things about Keyhole Sink is the petroglyphs. There's evidence that people inhabited the area just above the bluffs, herding deer and other wildlife into the box canyon and leaving records on the rocks. No one really knows what any of the petroglyphs symbolize, but this one reminds me of a frog...

  The squiggly arrow is thought to represent a journey (either corporeal or spiritual) or perhaps a stream...

  I am captivated by the rock formations, the erosion patterns, the striations and layers that make up the stone beneath the lava. It's amazing, too, what will take root in the most barren places. Is this a metaphor I see before me? (Apologies for the Shakespearean malaprop...) 

  One of the lesser pertoglyph panels, below, shows what seem to be highly anthropomorphic figures, almost ghostly in appearance, and the suggestion of another squiggly arrow. What can it mean?  
   And the main panel, crowded and layered with symbols and figures...
   Once the light faded, and we'd thouroghly explored the little canyon, Kris and I climbed the bluff to see what could be seen, and discovered brilliant cacti in bloom, three of them, hugging the rim of the canyon. The flower looks like a claret cup, but the structure of the body is very different, multi lobed, and not as squat as the claret cup...          

  As I was shooting the final photo of the evening, a little miracle occurred. At the moment I snapped the shutter, a swift little hummingbird flew into the frame, hoping to feed on the cactus bloom. The camera was set on auto-focus, and he was frightened away by the "whir-beep" sound, but the camera managed to catch him before he flew off. On auto-focus, the shutter speed isn't high enough to freeze his wings, but I'm for sure not complaining...               

  The first hummingbird, among the many rites of spring.

  Thanks for visiting; come again soon.

A Work in Progress

  Inspired by a project in the latest issue of Bound and Lettered, I started work on a new journal cover yesterday afternoon.

   Although the magazine contains very clear and precise instructions for making a clone of the featured project - you know me - I just couldn't resist the impulse to take the methods and techniques described and put my own creative spin on them. The Muse is having loads of fun.

  The foundation for this book is an old Readers Digest Condensed, deconstructed leaving the soft spine intact. The instructions call for a hard spine. As I will later be piercing the spine to bind pages into it, we will see how well that works...fingers crossed. I can always go back and insert a hard spine if it doesn't. Crumpled tissue paper adhered with watered down gesso forms the first two layers of texture, followed by a layer of cheesecloth, also adhered with gesso.

  I've never thought of using gesso as an adhesive before, and needless to say, it's a very wet process. As my next deviation from the instructions required slightly a dryer surface, I set the piece aside for a couple of hours before applying light molding paste (and then caulk when I exhausted my meager supply of molding paste...) through a stencil. The original instructions would have had me create an embossed area on the cover by adhering a Tim Holtz grungeboard cutout on top of the cheesecloth, and then proceed to immediately apply a final layer of crumpled tissue. The molding paste and caulk requiring time to set up, I set the cover aside overnight to dry, and will apply that final layer of texture later today. I can't wait to post photos of the finished piece.

  I'm very pleased with the way it's turning out, and can almost see the finished book, graced with layers of purple, magenta, red and metallic gold. And although it's built upon the ideas and the inspiration of another artist (to a point), I still feel that I can proudly claim the piece as my own, as an original. As artists we all stand on the shoulders of our teachers, of the artists who came before us. If we didn't, everyone's art would look the same, and there would have been no evolution in the arts whatsoever.  I love the inspiring words Michael DeMeng has to say on the subject.

  I haven't forgotten about posting the rest of our excellent adventure in the Valley of the Sun, y'all; I just went on a little excursion with the Muse, and will post again in the next couple of days.

  Thanks for visiting; come again soon.

A Class Takes Shape...

  The mail art genre is so fascinating and versatile. To start with, the envelopes can be made of so many different materials. You can start out with a pre-made envelope and decorate it, or you can use any number of substrates to build an envelope from the ground up. 

  And there are so many different media to decorate an envelope with. Collage, paint, spritzers, stamps, artistamps, tape, watercolor, pen and ink - the possibilities are endless.

  Then I haven't even begun to talk about what goes inside! Postcards, little works of art, cards made from the leftovers of cutting out the envelopes, letters written on the remnant of a magazine page. The letter could be the envelope, itself, opened out all the way. Can you imagine a set of holiday greetings made from the holiday issue of a magazine, with envelopes from whole pages, and greeting cards or notes made with clipped-out ephemera, stamped and hand written? Holy smoke...Or smoley hokes, as my sisters would say.
 

  Sooo...As I was noodling around in the studio today trying out different media and techniques for dressing up envelopes, a thought began to take shape, which turned into an idea and then morphed into something a little more real. A class. A mail art class where we play with the media and  the substrates, where we paint and spritz and cut and fold and stamp our hearts out, where we learn how to make little works of art to send to everyone we know. Where we make faux postage and play outside the box. We could start a network of mail artists, with everyone in the class participating in a mail art swap! What do you think?

  Rules # 1 and #2 for anyone teaching art are to share your passion and to teach what you're passionate about, and I seem to have developed a quite the passion for mail art, so with nothing to lose, I'll think I'll start working up lesson plans. Toss them up and see where they land. I'm intrigued and excited by the possibilities.

  In between noodling with mail art I've been playing with a new "upcycle" themed book titled Craftcycle: 100+ Eco-Friendly Projects and Ideas for Everyday Living, by Heidi Boyd. Filled with  fabric, plastic bag, paper, cardboard, snack bag, and aluminum can projects, it more than fulfills the promise of the title, and provides a great jumping off point for personal interpretation and creativity. Having tried a couple of the paper projects, I find that the step-outs are somewhat lacking in detail, but if you're willing to wing it a bit it IS possible to muddle through on your own. And what is there to lose, really? A magazine or two that can still be recycled? So, despite that one shortcoming, I'd still recommend it to anyone interested in playing with upcycled crafts. Before buying, why not check your local library?

  It's day #14 of that yucky bug I picked up during the trip to Arkansas, and it feels like I'm almost done with it. Yay! Kris is a couple of days behind me in her process, and we're devoutly hoping she's feeling better by Sunday morning when she leaves to go work back east for a couple of weeks. Nutriceuticals and chicken soup; fingers and toes crossed!

  Preparing food for her journey (chocolate chip cookies), then I'm off to the post office for - what else? To send out mail art! If you'd like to receive a piece of mail art, or participate in a mail art swap, just send me your mailing address here. Fun!

  Thanks for visiting; come again soon.

Bound and Lettered and More Mail Art Mania

  Our first issue of Bound and Lettered, the magazine  I mentioned a few posts back, has arrived, and it is every bit as awesome as I'd hoped it would be! It contains a couple of very cool how-tos with clear instructions and good illustrations, and is plumb full of well illustrated, interesting articles on bookbinding and hand lettering. I'm almost glad I was still sick when it arrived because that meant I could sit and read it guiltlessly, cover to cover - several times! I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in either calligraphy or bookbinding.

  My obsession with all things mail art continues, so, despite being sick, I've been noodling around at both the computer and at my worktable, designing envelopes, developing digital stamps, and answering mail art calls. For stamps, I was mostly  playing with the "Pioneer Heritage" series, using a few of the vintage family photos Princess Christmas Joy sent me a few months back.

              

  These are front and back views of an envelope made from advertisements in a vintage magazine. The scrumbly, pixellated effect is a "moire" artifact generated by scanning an old "half-tone" image. It's beautiful in person, but I could only correct it so far...

 

   This envelope is from the same Christmas issue of the magazine, using the cover. I love the way it came out!

   The envelope below is made from candy wrappers, glue-sticked together, with a pink liner. Fun!

 

 

   And some more artistamps, using my slot canyon photography. I think that maybe I'm having a little too much fun...

   I answered my first mail art call this week. A lady in California sent out a call for art themed "Note to Self." What a great theme, I thought, then put together this VERY spontaneous piece to send her:

   Opening the envelope completely reveals the art...

   Breathe Easy is a tea I drink anytime I've caught a respiratory bug, so I just happened to have an empty wrapper lying on the counter. And who hasn't written "notes to self" on a sticky? Then too, "breathe easy" seems like a good thing for anyone to remember these days. A tag with detailed instructions (it says "exhale" on the back) and a little tape to balance out the colors, and wahla! Hope she likes it! Goes in the mail as soon as I'm okay to go out. Which should be Friday if I avoid secondary infections. Fingers crossed!

I think I may have turned a corner today. Woke up feeling better, changed out of my jammies and actually felt like cooking breakfast for the first time in over a week. I'm coughing less, fever's gone, and I'm hardly snuffling at all. This would be day 11, so the timing's about right. Yay! On the mend...Stay well, yourself!

Thanks for visiting; come again soon!

Recycled Art Show, IUOMA, and More Fun with Faux Real Stamps

  Hello again, blog friends! I got a phone call last night from a lady named Colleen, on behalf of the Flagstaff Recycled Art Exhibition. I'm sure I wasn't very coherent, because I've come down with whatever respiratory bug Mom had while we were visiting, but I do remember that she confirmed the date and time for my demo - I'll be showing people how to make those folded German Star ornaments. It should be fun! I'm looking forward to it!

  The Recycled Art Exhibition is an annual event sponsored jointly by Flagstaff Cultural Partners and the Flagstaff Artist's Coalition. Open entry, with a limit of two pieces, the main requirement is that each piece be at least 80% recycled material. It's an amazing show! There are hundreds of entries, an opening reception, and weekend artists' demonstrations. This year, I've entered two new pieces, "Karmalia" and "The Secret Life of Brushes." I thought seriously about entering an assemblage piece I'm working on, "Lord of the Dance," an anthropomorphic assembly of
dead computer parts and, well, lots of other stuff. Kris suggested that I save it for next year, instead of pushing and rushing myself to finish it. I'm sure she's right...Anyhow, there's loads of publicity and several different awards given, including a People's Choice award, but I tend to not pay much attention to that aspect of the show. I attend to see the cool work people are doing; and there's plenty of that! The Exhibition runs from April 3rd through May 15th, and I hope to see you there! My demo is on the afternoon of the 8th, if you'd like to swing through. Love to see you!

  While checking out the links in the book from my last post, "Good Mail Day," I stumbled onto the website of the International Union of Mail Artists (IUOMA). Holy Smoke! Hundreds of mail art freaks from all over the world, dozens of special interest groups, including an artistamp group (which I intend to join...), calls for entries, a forum, and pages on pages of mail art. So I applied for membership late last night, and by 7 a.m. Arizona time, five people (two from the U.S., one from Italy, one from Greece, and one from, I think, Chile) had dropped by my IUOMA page to leave a welcome, and most of them came by the blog, as well. I feel truly welcomed. Next task, flesh out my IUOMA home page...and start sending out art!

  I'm having way too much fun, still, with the faux postage stamps, and am working at them obsessively. I forget to eat, and have to be reminded to take my nutriceuticals, cook, feed Kris, feed the dogs...I've got the mail art bug BAD. Not complaining...here are three of the designs I came up with yesterday, before I got sick enough that I had to curl up on the couch with hot rice socks.

  All three of these faux stamps are 100% digital. The first is a "Pioneer Heritage" commemorative stamp for the Fauxreal Republic. It uses an
image of my maternal grandmother, Virginia Grace, when she was still in school. The second is one I made for Kris (she may be a rocket scientist, but doesn't do digital graphics, and doesn't particularly want to...) and her "Big Sky Republic." "Yote" (short for "coyote") is her nickname, and she wanted a stamp with that on it. It's a commemorative stamp of the poster for an exhibit at the "Tycho Brahe Museum of Art." Tycho Brahe is not just a person, it's a big crater on the moon...which is where the museum is...The third is another exhibition poster, this one from the Capitol Museum of Modern Art's "Digital Expo ~ 2009," with the motto of the Fauxreal Republic up the left side, "Believing is seeing." 

  What's a hot rice sock? It's our version of a moist heat pack. You take a clean dead tube sock without any holes in it, pour about a pound of rice (any grain will do) into the toe, then tie it off with a rubber band. To use it, simply microwave it on high for 2 minutes or so. Pull it out and put it where it'll do the most good. It's a little piece of heaven on earth. I will occasionally warm my cold bed with them in the wintertime. 

  You know, that sounds pretty good right about now...I think I feel a nap coming on.

  Thanks for visiting. Come again soon!

Preparing for the Journey Home

The annual holiday journey home to Central Arkansas is the highlight of every holiday season for us. Since the flight would be long and convoluted with three layovers: Phoenix, Houston and then Memphis,  we opt to travel in comfort by car, leisurely making our way halfway across the country, taking time to enjoy the Christmas scenery, stop at all the interesting little waysides, and rehearse Christmas roundelays. A family favorite is Christine Lavin's "Heigh-Ho Cry Santa's Elves," with "Tacobel Cannon" a close second. (To listen to "Tacobel Canon" click here: Lavin Link, then click on Tacobel Canon in the playlist. It's  side-splitting hilarious!) We take two days to make the trip, stopping overnight in Amarillo at a favorite and familiar hotel. Swimming pool for exercise, chilling out in the hot tub, a home cooked meal from the cooler to reheat in the room...up early to grab fruit and peanut butter from the breakfast bar and we're away in the morning, refreshed and relaxed. A blissful way to travel. This year, weather permitting, we're detouring up to Santa Fe on the way home, to check out the Georgia O'Keefe museum. How exciting is that?

The trip entails alot of preparation; I make our meals and travel snacks ahead of time so we have yummy healthy eats along the way. Granola bars, jerky, crudites, tamari almonds,veggie wraps, homemade sausages, soups and stews. Yum...Can you tell I love to cook? LOL!

It's also a part of the tradition that I arrive in Arkansas with fun crafty things to do with Princess Christmas Joy's children, and this year it will be paper stars made (mostly) from advertising inserts. Aunt Sharon cannot arrive empty handed...so I've spent a couple of days in the studio playing with things to do with the kids, and here's what I've come up with:

This first photo is a folded German Star made of paper strips cut from sales flyers. If you'd like to try making a few of your own, here's a link to an excellent video tutorial: German Paper Stars. Once you get the hang of them they go together quick and easy, and since I use sales flyers instead of color coordinated papers each one is delightfully different from the others. They're such fun to make. I love watching each one take shape, step by step, fold by fold. Once I start making these it's very hard to stop...

This next piece is called a Finnish Star. Sweet and simple, and oh-so-elegant, it's made of 18 half inch strips of paper which are woven together, twisted, and then glued. This one is made from art paper scraps from my scrap bin...Isn't it beautiful? I think the kids will like this one best. Here's a link to a good tutorial: Finnish Star. I was having so much fun making the German Stars that I ran out of sales flyers and haven't had a chance to try these ala upcycle...art paper scraps count, don't they?

These last two are from the coffee club I attended on Tuesday at About Memories and More, our local scrapbook store, and Kirsten didn't really
give us a name for it, so I'll call it the Art Star. The first one measures about 16" from tip to tip and uses two sheets of double sided paper. The second measures about 10" across, and used just one sheet. I suspect that paper from the sales flyers will not have enough body to support the weight of these, but as soon as the Sunday paper replenishes

my stock of advertising inserts, I'll give it whirl, but on a smaller scale, say with 3" square base units.These look complicated, but they're deceptively simple. Here's a link: Art Stars. The larger of the two pictured is constructed of 6" square double sided art paper made with 7 half inch wide cuts in the base triangle for a total of eight segments (a deviation from the pattern link...), and the smaller is of 4" squares. They're so elegant and easy-to-make we just might run out of space to hang them! I SO look forward to making these decorations with my nieces and nephews! And I know the Princess will have fun too, playing along with the rest of us kids...AND do we know what will be dangling from every square inch of her ceiling next year? And Granny's ceiling, too? :)

If you have a fun holiday paper craft you'd like to share, I'd LOVE to post a link to it on the blog. just drop me an email, or leave a comment, and I'll pass it on...

I'm off to find places to hang these beauties! Thanks for visiting, come again soon.

Let It Snow!

Hi blog friends! I haven't forgotten about you in the least! There's some catching up to do, for sure.

First...I want to say hi and thank you and welcome to all the wonderful folk who showed up at the Sinagua PTA craft bazaar last Saturday! You are the reason I keep coming coming back every year. Special thanks, as well, go out to all of you who've expressed interest in receiving announcements and taking classes in the coming year. I'll have a class schedule drawn up by Christmas, to be posted and sent out right after the holidays. What fun we have to look forward to! There's nothing more satisfying to me as an artist than to share the joy and passion I feel for creating!

I've been out of the studio for a little over a week now, which is pretty normal after a show, BUT we've been super-busy, nevertheless.

Goodness, it's SO not like me to go for over a week without posting an update to all my blog friends! Here's what's been going on. Snow has been going on, my friends! The night after the Sinagua show it began snowing. And snowing. And snowing. By Tuesday night when it stopped (as all you Flagstones know) 30 inches of heavy wet white stuff had piled up in the front yard. Which isn't unheard of in Flagstaff, but you can guess what we were doing for several days...This photo was taken from the end of the driveway after clearing the sidewalk. We had run out of places to put it all, piling snow completely up to the mailbox and half burying the apple tree in the front yard. Then the next day found us shoveling off the roof. We lost power and both satellite dishes off and on for a couple of days, but we heat with wood and managed to be quite cozy through it all. By yesterday a good half of the snow had melted or evaporated, just in time for it to snow again today. The forecast is for a ho-hum 6 inches by tomorrow morning, but the way it's coming down this afternoon...we'll see. Glad we haven't decorated the yard yet! 

Following the last show of the season, studio time finds me more directed toward greeting cards, mail art, and playing along with Tim Holtz's Twelve Tags of Christmas. FYI - he's extended the deadline for the 12 Tags contest to Dec. 31st, if you'd like to play along. 

This year's holiday card uses some of the techniques I picked up at the Raevn's Nest art retreat in Wisconsin last October, from Bernie Berlin's
"Secrets of the Burnt and Bound" class. Since we celebrate Christmas, Solstice AND Yule, the "Rising of the Sun" theme just fit perfectly for all our friends. The main panel is loaded with different media and fun techniques! Let's see...it's collaged, and stamped, and heat embossed, inked with 3 different dye pads, layered with foil tape, gesso, and twinkling H2O's, then distressed and wrapped with string before applying the medallion focal point. The medallion has a big glob of heavy body gel medium underneath it, which makes the finished card highly dimensional and puts just a little bit more magic into it. I used this same motif on a bound journal recently, and will probably be playing with it some more in the near future.

When I haven't been in the studio or shoveling snow, I've been indulging another of my passions - knitting - finishing up (well...and starting) holiday gifts. It happens every year; summer and fall find me getting ready for the fall and winter shows and all but ignoring my Christmas knitting list. So the needles come out and I start knitting madly the first week of December. I'll probably still be finishing up a project or two in the car on the way to the ancestral homestead in Central Arkansas...It wouldn't be Christmas if I wasn't! LOL! Fortunately for me, it's a two day drive, and I have plenty of time on the journey. I've even been known to buy yarn in Arkansas to knit up on the way home...So, yes, I'm a total knit-wit! Here are a couple of projects I've finished up recently.

The white hat is from a pattern I found last winter at our local yarn store, and the beret is one of those make-it-up as you go along projects. Both will be presented with a simple knit scarf (which have yet to be knit of course...). There's another hat done, with a matching poncho, a child's sweater which only needs buttons to be finished, and a whole slew of socks and gloves to be started! Knitting needles, yarn, hot chocolate next to a cozy fire, idly watching the snow falling outside the front window...Life is so good.

One of the best things about December for me, though, is that it's the time I plan out classes for the coming year. Developing new projects and ideas, stepping out classes and designing lesson plans, taking input from from prospective students and writing proposals, I get so juiced up for the coming year! The winter/spring schedule will be published right after the holidays, and input from all of you is an integral part of the process, so if there's something you're itching to learn, please drop me a line, okay?

Oh, heads up to all my Flagstone friends! About Memories and More, our locally owned scrapbook store, is having an awesome "Coffee Club" class this Tuesday morning. I'm definitely punching a hole in my day get over there for it. For more info and a great photo visit Kirsten's blog here: About Memories and More.

Well, this has become a very long post (making up for lost time...), and the snow has stopped falling, soooo, I'm off to shovel the sidewalks again. Til next time, thanks for visiting, and come again soon!

Offerings and the Hazards of Being Too Focused...

  Rule Numero Uno: don't bleed on the art. It's okay to bleed a little, it happens sometimes, but DON'T, repeat, don't bleed on the art. Working on the new stuff today I managed to cut
myself somehow. It happens once in awhile. I get really, really focused and don't even notice until I see it, and refer to Rule #1. <*sigh*> Just a nick, but in a really bad place, right in the web between my thumb and forefinger. One of the worst places to have a nick, too. Durn! Cleaned it up and put a band-aid on it...It would seem that occasionally "The Muse" requires a small blood sacrifice. So. That ritual is taken care of for a few weeks...

  First aid tended to, I thought I'd give y'all a peek at some of the new stuff I'm working on for the show Saturday. The larger of these two
books is a journal made from a recycled book with 26 lb. (recycled) pages; the smaller is an art journal with 140 lb watercolor paper and tag inserts. Ordinarily, I'd prefer to bind journals by hand with an exposed spine and decorative stitching, but for this particular show I'm trying to keep the cost down (given the economy) and have bound these instead with the Zutter Bind-It-All. Effective and attractive...and it let's me price them in a more affordable range.

  Hey, did y'all catch the "y'all" in that last paragraph? Not my usual writing style, but I'm boning up on "southern-speak" for a trip to the ancestral home in Central Arkansas over the holidays. Princess Christmas Joy will be there, and Gigi Mota, and most of the sibs and dozens of nieces and nephews,  altogether and collectively known as "The Clan of the Sucking Toad." (Mom has a place on the Arkansas River, just upstream of Toad Suck Ferry - I kid you not...) We're "fixin' tuh" have a jolly old time. 

Back to work! Thanks for visiting! Come again soon.

Playing with the Muse

I've been noodling around in the studio today, playing with modular origami forms. And of course there's a story...

Just as I was drifting off to sleep a couple of nights ago a very specific origami-folded shape popped into my head, one I hadn't made before, with step-by-step images for folding it. Hmmm...says I, that has some interesting potential, and promising to remember it in totality promptly fell asleep.

I am far too casual, sometimes, with the promptings of the Muse.

At any rate, I managed to remember quite a bit of it today,
fiddled around with the shape until I had it right, then started playing with the possibilities and here's what I have to share. First off, the basic shape is a napkin fold - you know, that triangular shape your cloth napkin is folded into at the nicer restaurants? Here's a photo. Now, does that look familiar, or what?

Once the basic shape was perfected it became obvious that they could be fitted together to form a modular piece, like this. So I made a whole slew of the basic modules and started arranging them this way and that, fiddling here and there until I came up with this, a medallion form. Fiddling around a bit more, I applied a couple of layers of paint, pearl gold and quinacridone nickel azo gold. I was worried about painting on the text weight paper I'd used for the mock-up, but it held up just fine. 

Not being sure what I'd do with the medallion, I started playing around some more...it looks really nice against the texture of stripped cardboard, I think. I could also give it a cameo/eyeball center...hmmm. And it would probably look very cool made from magazines and newspaper inserts...will have to ponder the possibilities.

I'm still not sure what I'll be doing with this fun little piece, but will definitely keep playing with it off and on until I do. You'll be the first to know!

Anyhow...thanks Muse! And thank you for visiting. Come again soon.

Upcycled Bows and News from "t!m"

By now you know how pumped I am about upcycling and recycling and finding fun new uses for, well...trash. Or rather more delicately put, things that would otherwise end up in the landfill or in the recycle bin.

Today I found a link that I absolutely must share with you all. It's a website that shows how to make upcycled bows from magazines. Get directions from the website here: Upcycled Bows 

I've already made several of them today, just to check out the design; they go together quickly, and are super-easy to make. They'll look fabulous on all my newspaper wrapped holiday gifts! AND, once the presents have all been opened, they can STILL be recycled, unlike mylar, ribbon, or plastic store-bought bows.

After the first couple of tries, I made one or two changes to the design. First: the top layer of loops has only two of the twisted long components. I used three long loops there instead of the two that the directions specify, which made a slightly more symmetrical bow. Second, the directions call for glue dots in the final assembly. Glue dots are kind of expensive...I substituted double sided tape here.

What fun! In the past I've tried loads of techniques for making upcycled bows (at this point they're a family tradition...). I've made modular origami star-bows out of magazines and flyers, and tea bag folded bows. And I have a star shaped bow-maker tool that turns out a very impressive bow and is very easy to use, as long as you don't mind taping your paper strips together...which I don't. But these bows are great! No special orgami voodoo to learn, no messy adhesives, and no special tools needed! All you need are a paper trimmer (optional) a staple gun and some inexpensive double sided tape. Now that's magic. Check it out!

On another note, you may or may not know that Tim Holtz's rent-a-car was burglarized last week while out of town on business. Everything was stolen; computer, class samples, everything. And he was just devastated...who wouldn't be?

But, in typical Tim fashion he's dusted himself off, and to express his appreciation for all the support he's received, Tim has punched a hole in his busy holiday schedule to offer the "Twelve Tags of Christmas" again this year. With a twist! Starting Dec. 1st, Tim will be offering a HUGE giveaway daily, PLUS a special giveaway for those folk who make each of the twelve tags along with him! For details, visit his blog, here: Tim Holtz Blog, or click the link in the left sidebar of my blog under the heading "Blogs I Follow." What a great guy!

I have a bit of disappointing news, today. Do you remember how we were all keeping our fingers and toes crossed, hoping that my classes would be selected for Art Unraveled 2010? Well, yesterday I received the nicest "regrets" letter I have ever read. I totally understand not being selected; the producer receives some 400 proposals to fill 120 class slots, so it was a bit of a long shot, especially as I've never taught at that venue before. Will definitely try again next year, and meanwhile explore other venues.

That's all for today. I'm off to make a few more of those fun and fabulous bows, write more proposals to teach, AND begin working on another tutorial!

Do you have a fun upcycling project or craft you'd like to share? Drop me a line, or leave a comment!

Thanks for visiting. Come again soon.