Summer Art

I'm letting SB paint this 3' x 5' canvas for our living room.  I limited her color palette.  She's taking care of the rest.  She's a genius!

Paper Flowers

Flower made if Mulberry Paper covered in Mod Podge.

I'm trying my hand at making flowers without using fabric.  Why?  I dunno.  I just like trying new things.  I know how to make a few varieties of flowers from paper, but I'm trying to make them durable and "damage resistant."  I'm gonna post my attempts and report LATER on the resiliency of each.  Hopefully some will fare well and I can use them in some hair pieces.

Cha Cha Cha CHANGE

If you've read this blog before or you know me, then you know what line of work I'm in.  I teach "talented art" to a small groups of kids each day in a public school setting.  Due to the nature of my job, I tend to keep the same students for a number of years.   Some I've taught for 5 years now.  I've practically watched them grow up.  I've gotten to know their parents as friends and feel very comfortable seeing familiar faces every new school year.  Next year will be more of the same and I'm glad of it. 

One thing gets to me though.  Once my students move to 9th grade I lose them to another teacher.  I know it's for the the best, but it doesn't make it any easier.  They always make me feel like I'm the key to their success as an artist, and while I'm flattered, really my desire is for them to take what they know and run with it, learn something new, get a fresh perspective.  

My greatest desire for my departing students is that they would remember my everyday life, while FAR from perfect, is pointing to Christ and bearing fruit.  If it isn't, then the greatest artist to come from under my teaching would be wasting paint.  It's true that I love art, but I love Jesus more.  I'd rather see the gospel advanced in their lives than visual arts.

To my students who read this blog:
I love you,
I'll really miss you,
Come and see me,
Ride the bus back to the elementary school next year if you must.

Ahem... Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Tomorrow is SB's actual birthday.  I don't think I'm gonna tell her.

Gift Tags

By the time you read this it will be Christmas day (or after) and you won't care anymore about putting tags on gifts, but... here's one way we got SB involved with gift-giving this year.  She and her daddy sat down with a pen and lined paper (cringe!!!)  to make gift tags for everyone.  He drew circles and labeled each one while she drew in the faces of each recipient.  I backed them with scrapbook paper and they were later attached to gifts.  They could be prettier, but at this point I don't really care.  The drawings are awesome enough. 

I hope some of these end up as refrigerator art.  They should.

I'm SEW Awesome

Made with Glossy ModPodge and fusible web.

Yep, I hand stitched these letters.

She likes the shirt!

A cheap, 30 minute, AWESOME Christmas present for a good friend.   (I say cheap, because I had all these things on hand except the shirt.)

Ingredients:
$6.00 Hanes t-shirt from Wal Mart
Barbasol shaving cream
Temporary Spray adhesive
Black screen printing ink or acrylic paint
ModPodge (Glossy)
Image (Sewing Machine) printed from a color (or black and white) inkjet printer
Small piece of white scrap fabric
Wonder Under or fusible web
Iron
Sponge Brush
Scissors
Embroidery Floss if you're in the mood to sew by hand.

If you'd like to see a tutorial, comment.

I'm back...The Chair

I've been trying to save this entry until I was done with this chair so I could show a start to finish set of pictures but I've been really busy.  There.  That's my excuse.  My last post was from October and frankly I'm ready for my costume to make its way to the bottom of this blog. 

What's happened since then?  Two sisters had babies, one boy and one girl.  I went to my first quilt festival ever and enjoyed myself immensely.  I took 2 photos but remember everything except what those photos were about.  At school I've been the go-to girl for all things creative including theatre sets, photography backdrop painting, custom portraits of dead dogs, 110 decorated ornaments for the town Christmas tree, face painting on the fly, and raffled crafts.  At home, Husband has been working LOTS lately and we've been to lots of birthday parties.  SB is now telling me she wants to "go backwards" meaning that she wants to redo the day so she can spend more time with Peaches the horse.


The story of  this chair:
I went to an antique store looking for a sofa to borrow for my brother's engagement photos.  I was sidetracked by this hideous chair and fell in love with the $15 price.  (The tag said $30 dollars but when Mrs. Saleslady saw me looking interested she immediately cut the price in half without me even asking.  I would have paid the $30.)  I've had high hopes for this little rocker.  I bought some supplies to reshape the cushions and some swanky new fabric.  Mind you, this is my reupholstery debut.
Well, I'm still not finished with it.  I haven't even worked on it since September when I bought it.
My problem is that I'm at a point where I need an extra set of hands.  This week, the love of my life is home on vacation and I think I can get some help out of him.  He's already earned brownie points by helping me paint our living room and hall way.  11 feet of vertical misery.  New inspiration for sewing projects though.  Mark my words, you WILL see a finished chair.  Soon.

Nurse/Candy Striper Costume

Dorthy? No.

 My school hosted a family fun Halloween night this past week.  Costumes were definitely a must.  I was looking for some inspiration from the internet for a candy striper costume, but most options were not even PG-13 rated.  Here's my more conservative/ mod/ retro take on a candy striper costume.

My job at the event was to paint faces so I've spent some time practicing.  This horse was by far my most elaborate undertaking and it was painted a few hours before we even opened for business.  Marian, one of my students, wanted a horse to go with her cowgirl costume.  I tried to talk her into something more simple, but no - a horse.  She wanted a horse.
Even though he got washed off later that evening, he will live on in this post forever.  My favorite part is that he is attached to the wood post on the other side of her face.

Super Hero

Todd gave SB a bath last night since I spent 5 hours in the car with her while he relaxed at home.  He's a pretty good illustrator in spite what he says.  This is his rendering of SB as a superhero.  I think it's cute.  He's a good daddy.

A Hidden Spot

There's a blog of mine that no one visits.  It was created for one person to see some paintings I was selling -  Ryan.  He saw them, end of story.  I'm posting this because people are asking to see some paintings I've done.  Go here if you'd like to see some from 2007 and before.  They are all gone except for two of them and I'm not willing to part with those two right now.   (The one shown above is one that I still have.)

Since school is starting in a matter of days, I will probably get the urge to break out the paint brushes again and do some more large format work.  That may not make since to you if you don't already know that I teach art for a living.  The kids very much inspire me.  Trying new techniques inspires me.  Change of pace inspires me too.  If I do paint, I'll post them and probably offer to sell them.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far...

Crystal, my sister, gave SB an easel with a dry erase board for her birthday and she loves it.  See other posts for more of her works of art.  These two drawings are among my favorite.  They've got real personality.  The left is one of her first face drawings.  I drew the circle before she started and the ears when she was done.  (Sorry.  He needed ears.)  To me he looks so much like Charlie Brown, don't you think?  Maybe it's the zigzag line.  I don't know.  For the right one, she asked me to draw a snake so she could add the face to it.  I drew the long snake-like body and bulbous head.  She did everything else.  My reaction:  I couldn't have done it better myself if I tried.  I love the personality of this guy.  Maybe someday I'll collect all my phone photos of her drawings and turn them into a storybook.

...Once upon a time, Charlie Brown and his stylish snake friend went on an adventure...  Blaaahhhh... I'll leave the writing to someone talented.

Pretty good drawings for a two year old huh?

Budding Artist/ Obsessive Hygiene

So if you know my girl then you know she hates to get dirty.  That being said, we had some time to work on her obsession with personal hygiene.  Being an artist myself, I really want some of my strengths to come through in her so we took a trip to Hobby Lobby and bought some tempera paint (paint I have never owned due to it's cheap, temporary quality.)  For this, however, tempera was just right - no permanent stains, easy clean up, quick wash off the hands in the event of a panic. 

In the left photo, the hand holding the brush is obviously smeared with red paint.  She's not that messy.  I smeared it on her to break the ice and let her know that it was ok to get a little messy.  It took some convincing and some fake laughs on my part but she was ok.

In the right photo she's wearing Daddy's white tshirt whenever she gets the fever to create. She calls it her "paint dress".   She likes it.  You can see that there is a paint brush for every color and that none of the colors are mixed and dirty with other colors.  We established that rule early on so that colors would stay pure. 

She follows the rules gladly talking to herself as she goes along... "Now blue.  Ok. Let's put blue on the page.  Oh beautiful.  Now green.  Get the green brush.  Ok.  Oooh.  So pretty.  I love to paint."  Then, when she gets a dot of paint on her hand...  "WIPE IT OFF!  WIPE IT OFF, MOMMY!"  Once I wipe them clean we're back to, "Ok.  Now the red one..." and so on.

More beach pictures to come.

Fashionable Plastic Bags

Ever wonder what to do with all those Wal Mart bags lying around the house?  With an iron, some parchment paper and lots of plastic bags, you could deck yourself out in full attire.  

If you're interested in how to fuse plastic bags together, scroll down past the pictures.

My workplace put on a contest which called for us to sport our best at a fashion show.  (I'd rather sit in the corner while someone else sports my creation.)  I had decided not to participate because I didn't want to "walk the runway" for my colleagues.  One of my coworkers volunteered to don my work.  She was a good sport and won a super cool bookmark for my two-hour plastic bag dress. 

A description: 

I apologize for the poor image quality.  These were taken with my iPhone, some in the dark. 

TOP

That's me (dark hair) in my office trying it on.

I tried on the top over my white t-shirt.  The top is a strapless corset that laces up the back.  The darts in the front (which are hard to see) were made by ironing the bags together on the wrong side of the fabric where darts would have been if it were sewn together.  (confusing I know)

SHOULDER PIECE

It's basically a piece of elastic sewn in a circle with the bag straps tied on to one end.  Lots of people make no-sew tutus like this.  The same applies to the top of the back of the skirt.  It was hot glued to the rest of the skirt.

SKIRT

The base of the skirt is made of single fused layers of Wal Mart bags - thus the blue and white motif.  The only reason the front is short is because it took less time than making a long front.  I wasn't going for a Guns-n-Roses "November Rain" wedding dress.  I hadn't even seen the video until after it was made.  I was going for more of an Elizabethan style getup. 

HAIR

I made a flower with leaves coming out from it and attached it to a clip.

Fusing Plastic Bags

It's a pretty easy thing to do. 

Materials: 

two large pieces of parchment paper (not wax paper*)

scissors

iron

ironing surface

plastic bags

Prepare your plastic bags by cutting off the bottom seam and the two handles and laying the bag flat.     Set the iron to a low to medium setting.  Place one piece of parchment paper on the ironing surface.  Put a plastic bag on the parchment paper then cover it with the other piece of parchment paper.  You basically have a  sandwich -- parchment paper/plastic bag/parchment paper.  Iron over the surface of the top parchment paper at a medium speed.  Don't go slow or the bags will melt. 

The key is to test the heat of the iron on a scrap bag.  (I know, they're all scrap bags.)  If the iron is not hot enough, the bags will remain separate.  If it is too hot, the bags will form holes like Swiss cheese and disintegrate.

I've ironed up to 16 layers of bags together at a time without a problem.  More may be possible.  You just have to get used to how your iron works.  Don't give up after one try.  Just keep the bags away from direct contact with the iron.  Nothing good comes from it.

SEWING

Plastic bags make a great sewing surface.  The surface is very friendly to the sewing machine and thread holds it together remarkably well.  There's no need to worry about fraying edges either.

PAINTING

Straight acrylic paint will eventually peel off but works great for temporary stuff.  Prime the surface if you insist on using acrylic paint.  Spray paint is permanent.  Alcohol Inks (used for scrapbooking) work well and give a nice leather effect.   (The clutch below has alcohol ink painted on it and has been sewn together.)

*Wax paper will melt onto the plastic and not come off.  If you want that effect, go for it.  It works too.  That's how the flower on the purse was made. 

Good luck.  Make a purse or something.  It'll be waterproof!

Busy Bee

This was my first photo of SB since late November when I took her Christmas pictures.  She's growing up and if not for my mom, I wouldn't have much of a record of the past few months because I have taken no pictures.  Mom takes pictures of her every Friday when she stays with her for the day.  Because I'm fairly confident that she takes pictures every week, I haven't worried about it.  Mom's photos are great for the most part.  SB doesn't make it easy.          

Work has kept me entirely too busy lately.  Our student art show is fast approaching and my students are never ready early.  I blame myself.  I have a hard time saying "no" to any student who wants to try to do something better days before things are due.  I end up staying after school every day until the very last minute urging them to work faster.  They tend to take the pressure as well as I do.

The word "yes" seems to fall out of my mouth freely for any reason whatsoever.  I have trouble turning anything down.  It's not so much that I feel pressured into doing some task, it's just that I like a challenge.  

Some of those "yesses" include:

-making a beauty pageant costume look like a head of cotton; I couldn't resist. 

-making a 4 tier wedding cake.  (I will never make another wedding cake again if I have any say in the matter.)

-have another exhibit of my artwork with no current pieces to speak of.

-exhibit my students work when it isn't required.

...and now I will abruptly end this typing spree because I'm really

t i  r   e   d  .  .  .

 

Hoot

So I tried my hand at screen printing. I decided to go as simple as possible with the process. I used the drawing/ screen filler method. (Basically, I drew a picture, traced my drawing onto the screen, and filled all the negative space with screen filler. Screen filler clogs all the holes in the screen and prevents ink from seeping through. In the image below the screen filler is a brownish color. The owl is not painted at all.)

Lots of my students gave me some feedback as far as the design goes. I like the way the owl came out - not too girly. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I planned to make t-shirts for the boys at Sarah Beth's birthday party. It's also a good way to learn to use the screen print kit before my art students get a hold of it.

The instructions say to pre-wash the garment before screen printing, but I was ready with my supplies and didn't have a washer and dryer handy. I went ahead and printed one t-shirt with pretty good success. (See below.) I decided to go ahead and stop to pre-wash the rest of the t-shirts before printing the rest of them. When it was time to print again, things didn't turn out as nicely as they had the first go 'round. I didn't bother taking pictures of my 2 "disaster shirts". I ended up hand painting the bottom half of all the letters because they didn't print... on either shirt. I tried making more than one pass. That didn't work out so well either. There are some gray spots here and there from the ink sinking through the filler. I really haven't figured out what happened to the cut off letters.


Click here to see a tutorial that follows the same method, but with homemade materials. NOTE: Screen filler can be washed out and the screen can be reused. I'm not sure about Elmer's glue.

Birdies

Here they are...all 16 of them. Some of my students helped me make a few of them while they were waiting for some of their own things to dry. I love them all. My mom is going to make a tree so they'll have a home. When she gets that done, I'll post them again. Mom is pretty crafty herself, especially with floral arrangement type things.

I racked my brain about what to make for the boys who come to SB's birthday party and finally decided on something. I am going to screen print a t shirt for them. I just got the supplies to screen print and need to learn the process anyway.

I often consult with my students for good ideas because they genuinely have some...sometimes. One of my Freshman girls said that a good idea would be to put the iPod logo on a t shirt but add an extra "o" in it. That way it would say "iPood" which is humorous, but I'm not sure all the parents of these boys would find it as amusing as I did. One of my high school boys suggested I make a buzzard on a shirt because that still stuck with the bird theme, but was more masculine (...and grotesque.)

Since I'm trying to stick with the bird theme, I ended up with a pretty cute little owl with a caption under it that says, "I'm a hoot!" It's not too original, but why reinvent the wheel? I completely drew the owl on my own, with constant critiques from my students. They really do have good things to say, but they can be brutally honest too. In the end, I liked it and I plan to share the process in a later post for those who are completely new to screen printing.

Great Party Favors

Ten Worst Party Favors:

1. Plastic frog with tab on butt that makes it jump.

2-10. Anything that makes noise or stains or is sticky.

I was trying to come up with party favors for SB's birthday that went along with the BIRDday theme, and I just thought I'd share my idea with you. The party favors will be part of my party decorations until they are taken home by the guests.

I'm a big fan of hair clips for my baby girl's hair, and I often get comments/compliments on the ones in Sarah Beth's hair. My bright idea - hair birdies for each of the girls coming to the party. They are much cuter than those birthday party dunce caps that used to be popular when I was a kid.

Something I say a lot is, "I could have made that for nothing!" after seeing something that would have been easy to do myself. Mind you, making 13 birdies is quite time consuming if you want them all to be unique. It's just plain fun and worth doing if you'd like to save a buck... or 50 bucks. Anyway, here's how I did it.

1. Get some Sculpey clay at your local craft store.

2. Roll into a ball and knead it into a slab the thickness of 10 playing cards. Hint: If you place 10 cards on the table under both ends of your rolling pin, you'll get exactly that thickness.

3. Cut out your shape. I like the tear drop shape for my little birdie and I made mine out of a piece of copper foil. If you don't have access to a stash of copper foil you could use an Xacto knife or pottery tool or a even cookie cutter.

4. Bake it in the oven according to the instructions on the pack of Sculpey. (I think it's about 15 minutes on 275 degrees.)

5. Find some stuff around the house and decorate to your heart's content!

6. Hot glue a clip to the back. You can get a pack of 100 from Sally's for about 5 bucks.

7. Take a picture to remember it.

When they're all complete, I will clip them onto a dead branch that I plan to spruce up and use as a tree. It may sound a little glum, so when I get that far I'll post a picture.

March of the Tools II

Here is another one of my favorite tools. The Wacom Bamboo pen tablet. I like to use it to draw in Photoshop but mostly to have my own handwriting on things. I also really enjoy the pressure sensitivity of the pen. I am by no means using this baby to it's fullest potential.

Drawing on paper with a pencil is much easier to control. Just think about when you sign your name on one of those electronic signature thingies at the grocery store. Your John Hancock looks more like Jackson Pollock tried to use an Etch-a-Sketch. Until you get used to the pen tablet, it's like your learning to write your name for the first time.

I keep my fingers on Ctrl/Alt/Z (undo) and press them almost instinctively even if the result is pleasing. That keeps the process organic. I expect that most of my strokes are going to be duds. When a good one comes along, I'm pleasantly surprised and head for the redo button. It's kind of like throwing spaghetti noodles on the wall and seeing which ones stick -which ones I want to stick.

Check out my birdie here. I plan on using something like this for SB's birthday invitation. It's simple and possibly could have been done with a regular mouse, but the pen was way more fun. I really like the position of Birdie's feet. She's saying something here, like... "Come to SB's BIRDday party. It's this way," or, "I'm tired of standing on this left leg of mine."

March of the Tools

There are two things I feel are "must haves" for any artist/crafter -something that rends and something that mends.
Here is my trusty rotary cutter. Once I was purchasing some fabric in a local quilting shop when the clerk cut my yardage with one of these babies. I was sold at that moment. It has only been a resident of my toolkit for the past 6 or so months. I don't know how I ever got along without it before. I find it so much easier to cut straight edges especially on large quantities of fabric. If you've never used one of these, I think you'd find plenty of uses for it even if you're not a sewer. You'll need a cutting surface and a nice straight edge to make the most of it, but those aren't so expensive and can be found in lots of craft stores, even in WalMart. Replacement blades are between $5 and $10.

One of my other favorite tools is my glue gun. Once when I was teaching science in private school, I asked parents if the class could borrow some glue guns as I was in need of about 6 of them for a roller coaster project. One of the parents bought me 6 glue guns and told me I could keep them. They are still in my arsenal. I use them for everything from making hairpieces to adding texture on paintings, to burning holes in plastic things - thus the burnt tip.


This is my first "March of the Tools" post in conjunction with Heather Bailey's month-long blog feature. Click on the March of the Tools graphic on the sidebar to learn more.

Let them eat cake!

Mom's birthday cake.

Disclaimer: I am not a cook or a cake decorator.

I made this cake for my mom for her birthday. (It was good practice for SB's birthday which is coming up in May.) This was my first attempt at decorating with fondant...decorating period. Turns out I'm not so good at it. I have no prior experience and have only read one book about using fondant. (It was mostly pictures.) I figured it would be like working in clay. Not so!

Hidden (or obvious) flaws in the above cake:

• The round disks on the bottom are covering the worst attempt at blending the fondant into itself. There were a lot of excess folds left over and I could not get the seams to merge...so I covered them with dots.
• The clumpy round balls on the ledge of the second layer are there to fill in the large gap that would not close. I tried covering the entire cake instead of one layer at a time. Unfortunately this kept the fondant from clinging to the sides and making corners. I decided to fix it by scoring the corners and pressing them in the creases. The fondant began to pull away and left a large gap around the whole bottom of the second tier. Thus the round clumpy balls. Tasty! (A thought...Tasty and Nasty are one letter apart.)
• The corners are not all at right angles.

What did I learn from this?

• Practice more with forming the fondant around each layer before attempting anything for public viewing (and eating.)
• Cover each layer one at a time.
• Draw a sketch before sitting there for hours trying to figure out what to practice.
• Wear a back brace. One cake puts ten years of wear and tear on the back.
• Start before 8:00 pm.
• Pay someone to do SB's cake if the next practice one turns out as bad.
• Appreciate those who decorate cakes well.
  

Fashionista

Haley, one of my students, wanted to do some fashion designing as a project in my class. She's in 5th grade, so I wanted to keep it simple. Take a look at the dress she's wearing and decide for yourself whether or not it's simple to make. She's the one on the very left in blue.

Her cousin was in the Miss America Pageant, and Haley and her family attended the program. There she met Clinton Kelly from What Not to Wear. He complemented her on her dress... which she forgot to mention that she made...in my class.