Thankful

I am thankful we have a nice house with family, food and warmth to fill it. I hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful Thanksgiving with family and friends.

Sneak Peeks

I have been working at the museum all week. We are installing an exhibition of Jun Kaneko's works. He is a ceramicist that creates huge pieces. Some weigh 1300 pounds. It has definitely been an engineering feat to get those pieces in place (we still have one more to go). We also have some of his paintings and drawings.

I wanted to give you a sneak peek to show you how we were wrangling them into place. But the pictures I took are on my cell phone and I don't know how to download them to the computer. I don't think the phone came with a USB cable and the instruction manual is no help. If I ever figure it out, you will get to see them.

Below are some pieces I'm working on for the online class I am taking from Jane LaFazio called Mixed Media with Paper and Cloth. These are just starting out.

What a Bunch of Hoopla!

After my workshop on Saturday, Anna and I went to a Hula-hoop making party. I had wanted to buy the stuff from Home Depot to make big hoops over the summer, but never got around to it. When I found out about the party, I figured that would be easier. They already had the hoops put together and we got to decorate our own.

You can see by my hoop below that they had a lot of colored tape choices. (I think I used about every color on mine.) Anna chose blue and orange camouflage tape and white for BSU colors. It took us quite a while to wrap it all and we didn't get to stay to learn some of the tricks because Anna's friend had invited her over to spend the night. It was a fun project and Anna is very excited.

By the way, it is easier for adults to do if you have a bigger hoop (that's why it's hard if you try to do the kid's size hoops).

Printmaking Workshop II

Last month I took a printmaking workshop at BSU on monotypes. This weekend I took another printmaking workshop, with the same teacher, on polyester plate lithography. It was all day yesterday and today.

I really had no idea what the process was. Yesterday I learned a lot and was a bit overwhelmed with all the possibilities of this technique. I also was getting quite frustrated as I could not get my prints to work. So the first day all I accomplished was this print below that is about 3" x 4" and I just traced some clipart.



I was hoping and determined that today would be better. After I came home from the class I looked through some photos on the computer and messed with them in photoshop. Then I printed a copy and took them to class today. You can xerox or laser print directly onto the polyester plate (it is a thin plastic-like sheet). I ended up with some better results.


The class also decided to do an exchange so we had to have at least 10 prints if we wanted to trade. Mine were not all of the same thing. I also printed this angel on fabric. It turned out pretty well and I will heat set it later.


The bowl was hand printed on Japanese paper. The rest were run through the press.

Yo!

One day while I was at JoAnn's, I purchased the Clover Flower yo-yo maker. I had seen them and thought I could use it on my scraps while watching football. I started with my red fabric thinking that Christmas was ahead. I have about 30 of them now, and more scraps to go. I know I could make a garland with them. But I was wondering if any of you readers had any other suggestions of what I could do with these?

Freaky Friday

Anna did not have school yesterday and today. Today I was hoping on working on a secret project; maybe do some art dabbling, in hopes of having some art content for those of you interested in that. However, it was not to be.

We received a call this morning from Anna's friend's dad saying that they discovered her friend had head lice. Since Anna had spent Halloween night at her friend's house, they wanted us to know.

I've never encountered this problem before so I had to go online to figure out what I was suppose to be looking for. I found some pictures, examined Anna and determined she had the nits (I didn't see any adults, but apparently they are very hard to see). So off to the drugstore we went to get some treatment.

Then, we had to do some fine combing and treatment. I decided that I probably had it too (was wondering why my head was so itchy) and repeated the steps on myself (not so easy to do). After that, it was massive cleaning and removing bed linens. I've been working on it all day and still am not finished. I also had the great pleasure of having to call another friend of Anna's and tell her step-mom of the situation because Anna was over at their place yesterday.

Anna was very upset as all of her animals are now in quarantine for two weeks. This will be the first night, in probably ten years since she's had big cat, that she will not be sleeping with Big Cat. Big Cat is in a plastic bag in the freezer. (I read online that you can freeze stuff overnight and that will kill the lice. Quicker than the plastic bag method. Fortunately, Big Cat is really not that big. He fits in a gallon Ziploc bag.)

The timing is also a bummer for me because I have to work both days this weekend (a first for me at the art museum). That means I will probably have to do laundry and cleaning after I get home.

Wool Bird

Halloween is over and I'm ready to move on. It seemed like it dragged out over a long period of time this year. Anyway, here is a little wool bird ornament I made from fabric from an old coat. The shape was from the new Quilting Arts Gifts guide. But, of course, I did it a bit different than they did.

Halloween

We had a fairly quiet Halloween night. I took Anna over to her friend's house early. She and Lauren were going to have dinner there, go trick-or-treating and then Anna was spending night. (Lauren lives in a flat part of town and the houses are closer together, so they can hit more houses).

Below is Anna and Lauren during school. They were both "Warrior" cats (it's a book series). We "umphed" Anna's cat scratches with some red felt sewn behind, as she didn't think they were noticeable before.


We did manage to get our pumpkins carved the night before Halloween. Anna tried to do a tiger with a little too much detail for the size and got frustrated. I think it still looks like a scary animal. Frank did the joker face from Batman. I did a super simplified version of Wall-E from the Disney movie.

Halloween Morning

Happy Halloween! It is only 8:10 a.m. but I have already had a great morning. We had to get up early as Anna has choir before school, which means she has to be there by 7:55 a.m. It takes us about 20 minutes to walk there. When we left this morning it was still dark. The weather was surprisingly warm at around 69 degrees. I think it will be one of those rare days when it starts out warm and gets cooler as the day goes on. It is very cloudy and windy. I think it is the cold front moving in.

Anna was very excited to be walking in the dark on Halloween day. As we went through the field, we couldn't tell if the dark shapes were bushes or deer (we had seen some on Wednesday morning). The dark plays tricks with your eyes.

As we walked along the streets, the wind was blowing lots of leaves off the trees. It was "snowing" leaves, or as Anna and I like to say, it was "leaf-ing". One leaf came down in front of us and Anna thought for a second it was a ghost. I thought it looked like a butterfly. The leaves were crunching under foot. We didn't have to hurry because it was a rare morning that we left very early. Anna was jibber-jabbering the whole way.

Returning home, it was slightly lighter and I saw that the dark shapes in the field were just bushes after all. I was slightly disappointed, but as I continued up the path, I did see one deer. It was a male with either 4 or 6 points. We usually see a group of females and, not often, males. He stared at me and I admired him. I continued on and he continued eating. Yes, it's been a lovely morning.

Scary!

I'm not really sure I want to share this scary picture, but since it is Halloween time, I will. I have had a busy weekend. It was not very relaxing but I did manage to get quite a bit done. Friday night was the school Halloween dance, hence the reason I am dressed in Goth garb. For some reason, I'm the one that gets to go to these things with Anna and not Frank.

Anna had a Halloween party to go to on Saturday and they still have a class party and trick-or-treating yet.

I spent most of Saturday inside on the computer. I managed to download the dance pix for the yearbook, upload photos to Snapfish, get the yearbook meeting stuff ready and show the yearbook software to the other parent that is helping me this year and taking over next year. I also managed to get stuff prepared for the art lesson I'm doing this week.

Sunday I had to make myself go outside, even though there was plenty more things to do inside. I did do some laundry and then cleaned up under, around the wood pile and re-stacked the little bit of wood we do have. It's ready for some more. I also managed to put some of the deck furniture under cover. I didn't want to rake leaves yet as there are more to fall. But the other was enough to get me outside and enjoying the nice weather. Looks like we have a beautiful week ahead of us.

Another Collage

This is the last collage in this series for now as I have used up all the background papers I had made. The quote on this one says: "Nature always tends to act in the simplest way."

Nature Act
Image size: approx. 8" x 5-1/2"

sewed to 12" x 9" Bristol paper
$25
(plus $5 shipping and handling)

A Couple More Collages

Here is another collage I worked on last week. This one is the only one so far that doesn't have a quote on it.

Fall
8" x 6"
sewed onto 12" x 9" Bristol paper
$25
(plus $5 shipping and handling)

This second collage is bigger than all the others. It was too big to scan so I had to take a picture, which is not the best. The quote says: "You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters." - Saint Bernard

Find Woods
Approx. 12" x 16" sewed onto Bristol paper
$35
(plus $5 shipping and handling)



Below is a picture I took of the trace leaves I did in the printmaking workshop before cutting them up to put in the chine colle

Prints

Today was the second day of my weekend printmaking workshop at BSU. This workshop was all about monotypes. Now I can show you what I did. For this first print, I did some trace printing with the (white) leaves. This is when you ink the plate, lay a japanese paper on top and then draw on the back of the paper. The ink is then on the front when you are done. I did the entire plate of leaves. Then I ran the plate through the press to get the reverse, which is the background on this piece.

Then I started with a clean plate and added some paint with a brush for the color. Before running it through the press, I cut out some of the traced leaves, put acrylic medium on them and then ran the print through the press again with the new color. The glueing of pieces on the print while running it through the press is called Chine colle.



This second print was just the additive method, where you just paint directly on the plate and then run it through the press to take a print.


This print I rolled on different colors on the plate. I stamped those swirls on the plate with a rubber stamp. Then I layed down some cut out shapes and pieces of yarn on top of the plate. When run through the press, these become the white sections.

After one run, I pull off the yarn and the paper pieces. I turned the paper pieces over (they now have ink on them) and moved them to a different section of the plate. Then I ran it through the press again to get this ghost print.


Here's another print with the different color sections of ink, stamped swirls and stencils on top.


This one was also done in sections. I stamped each section as I inked it on the plate. I used the stencils again and the colored trees were stencils that I ran ink over before I put them on the plate.



Last, but not least, are my favorites. These are trace prints where you ink the plate, put the thin paper down and then draw on the back to pick up the ink. What I found difficult with this technique is that any amount of pressure on the paper will pick up ink. So you can't rest your hand on the paper. It made it a little harder for me to draw the lines when my hand was raised in the air.

I can't believe these are my favorites because I feel like I really don't know how to draw birds very well. Fortunately, the teacher had brought some copies of black and white illustrations and this is what I was looking at as I drew them. The tree branches I did because it took such a long time for the first three birds, I was getting tired of drawing them.

Two More Collages

Today I spent the whole day at a workshop at Boise State University for monotype printmaking. It is a non-credit course. I cannot show you what I did today because it is still there drying as we used oil-based inks. I will also be there all day tomorrow. Instead, I have two more collages to show you.

Soil Tree
Image size approx. 8" x 6" sewed to 9"x12" Bristol paper
$25
(plus $5 shipping and handling)

The quote says: "The soil, in return for her service, keeps the tree tied to her; the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.

Green Heart
The quote says: "Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come."
Sold

Something New

This week I have been spending some time working on collages. I really enjoy other people's collages but have not done many myself. Since I am currently on a "reuse/recycle" theme, I decided to do some collages with found papers. I like how others build up layers with papers, paint, stamps, etc. to create texture. That was what I was going for as well.

I've used all kinds of papers: pages torn from books (especially foreign language ones), sewing pattern paper, brown paper bags, leftover scrapbook paper, etc. The trees are stamps I carved.

I'm also going to try something new by offering these for sale. Someday I hope to have my own art web page, or an Etsy shop or just a blog with artwork for sale. But for now, I will just offer them here. The images are about 6" x 8" and they are sewn onto 9" x 12" Bristol paper. If you are interested in buying one, you can email me or leave a comment. I have a Paypal account and would also be willing to do a trade.

Peace Trees
$25
(plus $5 for shipping and handling)

There is a quote written throughout the background that says: "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." - John Muir

Light Nature
$25
(plus $5 for shipping and handling)

The quote throughout the background on this one says: "Come forth into the light of things. Let nature be your teacher." - William Wordsworth

I have a few more I'm working on as well.

Go Green

Quite a while ago, Quilting Arts magazine had a "Go Green" challenge to make a small quilt using recycled materials. This is what I sent in, but they chose not to use it. Maybe there wasn't enough fabric for it to be considered a quilt. Anyway, I'm showing it to you now.

It is made with old pattern paper, flowers cut out from tissue paper, a piece of wool fabric cut from a thrift store skirt, old beads and tops of old buttons, a piece of selvedge, plastic tab from an orange juice can (that's the ruffles on the shirt), strips of leftover plastic canvas to make the border with stitches in between the holes. The backing is Timtex and more of the shirt fabric.

First Snow of the Season

Yes, indeed. Yesterday we were surprised to look out the window and see it snowing, big, fat, wet flakes.



After a little while, it looked like the picture above. Last night we had a concert to go to downtown. After we parked the car and were walking to the theater, we heard this loud crack and saw a branch from a tree fall from the weight of the snow on the leaves.

This morning we saw that one of our trees in the back broke off as well. I think the whole tree will now have to come down as there is not much left. I can't ever recall seeing snow on the fall leaves before. The paper did say it was the earliest snow on record since they started keeping track over a hundred years ago.

The trees here are just starting to turn colors. The locust trees looked very pretty with the snow on the delicate, yellow leaves.

Being Thrifty

Last night we had a bit of a frost here. Yesterday, I picked all the basil on my one plant, pulled some carrots, picked a couple small zucchini in anticipation of the cold. Today I made pesto.

Today I also went to the thrift store to try to find clothes for Anna's Halloween costume. Originally she was going to be a black ninja cat. Now she wants to be a warrior cat. So I thought if I could get some black clothes at the thrift store, we could actually tear and distress the fabric as she wants to be a battle-worn cat. I did manage to find a black shirt and pants for her.

I also found some fabric. Usually they don't have much, but today there was quite a bit. It looked like a quilter cleaned out their stash or a store went out of business and donated the fabric. They had bundles of several different fabrics together. There were also fat quarters that had not been undone (that's why I think it was from a store).

Of the bundles, I picked this one. There are four different fabrics from the Hoffman "Kasuri" line. The bundle was 10 dollars. When I got home I measured the lengths and it was about ten yards all together. It looks like it is right off the bolt. So it was about a dollar a yard. Good deal considering this fabric could be eight or nine dollars a yard at the quilt store.

I didn't pick up any of the other bundles. There was quite a bit of purple. There was a couple that had some batiks in them and then just the usual calicos. I also got a couple of wool sweaters to felt and hopefully will find a use for them.

The store seemed unusually busy today. I don't think it was people looking for Halloween costumes but just normal clothes. Must be all the recession talk. I've always thought it was a good way to save money and conserve resources. Plus, you really can find some nice clothes if you have the time to look.

Trees

I was able to carve a few stamps on Monday. The changing of the leaves and autumn must have trees on my mind.


While I was trying out the stamps, I made this little piece, Tree Tenants #2.

Beautiful Sunset