Making A Mobile

The challenge this week for Laura McHugh East and me was to make mobiles. The gentle wind is out and for some reason I was dreaming of mobiles last week, so I had some things all ready.

I’m still sick and not feeling at all like going out, so it was a good challenge again to use only things from around the house.

In my mind, a mobile is an Alexander Calder-like contraption and I was scouring my memory to see if I had any sticks that would work in conjunction with each other but I was not coming up with anything. Then, I spied these two circles on my art cart, that I had saved last week. 

They were the packing separating some frying pans I bought on-line. At the time, they seemed cool because I like circles. Now they seem perfect for the mobile.

I took a drawing I did of some fish and printed it out in different sizes and colors for use on the mobile. I am using embroidery thread to hang the fishies, after I cut them out and mounted them to some cardstock weight paper.

 

I decided to make some kelp, watery wavy elements and a few rocks to add contrast to the mobile. I used the leftover pieces of the fish prints for the othe relements(blue for water, green for kelp).

After giving each element a coating of luscious beeswax, and  without paying too much attention I glued the elements to the inside of the cardboard ring, keeping the kelp and wave elements together. When the glue dried, I added a hanger to hold the whole thing up and hung it to take photos. 

It is a bit challenging to keep the elements from getting all wound up in one another but as long as it is not out in the wind, it seems to hang fine.

This was a really fun challenge - to make something in three dimensions. I think I will give it to my grandson - he would probably like looking up at it. 

use umbrellas in a piece was our challenge this week from my very busy friend Laura McHugh West.....

I thought why not use use the umbrella as the piece instead of in the piece....

just love the lines of the umbrella....

its a blank canvas to paint what you want on it.....

last year on this very day....my hubby and I went into NYC on Easter Sunday it was a Day just like today...so beautiful and spring like.....I wanted to get plain umbrellas to paint my own designs on...I did some research and found Pearl River....What a store, we were in there for hours...fun fun fun...check it out..... http://www.pearlriver.com/v2/index.html

I remember seeing a blog post of one of my favorite mixed media artists  Alisa Burke http://www.alisaburke.blogspot.com/  a few years ago where she painted on a plain umbrella...so my search began... and ended at Pearl River.....

this is my favorite red bud tree....with my plain umbrella waiting for inspiration...

 

I love roses and since my roses aren't blooming yet I thought why not paint roses so that is what I did....I just freestyle painted hot pink roses with darker Fuchsia centers with cheapo craft  paint on the umbrella...make sure not to use to much water that would ruin the thin umbrella paper... I painted leaves and quick free style vines in a tossed pattern all over the umbrella....

I love it......and it looks so pretty in my favorite tree....

and here she rests on where my  colorful roses will bloom in a few weeks.....

what would you paint on a  blank umbrella?????? I have one more waiting for another interesting pattern or design....

Easter Umbrellas on the West Coast

This week's challenge is to make some umbrellas, posed by Laura McHugh East. I've been looking forward to this challenge, wondering what I might do with Tiki drink paper umbrellas I've saved, or maybe I would draw some fantasical umbrellas.


Truth be told, I'm not an "umbrella person." Last April, when my friend and I went to NYC for a few days, it rained harder than I've ever seen it rain. I have always relied on the hood of my coat to keep me out of the weather, but after walking several blocks from seeing "Rain" (ironically) to our hotel, I was drenched because I did not use the umbrella. My camera, under my coat, got so wet I thought it might have damaged it.


Here are some photos of many umbrellas that were out on display in NYC, and my art piece for this week. Even after this soaked experience, I still don't own an umbrella. I think I'm the only person in the world who doesn't but I am spared the disappointment of it blowing inside out and I don't have to manage and keep track of it. I have to give up that it is a fashion accessory, though.

Regarding the art piece, I have been sick for days with a fever and chills - the flu I think. So, I cheated a bit this week and used a mixed media piece I made in 2012 for this challenge.


I took old papers (tax forms) and photos and assembled them on a large panel. The base of the piece is a nautical chart of Vancouver, where my family is from. I added some matte medium that has little glass bubbles in it and the cut outs of some vintage umbrellas and fishies.

What are the fishies whispering in the strange gentleman's ears? Is he torn?

APRIL SHOWERS

create a carved stamp with the theme "APRIL SHOWERS" this was my idea..... Laura from the east coast...........Happy April 1st or April fools day....I love carving stamps and love teaching it to my art students...they love it too...it is nice to see your design on paper transferred to a stamp.....here is my stamps for the 1st of April....

love speedball supplies......

drew my designs onto drawing paper the same size of the stamps....

with a pencil pressing very hard I drew the outline on the reverse side of the paper.....then used a pen to re draw the design leaving a transfer on the rubber stamp...

now to the carving...love this step...very relaxing and rewarding...

be careful...hands and fingers are always out of the way......

here is my 3 carved stamps......and one of my favorite ink pads....

carved stamps 1st impressions....

I made a page from my 3 stamps, lining them up next to each other.....

I tried using the stamps all in order rain drops, clouds, then umbrellas...

simple but.....I love it.....

I stamped the umbrellas on  a lot of different pages...old book pages, and scrap book pages....

I cut out the umbrella's and taped them down to the stamped background....

added 1 pink umbrella on a dark turquoise stamped background....

love banners and thought why not ...so I stamped scrap book papers front and back..

I  punched  some holes in the pictures....and then ran some cute pink and white bakers twine thru the holes to make a banner....

what kind of stamps would you carve????

Stamping Fun

This week, our challenge from Laura McHugh East was to carve a stamp with the theme "April Showers."
 
We've finally had some rain, but everything in my yard is in bloom so all I could think was "Flowers."
 
I follow the blog of Gennine Zlatkis, who is a stamp carver extraordinaire. If she has any pre-make stamps, you wouldn't know it because she custom makes all the stamps she uses in her work.
 
Some instruction from Geninne that I followed on how to make my stamps can be found here.
 
Here's my Staedtler & Mars white eraser ready to go. I had tried carving a few months ago, but was too busy and distracted to make it work. This eraser is about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide. For this activity, I used both sides.



I used the Speedball tool to simply remove the eraser from around where I didn't want the stamp. For this side, I made a leaf. The other side was the "flowers." They are oddly shaped (square) partly because this was the side I previously tried to carve and partly because I didn't have the skill or the space to make things nice and round.

 

To make the images, I used this black stamp pad on a piece of Yupo paper I had. I am not fond of the Yupo paper - it is really slick so inks and watercolors don't really dry on it. But it is really good for getting a sharp graphic image. 

 

Here is the flower I created with the leaf and flower sides of my new stamp.

 Close up of the leaf portion.

I got these images done and I thought - wow - these are pretty, but not very spring-like, so I imported them into my Picasa program and fiddled with them to add color, borders, etc. 


Here are the results of my playing with Picasa.