Saturday 28 July 2012

Third Layer - Painting Party






This past Thursday we hosted our first Painting Party at Art Dwellers.  It was so much fun, that we intend to continue having them!:)  We, at Art Dwellers, have been to other painting get togethers in the Houston area and decided that it would be fun to do it ourselves.  The difference is that we wanted to offer richness to the art pieces by way of texture, meaning, and detail, and we wanted to give students the ability to choose a whole range of colors to suit their homes.  So often we heard others saying that they put their paintings away in closets, under beds, etc. because although it was fun to do, the art pieces weren’t the caliber of paintings they would want to hang on their walls.  We were prepared to do the extra work necessary to achieve our goals as we definitely thought that it would be worth it…and it was!


Our project on Thursday was a cross with the students initial woven around it.  To prepare the canvas, we tore up pages from a book, and mod podged them directly onto the canvas, overlapping as we went.  You can also use newspaper, colored paper, etc.  Then we took two different colored stamp pads and antiqued the edges of the canvas.  Simply rub the stamp pads along the edges of the canvas and run with your fingers to soften the look. We made a stencil for the cross and drew out initials for each student.  There are so many fonts to choose from when deciding on the initial.  We gave the students the option to use our ready made stencils or to chose to make their own.  Once the initial drawing was transferred onto the canvas, the students started painting.  You can transfer the drawing by rubbing charcoal on the back of your drawing, placing it face up on your canvas, and then tracing your image.  This is quite easy to do.  Or, you can buy some tracing paper to copy your image onto the canvas.  We showed them how to use a brush so that their edges would be straight and their points pointy, and then we showed them how to shade.  Use a flat brush for straight edges, and a pointy brush for your points.  Do not press down on your brushes if you don’t want a wide line of paint.  As for the shading, think about where an imaginary light source is coming from and lighten the edges that the light would touch, and darken the edges which won’t get any light.  Finally, we showed them the proper way to use a store bought stencil in order for them to add a word and a bird on their piece of art.  Basically don’t use too much paint, and don’t press too hard on your brush.  Practice on a piece of paper before stenciling on your art piece. 

When all was dried, we discussed dry brushing over some areas on their canvas.  With little paint on your brush, lightly go over the top of things that you want to soften.

Check out our Facebook page to see the results of our students.  We are sure that you will agree that they all did a splendid job!  Congrats to them!

BTW the brownies/cookies/coffee/tea/lemonade were definitely enjoyed by all:)




PROMPT

Things are becoming overwhelming?

I have recently resigned from two jobs and all of my “stuff” is coming back to my home.  My oh my.  Talk about overwhelming.  I have boxes on top of boxes, on top of boxes in every room of the house.  It’s either time to move out or time to start organizing.  I choose the organizing because my house is worth it.

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you didn’t know where to even begin to figure it out.  It may be in your family life, your work arena, or social life.  Let me encourage you.  You can start anywhere.  Baby steps.  You will deprive yourself of the satisfaction of accomplishing something that felt impossible at the beginning. What a wonderful feeling it is to start a difficult project and to see it through to the end.  With each successful step, you will gain more and more confidence to continue moving forward and eventually to trying even more difficult things.  Don’t deprive yourself of this joy.

It has taken five days for me to get through all of the boxes, categorizing the items, and putting them away in an organized manner.  I am so glad that I stuck to it because now I can concentrate on my art in a non-cluttered, non-disorganized studio.  I know dear one, that it is much easier to just let things slide, ignore things, and move on to more simple things, but you will miss out on accomplishing ‘bigger’ things in life.  Try it – just one baby step at a time.

By the way, if it’s marriage, your spouse is worth it.  Fight for them.

Believe it or not, we really do care about you.



The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

Proverbs 13:4

Sunday 22 July 2012

Encaustic/Crayon Journal Page - Layer Three


Last week we gave a Melted Crayon/Encaustic Art Class and while it’s fresh in my mind, I decided to write about using wax and crayon on journal pages.  Let me begin by saying that wax and crayons melt so don’t store your journals in your attic if you now what I mean.

I found wax and melted crayon as a medium a couple of years ago.  Using it is just so much fun!!!  I love the feel and look of it.  I understand why it’s been used for art for a few hundred years. When it comes to wax, I have used beeswax and paraffin wax.  Beeswax can be found at art stores and online.  Paraffin can be found at your local grocery store.  The difference I found is that the beeswax is heavier than the paraffin so you can cover an area more quickly with beeswax.  To color the wax the best product I found to use is concentrated liquid dye which I found online but probably is available at art stores as well.



 It is very concentrated and I can imagine that one bottle will last me a few years.  BTW, it can be used on concrete.  I found that out the hard way when I threw the ball for my dog and the ink knocked over and spilled on my patio.  The patio I faux painted stone onto.  Ugh!  I’ll need to figure out how I am going to fix that mess…



Anyways, I put a chunk of wax into a tin pan (wouldn’t use a pot that I cooked with) and heat it at 250 degrees Fahrenheit.  When the wax is melted, add a drop of dye to it.  To mix colors, I suggest you mix them together before adding to the wax.



To paint with the melted wax, use a paint brush designated for wax only, and paint away.  Dip the paint brush into the melted wax and quickly add to your artwork.  The wax will harden pretty quick, so you need to work quickly.  Put down a first layer and then continue to add more layers until you get the opaqueness  that you like. 

Here’s something we found out while working with the wax last week.  You can use the beeswax for the bottom color and then brush over top of it with a layer of another paraffin wax color which will act like a transparent wax.  It was very cool.  Not only that, we scratched wax out of the beeswax with the end of a pencil before adding the paraffin wax.  This allowed the paraffin wax to, not only change the color of the beeswax, but it also filled the areas scratched out.  Great for contrast.
To make 3D flowers, we filled small balloons with water and dipped their bottoms into the beeswax 15 times.  If you are dipping into paraffin wax, you will need to dip the balloon 30 times.  So hold the balloon, dip directly into wax, lift it up right away, wait until the wax dulls, then dip it again, and again, and again, etc.  waiting each time for the wax to dull before dipping it the next time.



Really important, do not let the balloon touch the bottom of the pan or it will burst.  We found that out the hard way….What a mess!!!

After you have dipped it the required amount of times, burst the balloon with a pin, the end of pencil, or something else with a point, and remove the balloon from the flower.  You may need to reshape the wax a little at this point.  Just lightly reshape with your fingers while the wax is still warm.  If you would like, you can rub the edge of the wax flower on the hotplate and dip into glitter or take a hot glue gun and shape the edge in a scallop manner.  Use as is or add a center to the flower of glitter, or rhinestones, buttons, or whatever.  You can use hot glue to attach the center.

Another way to attach items to the center is to heat the center with a glue gun and press objects into the slightly melted wax.

At any time the wax is warm you can stamp objects into it or scratch out layers or designs to give it some texture.

Also, to mix colors and to smooth out the wax, hold a heat gun or hair dryer above the wax and heat until you get the look that you want.

As for crayon…tear off the paper wrapping, heat the end of it on the hotplate and draw.  You will need to reheat the end of it each time the crayon hardens.  I have also heard others put their paper directly onto the hotplate and while the paper is warm, they draw with the crayons.  This allows the crayon to melt while you draw.  Pretty cool!



CAUTION:  Don’t burn yourself on the hotplate or the glue gun.  Ouch!  You may want to wear gloves.

PROMPT

Self-Absorbed?

The other day I was walking down a hallway and waved and smiled at someone I knew.  There was no response from the other person.  They just continued to walk by me as if I didn’t exist.  I went home trying to figure out what I had done that would have caused this person to ignore me.  I couldn’t figure it out.

Finally, after a few days of wondering, I sought out this person who snubbed me.  They were confused as to when the event had taken place.  They didn’t remember even seeing me.  So I explained when and where it all happened.  She apologized to me and said that she had been having an awful day and that she must have been absorbed in thought.  I had spent days wondering what I had done wrong instead of lending an ear to another in need.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in ourselves that we tend to forget or ignore others around us. Dear friends, the truth is that there are so many people struggling around us.  They are dealing with all sorts of issues from troubles in their marriages, their jobs, their friends, their children, their animals, to troubles with self image.

I want to encourage you to get outside yourself and serve and care for others.  When you do this, your own struggles don’t seem so important.  You feel good about helping someone else, and they feel good because you cared for them.  It is a win win situation.

You can change a persons life just by giving them a smile, lending an ear, opening a door, complementing them, encouraging them, or simply by paying for their coffee.  It doesn’t need to be something huge.

People are good at hiding what is going on inside of them.  You may want to give someone a piece of your mind because they have ticked you off.  What if they have just been told that they are fired, or that their spouse is leaving them, or their best friend is moving thousands of miles away.  The truth is most of the time we are not aware of what is going on in others lives.

Do yourself some good.  Think outside yourself and go help others.

Believe it or not, we really do care about you.



In humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.        Philippians 2:1-11




Sunday 15 July 2012

Quilted Journaling.....Extension of the Third Layer!!




When you say the word ‘quilting’, people generally think little old grannies sitting around, chatting, and sewing up some out of date bed cover.  That is not necessarily true.  I have belonged to a quilting group for close to eight years now.  I, along with 20 other women get together 3-4 times a year for a weekend, eat, laugh, and sew.  It’s a blast.   There are many women, and men, who create ‘art quilts’ and there have been many books and magazines written on the subject.  Once a year, in the Fall, Houston hosts an International Quilts Festival where you can see some amazing large art quilts hanging on their walls.  It truly is a sight to behold!

I am encouraged and excited to think about what has gone into making a quilt.  The work, the creativity, and the trials.  Go online and Google art quilts.  I trust that you will be amazed.


There are many materials used to create an art quilt.  You can use photo transfers, fabric paints (although I have used acrylics and watercolor paints as well), ribbons, buttons, paper, beads, lace, tree branches, metals, and on and on.  Whatever you want to use, you can use.  The materials you choose will depend on where you will use the quilt once you are done.  Will it be a wall hanging or will it be covering your bed or couch.  You wouldn’t want a piece of metal sticking into you while trying to get some ‘zzzzz’ if you know what I mean.Beginning with the quilted page I completed earlier on and considering my prompt for this week, I decided to start with a sketch of a women peaking out of her door wondering if she should make the next move. 


I just took an 8.5 X 11 piece of paper and drew with a pencil.  Once the image is complete, pin it to a sandwich of a layer of cotton fabric, a layer of batting, and another layer of cotton batting.  You can sew right through all layers using a sewing machine or by hand.  By hand you can simply use a running stitch.  Make sure that you use a thread color that shows up on your cotton.



I would suggest that the stitch length be short as it will help to make the paper come off easily.  Once you have pulled the paper off your sandwich, you can paint the image.  Of course you can use any paint or ink you’d like.  I used makers to color in my image.





The ‘Be Free’ wording was done with a letter stencil on canvas and then sewn around the edges.  I placed the girl image on top of ‘Be Free’ and sewed that.


You can see that the ‘step out’ sign was done using paper as well as the blue bird.  I sewed right on top of the paper.

As for the flower, I sprayed some white cotton with alcohol inks, cut the fabric in a spiral fashion, and then sheered (gathered) the edge of it using a basting stitch.





To attach it to my quilt, I could have sewn it, but instead I used ‘glitter glue’ (my best friend). 


Finally I continued to embellish the quilt with beads, buttons, stamps, and lace.  Again, check around your home and find things that you could add to your art quilt.

Flashback from last week's blog on printmaking


Loved the fish stamp from last week, so I decided to make a print on a dress for my grand baby.  I used a white and a pink t-shirt, printed the stamp on the white with fabric ink and added some pink and white for the neck and skirt.  It looks adorable on her. A unique one-of-a-kind creation!



PROMPT

Stop It Right Now:

Dear Friend,

There may be people in your life that hurt you either physically or mentally.  People who want to control and manipulate you.  They hurt you, belittle you, and treat you like a nobody.  Remove them from your life.  They have no right to do what they are doing.  Believe me when I tell you that you are better than this.  You were meant to soar and they are holding you back.  Release them.  This may seem harsh to you but friend, how can you become who you are suppose to be when you surround yourself with people like this.

Don’t think that it is your job to change them.  They need to change themselves.  They know that what they are doing is wrong and they choose to continue to do it.  It is not your job to change them.

I have experienced this is my own personal life, and I have witnessed the harmful rippling effects in other lives around me.  Remember you do not live in a bubble, everyone around you is affected by the way you feel, the way you think, and the way you act.  This includes your children, your friends, your family, your co-workers, and on and on.

Stop it right now.  Move in a positive direction.  Become who you are suppose to become.  What is holding you back, and how can you overcome this?

Believe it or not, we really do care about you.

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice!  Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace.  And the God of love and peace will be with you.
2 Corinthians 13.11
      

Monday 9 July 2012

The third layer continued, again!




The third layer continued, again…

This week I decided to do some printmaking. Looking at  the ‘alcohol ink’ journal page completed earlier, I felt like I needed to do an underwater theme.

I love printmaking.  When I took this class at college I couldn’t get enough of it.  I spent hours creating and printing all sorts of images.  There are so many ways of printing and I would like to show you everything.  Unfortunately, I am limited to one page, but will show you more on future journal pages.


I decided that a large fish would be a good start.  There are many objects you can use to cut out images on but I decided to use good ole linoleum (available at most art stores).  I penciled out an image of a fish and used my carving tool to carve out the image.   Of course I needed some seaweed so using styrofoam and a stick, I carved in some seaweed.



To print the fish, roll some printing ink with a brayer on a scrap of heavy paper or glass.  When the ink sounds like the legs of corduroy pants rubbing together, then roll it onto the linoleum using the brayer.  Lightly mist a piece of medium weight paper with water, and place the paper over the linoleum.  Rub the paper with a wooden spoon until the image of the fish has completely transferred to the paper.

When printing the styrofoam seaweed, do the same thing as with the linoleum, the only difference is that you do not want to rub so hard as the styrofoam will flatten and you will lose the image.


You can print your images another time without adding more ink to the linoleum/styrofoam, it’s called a ‘ghost image’.   Use these images as well on your page.


Once the ink has dried on the paper, cut out the images and arrange them on the page.  In order to get dimension on my page, I glued scraps of foam core board behind the images and then glued them to the page.  You can shape the paper simply by rolling and twisting to get more dimension.

To make the blue water, I used a small sheet of metal, you can also use freezer paper, rolled on some ink and then with a small piece of cardboard scraped out my waves.  I added drops of rubbing alcohol to create some added texture.Again, slightly dampen your paper you will be printing on, place it on top of the waves, and rub with your hands or a wooden spoon to transfer the image to the paper.


To make the smaller fish, I used water soluble pastels.  If you haven’t used these before, you really need to try them.  I love the way that they blend and act like watercolors.  I also love the vibrant colors.


Draw an image on a piece of freezer paper.  Dampen a sheet of paper and put it over the image on the freezer paper, and rub with your hand.  Once the image is dry, you can cut it out and add to your page.


PROMPT

This I know to be truth…

Positive or Negative?

Each one of us do not live in a bubble.  Everything we do or say, or don’t do or say, affects the world around us.

This is an important lesson I’ve learned and has definitely made a big impact on who I am today.  I have generally been a fairly positive person.  People have commented on how positive I am even in the face of adversity, but it wasn’t until I purposely thought about it, that I decided to make it a priority.  Why would I want to be a negative person.  How sad would that be.

I’ve got to tell you, I avoid people who have a negative disposition or who, in a split second, will turn on me.  I have had people throughout my life like this.  I felt like I was walking around on egg shells afraid to say something or do something that the person wouldn’t like.  I don’t ever want to be that person.  I want to keep people around me who are positive, happy, encouraging, and uplifting.

Are there people around you who want to tear you down or who make you uncomfortable?  Is it time to let go of them?  Is it time to confront them?  Is it time to forgive and heal from the hurts others have caused?  Make it a conscious choice to let go of negativity, in whatever form it comes in, including the media world, and to start living a happier life, which in turn will change your life for the better, and also the lives of those around you.  The world is waiting to see your beauty…the person you are suppose to be.   I encourage you to make that choice today.

Believe it or not, we really do care about you.


Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.  Philippians 4:8

Friday 6 July 2012

WINNER OF THE BEST OVERALL FLOAT IN THE FOURTH OF JULY PARADE





The making of a float…

This is the third year in a row that I have won the Best Overall Float in the fourth of July parade in Friendswood.  This year the theme was “The Sounds of Freedom.”  I decided to take a risk and do the opposite:   “Freedom’s Silence.” You never know what you are competing against in this type of competition.  But I need to tell you, for me, what is more important then winning the float competition is the excitement of putting a float together, and the smiles and emotion that the floats tend to bring to onlookers faces.

Starting with a basic trailer provided to me, I had my husband build up the sides for safety of the people riding in it, and also for a place to write the name of the float.



What was I going to put on my float to represent Freedom’s Silence?  Of course the image of military crosses came to mind immediately.  So I cut up a bunch of crosses out of white foam core board.  I needed a place to put the crosses so I had my husband rig up a t-pee looking structure complete with slots for each cross.  This was going to be the focal point of the float, and for added height, I included an eagle to represent peace.



I then thought that I could represent the five divisions of the military somehow, and after much consideration, decided to use foam core board to cut out an image of a boat, tank, guns, and jets.  Extra large of course.  My husband suggested that I put the images straight up and down in the corners like flags, but once they were up, it was obvious that they needed to be put on a slant to help give the float some movement.

For fillers, I made a whole bunch of stars in many different shapes and forms and added them here and there where there was a need.


Finally I wanted flags, and I asked my son, two neighbors, and two students to participate by holding them while wearing army gear.  Once the men were on the float, I immediately knew that the float was done.  The men gave the float an incredible sense of strength and substance.

 My Grandson told me I won be cause I used my imagination, he was right and so proud!
Accepting the win from the City of Friendswood!
The project took many, many, many hours to complete, but it was so worth the effort.  Thank you to all the men and women who have chosen to defend the U.S.A.’s freedom!