Texture

For a while now, I've been thinking about creating a texture quilt. One of the students' assignments is creating actual texture collages and simulated texture collages. This is a great assignment, although it tends to throw them off for some reason. I usually give them a few hints, such as, "go outside, get some grass and glue it to the paper," then I tell them to use their imaginations. It almost seems like they've forgotten how to use their imaginations. The collages they come up with also don't tend to be very interesting, like they don't see the beauty of texture itself. I think this is rather sad. However, as I thought about the texture quilt and my desire for actual texture, I also wandered around the blogosphere of art and was inspired to add in simulated texture as well, thus reminding me of the students' assignment. Perhaps one side will be actual texture and the other side will be simulated texture. Or maybe, I'll mix them together and really get creative! I'm thinking about putting black lines around each block to simulate the textures being placed within an actual box. I wonder how big it should be...?

Now to find the materials and the time!

May I?

I want one of these! (Not necessarily this brand, but eventually I'd like to own a pottery wheel for home use, hopefully by the end of this year or next year at the latest.)

On March 9, I'll be starting pottery lessons again at Simple Earth Foundations in American Fork. The studio is quite small, but they have a great facility with lots of variety (particularly in kilns)! I'm so excited; getting my hands dirty is sooooo fun!!! There are so many projects I'm planning to create!

I found it!

This is the one I want!!

Creating Better Pictures with a DIY Light Box: Instructions

VitalVintage says:

In an effort to take better photos for both my vintage shop and my art shop on Etsy, I wanted to get a light box for photographing items. The cheapest ones I could find online started at around $100 so I did some research on making a light box and had great success in making my own, and I spent about $7.00 total. I have put together an easy tutorial on making a light box in case anyone else wants to try it. Here is the list of materials needed: 1 box (I would recommend minimum size of 12" x 12" or 30cm x 30cm) 1 poster board scissors box cutter tape double-sided tape (or you can use regular tape and make loops with sticky part on outside) 2 small lights Here is the link to a video on my blog with the DIY tutorial: http://studio6or7.blogspot.com/2010/01/diy-light-box-tutorial.html

Aren't These Fabulous?

While looking around at blogs this morning, I came across a new artist (new to me that is)! Her name is Whitney Smith and you can see her work HERE. She also has an Etsy shop! I have fallen in love with Etsy shops, partly thanks to my sister who found it first, and now also thanks to all of these artists I'm getting to know! It's all so exciting, I just need more money and to get good enough to start my own Etsy shop!! These are her cupcake stands which I saw featured on another blog and now don't remember where, oops!







This is a funny quote from her blog: "...ceramic artists are not rational people, at least not when it comes to clay. Look, we take mud and turn it into a freaking cup, so many of us have this idea that we can do anything we put our minds to. Ceramic artists have wills made of steel."

Art Work Names

While reading through some art blogs earlier, I came across one where the owner wrote down the name of an artwork everyday, which she planned to create. Tonight, I was thinking about some of the artwork that I've been admiring lately, and a few titles came to mind:

1. Where is He Hiding?
2. Stop Where You are When Lost.
3. Seek and You Will Find...
4. He Will Watch Over You.
5. Her Worth.

(Is there some type of theme happening here? It almost seems like a series of sorts, hmmm...)

I'm not exactly sure what these will look like, but I have a few ideas...

What is a Print?

This is so cool! While working on the American Art Unit that I'm currently putting together, I came across What is a Print? courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

What is a Print?
"A print is a work of art made up of ink on paper and existing in multiple examples. It is created not by drawing directly on paper, but through an indirect transfer process. The artist begins by creating a composition on another surface and the transfer occurs when a sheet of paper, placed in contact with this surface, is run through a printing press. Among the advantages of making an artwork in this way is that numerous 'impressions' can be made, because new pieces of paper can be sent through the press in the same way. The artist decides how many to make and the total number of impressions is called an 'edition.'"

The tutorials give a general description of how to make four different types of prints: woodcut, etching, lithography, and screenprint. Perhaps this will be one of my students' assignments...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Did you know that St. Patrick's Day is really the 8th or 9th of March, but because no one was able to agree, a priest added the two together and now we celebrate St. Patrick's Day on the 17th? That's what I heard anyway... So, in honor of St. Patrick, I have changed my blog background in celebration! (no worries, I won't repeat the "...and here's two in two and then three, etc. like I did with the Valentine's background, hee, hee!)

Pottery Class

Last year, I took a pottery class through UVU's Community Education program and LOVED it! I've tried several times to get back into it with no avail; however, I finally signed up and paid for classes again starting in March!!!! I'm soooo excited to be playing with clay again! The studio is quite small, but they have several different types of kilns to use and learn about. I can hardly wait to get started!



The top two pictures are of the first piece I've ever made on a wheel. It came out amazingly well and no one seemed to believe that I was a beginner! It has a beautiful dark blue glaze, but I put too much on and it ran off, thus producing the extra blobs or feet of glaze around the bottom. The bottom two pictures show the top to a butter dish, except that the dish part didn't work out, so now it's a bowl instead. I love the dual colors on this one. The green glaze is known to run a lot (creating feet) so I dipped the bottom in black and then the top in green hoping that the green would drip into the black, it somewhat worked, I will dip it in further next time. The bottom ledges were detailed after it was at a leather-hard stage. This was the last project I made in the four week class and definitely the most difficult shape.

A Rocket "Ship"

My nephew's bedroom has turned from the beginning of a sailing theme (quote on wall and wall color) to a space theme with planets. In order to incorporate both, my sister has asked if I would be able to come up with a combination of a rocket ship and a ship on water. This is what I've come up with so far:



I'm thinking about using scrapbook paper or fabric on a board, also I think that it would be fun to have the same background on the whole picture, star-like pattern (this is only part of the picture), but then embroider wave-like patterns at the bottom (under the boat) and a swirly pattern at the top.

Happy Valentine's Day!

For all of my love's out there:



(I made this in paint, then placed it in lectora for the borders and text, then "snapped" it, snapping apparently blurs it.)

It's Mine!

Dan-ah Kim: Lost in the Magic Hour

It's mine, or at least I hope it will be, so please don't buy it so that I can have it, K? This is the first art print (8x10) I may actually own, and not just pine over (where did that phrase come from anyway?)! I am sooo excited!! The other ones were way, way, way out of my league, although they were fabulous ($125 - $45,000)! This one is $35 and is just as fabulous, plus, the biggest and best part is that it fits my budget! Some day though, perhaps, I will be able to own at least prints of some of the others...


(Dan-ah Kim: Seek Me)

Can I have this one too?

Blog2Print

This blog is part of a creativity class assignment. The class is over in two weeks!! I'm glad to be done with the formal aspect of this class and grateful that it lead to this blog's "birth." The blog has served as my creativity journal, however, I needed to turn it in somehow to get a grade. Therefore, I turned to Blog2Print. I must say that this was a quick way of printing off the blog (I took advantage of their PDF option), although I believe that I prefer the versatility of Blurb for customization. Hopefully, once this class is over, I will be able to use the extra hours every week to create some of the ideas that have been flying around my mind!



It's amazing that the program just selected these two images to go on the front and back cover! The first one is the post about my "Art name" and the second one is my creative space in the kitchen. No better pictures if I had hunted for them myself, perfect! (I wonder how the program decided, hmm...)

I Got It!

My curtains are so boring! I was thinking that I would do something to spice them up. After looking at some of the other artsy blogs out there, I've decided to make a garland out of ribbons and buttons perhaps?* Anyway, I'll start working on that! one ribbon horizontal (dark, satin brown?) and then multiple ones (zigzags and such?) hanging vertically at varying lengths, hmmm...

*only the fact that this is a garland is copied from a blog

Maybe double hooks with interesting and unique tassels hanging from the top instead... Maybe it's time to visit the Planted Earth again, excellent!

A Creative Outing

I thought that I had posted this on here or on Facebook, but apparently not, so... A couple weeks ago, I went to dinner with A. When we were almost done, she said, "now what should we do?" I asked her if she wanted to help me with some homework, which involved getting some books on Creativity to use in my eventual classroom, etc. I ended up finding three fun books that I think fit the creative spirit I was looking for:


1. the Book of Invention by Thomas J. Craughwell



2. 2,317 ways to Save Money and Time: Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things by Reader's Digest


3. Optical Illusions: Amazing Deceptive Images - Where Seeing is Believing by Inga Menkhoff

There was also a really fun book about patents which had bubble wrap attached to the cover (as part of the cover), but then I remembered that you can now find patents easily on Google Patents online.

We were wandering around to see if anything else was available/better, when we came upon an employee who asked if she could help us find anything. I hesitated, but then proceeded to ask if they had a section on "Creativity." She seemed rather perplexed and then suggested that perhaps in the "Self-Help" section? lol! This confused me. How did she arrive at that answer? I said thanks, but no, and wandered over to the art section rather perplexed. In the art section there was a really fun book on color that had hundreds of color swatches. I would've bought this book, but it was rather expensive and I thought that the three I already had might be more versatile. However, it did inspire me to go to Loews to "steal" their color swatches! After paying for the books, we headed over and had great fun playing with the colors.



THE END

How Cute is This?

I saw this Milkmaid Butter Dish on another blog and followed the link, sooo cute (I love it in the yellow though)! This was basically the final project in my wheel thrown pottery class. Unfortunately, the plate section didn't work out, so I scrapped it and changed the top into a cool bowl. It was the most difficult piece I threw during the class (although, perhaps I should say that the plate was, since it didn't work out!)

How Many Backgrounds Do You See?

After I posted the "out & new" post I looked at my blog and noticed the "double" background (a picture of the new background on the new background), so I just had to snap a picture of it! And now I have a "triple" background! Will the madness ever end??? (I guess I don't have to take another picture, but I'm greatly tempted too! oops, I did it again, hmmm...just realized that's a song, lol!)


(one or two?)


(two or three?)


(three or four?)


(all together now!)

Out With the Old, In With the New

This is the old blog background. I loved the branches and the serenity of the grey.


This is the new blog background (kinda duh,huh? Eventually it won't be and I'll have record, kinda silly, but fun!). I love the overall design, but especially the owl on a branch. My sister found some amazingly cute owl things on Etsy (so fun!) and now I'm hooked, owls are sooo cute!

My Creative Space

This space looks pretty clean in the picture, but that was a couple of weeks ago. Now, it's quite a mess, with bits of paper recording ideas of what to create all over the table and hanging on the wall. I'm quite excited about some of the possibilities and hope to start working on them soon!!

Mosaics and Stained Glass

Sorry that I don't have pictures to most of these posts! I'm getting some great thoughts out lately, but haven't actually begun to create anything yet. This idea came to me as I was getting ready for bed about a week ago: stained glass with dried fruit (and veggies too, as well as flowers, grass, etc)!

The idea is to dry the fruit (possibly no skins/peels) myself, that way it's the thickness that I want. Then arrange the fruit into larger sections (like a pane of glass would be), place on a silpat in a cookie sheet with sides, pour polyurethane over top and let it set. Then cut out the desired shapes for the project at hand, polyurethane the backside, let that set, then arrange all of the pieces for the project, wrap the stained glass foil around the edges, and solder together, place in a frame and wah-lah!

The other idea is to use the dried pieces as mosaics. Using a picture frame, place sealant around the sides of the frame and backside of the glass. Place fruit in desired locations, then pour polyurethane over top, let it dry, place a piece of paper on the back (I'm thinking white so that the light is reflected more), than attach the back and wah-lah!

I'm excited to start this project!