Tiny Beetles

Now that I've shown you my giant beetles, I'd like to show you some tiny beetles. Each of these beetles is 1.5" square and framed in a 4" square frame with a custom-cut mat.

A few of these tiny beetles have copper tape wrapped around one edge, all have stamps or "chops" on them, as well as a design stamped from a bit of metal screening material and acrylic paint, for texture. 

Each is $25 framed and an additional $5 shipping but I'm offering free shipping through the end of the year, so if one of these tiny beetles needs to live at your house, don't wait!

Join me at Art-Is-You

Take a class here on the East Coast! Art-Is-You, the hippest mixed-media conference on the right coast, is around the corner and registration closes tomorrow. I hope you can join me (and a slew of other talented mixed-media artists including my uber-cool co-author, Elin Waterston) for a fun roster of classes in Danbury, Connecticut over Columbus Day weekend this October.

I'll be teaching a Bricolage workshop on Saturday, Oct 9. We'll be starting with paint, illustration board, stamps and a pile of found objects and will create unique, personal shadow boxes, a la Joseph Cornell but with a modern edge.

On Monday, October 11 we'll be constructing 3-dimensional Fiber Art Houses. These clever houses incorporate all sorts of imagery and can tell a story, pay homage to a favorite artist, express an idea or feeling, or be a neat way to show off all of your favorite things. I'm working on a whole village right now and am having so much fun!

If you want in on all the hip happenings, don't delay! Registration closes on Monday, Sept 6 at midnight.

Bricolage revisited

Remember the bricolage shadow boxes I made last July? Well, if you have a hankering to make one of your own, come join me at the Art-Is-You east coast art retreat in Danbury CT this October. I'll be teaching three different classes over the weekend and know that we'll have a rollicking good time.

The theme this year is Art Is... Wickedly Good and you can adapt your bricolage to that theme - oh the possibilities!

This retreat is about 15 minutes from my studio and I'll be able to bring tons of goodies to show and share. I'm so excited!

4" square challenge

I showed you the beginnings of my 4" square challenge pieces here and now that the art is swapped I can reveal more of the process and the finished results.

After I had fused on the prepared-for-dyeing fabric to the 4" squares of fast2fuse interfacing, I applied a wash of acrylic paint diluted with water, mixing colors as I went.



Even after they dried they were a little too bright for me so I added another wash over all of them, this time in a diluted off-white color.



Then I added pattern with designs from stamps I made, applied with more of the off-white color, undiluted this time.



And finally, I screen-printed thermofax images of insects with black acrylic paint randomly to each of the squares. After the paint was dry, I trimmed the squares and topstitched around the edges. I added labels on the back and headed off to the meeting for the grand swap. 28 artists traded 4" squares and a good time was had by all! I found a cool box (meant to store ATCs) that I need to alter to store them all in.







At the meeting it was really interesting to hear how varied all of our approaches to this project were. Some people started out planning to make 29 similar pieces and got bored after 10 so switched to making groups of similar pieces. A few people began intentionally by making definite groups. Several people made all completely different pieces, some within themes, and some not. A couple of people made large backgrounds and cut them down into 4" squares and proceeded with more design. There were a lot of different edge-finishing techniques. Many people chose to work entirely or mostly by hand due to the project's portability. So many different ways to get to the same place!

I find that the assembly-line process works best for me, as you can see from my pictures above. As a printmaker, I'm used to work in editions and this is very much the same thing - all originals, but absolutely an edition or series.

Of course, as soon as we had swapped and discussed and admired, we jumped right into a new challenge - stay tuned!

Gettin' messy

Today was a rare free day in the studio with nothing more pressing to work on than some 4" squares for a swap for my art group on Thursday evening.

First though, I played with printing on big sheets of white paper. Anyone who knows me knows how "all out" I go when wrapping presents. I love to use beautiful paper, make unique gift tags and add sumptious, funky or unusual ribbons. A special someone has a birthday coming up this week and I couldn't resist making my own wrapping paper this time. I used stamps that I had made and acrylic paint to print designs all over the paper. Delicious! Wouldn't this make a pretty fabric?



That done and drying, I started on the 4" squares. I can't show you how far I've gotten but I can say that I'm using some of the same layering techniques that I used on my bricolages, on fabric this time. Here's my assembly line all set up and ready for the first painting step.



I realized AFTER I had cut all of the fast2fuse squares and ironed on all the little pieces of fabric that I could have ironed a big piece of fabric to a big piece of fast2fuse, painted it and then cut it into 4" squares. Oy.

An intrepid group of about 35 art quilters and fiber artists meets each month and we discuss all sorts of topics of professional interest to artists, we have challenges and creativity prompts, we mount a group exhibit, and we learn from each other and laugh a lot. Over the summer 29 of us have been working on 4" squares to trade with each other. We agreed to keep our work secret until the due date and after everything's swapped on Thursday night we can all reveal the art on our blogs, Facebook and websites. I'm so looking forward to seeing what everyone else has made!

Based on a few of my fellow swappers' blogs (Melanie has help with hers, scroll down to the bottom here) and Facebook status updates (I'm looking at you, Natalya and Vivien, lol!), I'm not the only one working on these today...

Bricolages - part deux

The bricolage assemblages are done! I'm not certain what they "mean" or what they're "saying" yet. I tend to work very subconsciously and all of that needs to filter up before I can figure it out.

I made small shelves with balsa wood, painted them and then distressed them before attaching them to the illustration board. I used both glue and small screws to attach the shelves.



I auditioned a number of found objects for the shelves. In the end I used found chess pieces that I bought from Judy Gula in Houston last year.




The empty morphine vials came from a Facebook friend's etsy store.



The cardboard letters and vintage Japanese card came from another Facebook friend's etsy store. Etsy is the best. So is Facebook.







It's very tricky to photograph framed art because of the reflections on the glass and harder still to photograph shadow boxes because of the depth of the frames and the shadows they throw. These difficulties were compounded by having to use just one photoflood, since the other blew during a marathon photo shoot recently. B&H will be delivering new bulbs on Tuesday, so I'll set up and shoot again next week.

Bricolages

One of the online collage groups that I belong to had been discussing the various terms that describe what we do and the word bricolage came up. I love this word!

Bricolage: [bree-kuh‑lahzh] a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things.

I just happened to have three small IKEA shadowbox frames lying around the studio. I buy frames "on spec" when they're pretty and interesing (and inexpensive!) The frame opening is only 5 1/2" square and is about 1 1/4" deep. I've been wanting to work on three-dimensional assemblages (Joseph Cornell's work has inspired me) and layering colors and textures. So, cool new word in hand, I jumped in.



I had scraps of illustration board leftover from making collagraph plates, so I cut those down to fit the frames. I painted layers of washes of paint on the illustration board (and forgot to take a picture) and then tore and glued down pieces from an Italian newspaper.



After the glue was dry, I painted a wash of cream acrylic paint over each board and then stamped designs over everything with more of the same diluted paint.



The cream wash toned everything down and the stamps added visual texture and interest. Next I glued on a few paper mesh squares and strips, and found object papers and letters.



Right now I'm waiting for the paint to dry on the little shelf supports that I cut to fit in each frame. I'll take more pictures when the shelves are attached to the boards and I start auditioning found objects to place on them.

Oh, and a person who makes bricolages is a bricoleur - wouldn't that look great on a business card?