This is a picture of my front yard.  We used to have a lawn, but I killed it because I hate Bermuda grass with a furious passionate loathing.  In the summer, I let it go dead, but in the winter, I have a vegetable garden and I overseed with flowers. Last year I threw down California Poppy seeds, but this year, I added Flanders Poppies to the mix. That’s what you see here. The default is red, but after a few generations, they spontaneously mutate, so we have some that are white, some that are pink, and some that are red and white. I’m quite proud of them.  They have almost inspired me to take up photography seriously, but the rational part of my mind says that I have too many hobbies and interests as it is.

This is a sign I made for the reading at Wiscon that some fellow writers and I are going to do.  I started with an old piece of matboard that I’d painted with several layers of acrylic.  I believe it had a basecoat of reddish brown, followed by gesso and sage green, but it was so long ago that that might be wrong. 

Using a wide nib calligraphy dip pen and some waterproof ink, I wrote “Nightmares” in an old fashioned calligraphic script. Underneath that, I wrote “In pleaant Dreams” in what was supposed to be copperplate but ended up looking like bad cursive.  This was also in waterproof ink, but using a finer point pen.

I printed a stamp of the dandelion silhouettes with pigment ink, and while waiting for that to dry, mixed some interference red paint with gel retarder. The mehindi-type designs in the corners are also a purchased rubber stamp.

I’d printed out the information on porous block printing paper that I’d cut to 8 1/2 by 11 so that it would fit in the laser printer.  After choosing the text that looked best, I cropped it to fit.  The original plan was to tea-stain it, but that would have reduced the contrast–a major disadvantage on a functional piece.  Instead I found some art paper that complimented the sage green and coppery tones of the background.

By adhering it to a rectangle of matboard, I ensured that the piece would have depth, and scans have a tendency to exaggerate depth in a piece.  I polished a piece of copper wire and bent it into a spiral, which created a second focal point and draws the eye to the most important part of the piece.

The reading itself should be very fun.  If anyone who reads this is going to Wiscon over Memorial day, please stop by and see our reading.

My nine-year-old daughter painted this. I’m very proud of her.

I made this for my niece Emily, who is seven years old.  I bought the wooden box at Michael’s and spent a few weeks decorating it.  The butterflies are cut out from art paper that I bought at the Paper Studio (one of my favorite stores!)  The lettering on the top is made of polymer clay, and considering how much work it took, it ought to look a lot more spectacular. 

I made the velvet base out of mat board and polyester quilt batting, then sewed on the jewelry so it doesn’t bounce around too much in transit.  I wanted to make the whole thing look a lot more extravagant, but I ran out of time and ideas. 

Inside the box is a rhinestone tiara.  My focus group says this sort of thing is appealing to the 5-7 yr old girl demographic.

I saw these on a comic, and thought that they were just about the funniest things I’d seen, so I had to make some for my friend Jessica, who has a black sense of humor (like me!)

As for the technique, they are “icebox cookies” from the Joy of Cooking cookbook, with Pillsbury vanilla frosting dyed in extravagant colors.  I made rainbows, then smeared it with a knife for a smoother surface.  I piped on the white writing with frosting in a plastic bag.  My baking implements are not as extensive as my art supplies

I’ve been thinking about ways to use 2-D art in my collage that involves neither stealing others’ art nor drawing.  Because, let’s face it.  I’ve been doing strictly 3-D art for so long that my drawing skills ain’t what they used to be.

I have a scanner and a garden.

I also have Microsoft Photo editor.

This is what I made.

Every time I see a new artistic technique or medium I have the urge to try it.  Such it is with encaustic, using colored wax.  I thought this would be a fun project to do with my children, becasue for the pigment we used crayons, and who doesn’t like crayons? 

Since we were experimenting, the way we decided to keep the wax hot was by putting it in a metal dish over some tealights.  For those of you playing the home game: don’t do this.  Not only does it not melt the wax or keep it liquid enough, but the metal dish gets burning hot.  Not only that, but we accidentally set the table on fire. (Good thing I had a spray bottle!) 

I’ve seen other collage artists advise using a quilting iron.  That sounds like an excellent tool, if I had one.  I do however, have a heat gun, and we enjoyed not just melting the wax, but watching it blow around with the puff of air from the gun.  Because the gun was the only thing that kept the wax melted, this was not a good three-person project.

The thing I love about encaustic with collage is the translucency of the glaze.  Images under the glaze look misty and faded.  You can also get fascinating textures. This was not a resounding success, but it was a nice start.  Next time I might try using my own images rather than cutouts of others’. 

I don’t think this will be my last experiment with encaustic, though it will be a while before I can make anything new, because my studio is a mess.

I’m so happy the mural is finally done, and I got the scaffold out of our foyer.  Painting the overglaze was the most difficult part of the entire process.  I was able to do some of it from the hall on the second floor, but then on the middle part I realized I needed a longer extension pole.  I tried from a ladder, but it was too wobbly.  Finally I got an extension pole from my parents, and by standing with one foot on the ladder and one foot on the piano, I was able to get the highest sections.  It wasn’t as smooth and clean as I had hoped; there are smears on the ceiling and some of the strokes are messier than I’d hoped.  Still, it’s unavoidable when you make the paint transparent (with glaze) that you’ll see some brush strokes.

The yellow leaves turned out nearly invisible–something I suspected might happen.  Not too much of a detriment.  Also, the glaze nearly made the crows disappear, so I rubbed them with a dry paper towel to get some of the glaze off and make them stand out more.  Except for the messiness near the ceiling, the mural turned out as I’d expected.  It has a rather gothic/halloween feel, I suppose, but for one month of the year that will be perfect.

Final note: the paint in the lower image is glossy because it’s still wet.

This is the project I’m currently working on.  It’s pushed my other projects to the side, so I’m in a hurry to finish it.  I had to take a break when we went on vacation, but now I’m home again and I can see the final stretch.  You can see updates of the progress here. 

Originally, this foyer was painted with flat white, like the rest of the house.  I think I’m a teensy bit agorophobic, because the darker and more closed in a space feels, the more I like it (to a certain extent.)  I did a similar mural in our old house, based on an article in a magazine.  I made two stamps for the leaves, one small and one large. In the old house, I used the small stamps, which were about three inches wide.  These leaves are a little over four inches.  To give a point of reference, the high window is four feet by four feet square.

I painted the tree trunks and stamped the leaves in June, and a friend suggested I ought to add crows (my favorite animal) to the mural, so I spent a few days sketching crows. Once I had the sketches to the right size, I glued the sketch paper onto thicker back paper, then cut it out so that I could trace around it easily.  I painted them completley black, with glossy house paint.  I debated leaving them that way (because I am not sure if the glaze will obscure the details or not), but in the end I decided that they needed more depth.  I mixed some white paint with the same glossy black and used the grey for highlights.  Posted is a detail of one of the crows.

The next stage is to paint over the entire mural with glaze+paint.  I’ve got a picture of the canvas I used to test out the glaze and paint ratios.  The glaze (and a little water) gives it translucency so that you’ll be able to see the image behind it.  It has enough color to tie the room together, and having a background color closer to the branch and leaf darkness will make the whole effect more subtle.  The next stage is really the part I’m most worried about, because for one, all the brush strokes will show and I don’t want it to look too busy/messy.  Also, I don’t want the color too pale, yet I don’t want the trees so subtle that you can’t tell they’re trees.  I’ll post pictures of the completed mural.