“The Crafting Continues” or “Why I’m not painting”
Here’s the latest thing I made: a queen-size lightweight quilt. This baby is 100% reused material! The quilt topper squares are made from sheets I bought at Value Village a couple of years ago and made into table runners when Josh and I got married. The batting fabric is an old, cozy, flannel sheet for a double bed we no longer own. The backing is another sheet I bought at VV. This is the kind of project I feel very good about. It is my first quilt, and it’s wonky in all kinds of places, but it brings back happy memories and didn’t cost the Earth anything other than some thread and electricity to run the sewing machine. This makes me want everything I make to be like this: reused, functional and meaningful.
Which brings me to part of why I haven’t been painting and drawing: I don’t feel quite right about continuing to use materials to make objects that just live in my studio. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, then Father John Misty sang a song about it on his most excellent “Fear Fun” album! Thanks, Father John, for saying it and singing it better than I ever could.
Another example of Jillian Tamaki being awesome.
So very, very true.
From http://jilliantamaki.com/short-comics/sexy-halloween/
Kooky is win
Just saw this:
It was so wonderful. All puppets in real environments; puppets made of old melted plastic bottles and bags, acorns, sticks and detritus driving cars made of wire and who-knows-what. Another example of the glorious creativity that grows from limitation. CGI has nothing on this. How does one become a Czech animator?
The glory of a simple and beautiful idea!
Art Camp
Teaching summer camp art classes with Arts Umbrella this summer was good, good fun. There is something really wonderful about being around a bunch of kids who are just enjoying the process of experimenting with different materials and techniques. And, not so surprisingly, their excitement and joy is apparent in the finished products.
For the first project, we made papier mache insects inspired by plenty of photo reference. Each insect had to have 3 body sections and 6 legs, but that was it for limitations. Check out this glitter bug awesomeness!
above: dragonfly
ladybug
ladybug
bumblebee
ant
ant
Meanwhile, we also made flower gardens for monoprinted, symmetrical butterflies to live. We used oil pastel resist with watercolour, printmaking, and collage.
Didn’t Picasso say something about spending his whole life learning to paint like a child?
Beyond words awesome
Vancouver Maker Faire
A big thanks to Roxanne Gagnon, one of my awesome colleagues at Arts Umbrella, for arranging the pro-d trip to the Vancouver Maker Faire today! It was a wildly diverse collection of craftspeople, artists, businesses, scientists, and makers of all kinds. I have always loved when the science and art communities intersect, and it was definitely happening today…
Gotta have the spider walking thing!
Bamboo bike frame – such an awesome idea!
Love me some book art. Surprise, surprise.
Making buttons. Don’t know who made “Hot Frenchy”.
Got me thinking about natural materials and how to mitigate my green guilt about art materials.
So simple, so fun!
THE FUTURE IS NOW! This is a 3D printer. As in, it prints a 3-dimensional object!! I had no idea this was even possible. My mind has been blown.
A lovely surprise!
It’s been a weird few months and I’ve been surrendered to a slump. If it weren’t for knitting, I wouldn’t have made anything for a very long time. I’m working on crawling my way out and received a lovely surprise: one of my illustrations is featured on http://weloveillustrations.com. I’m in some very talented company (Yelena Bryksenkova!!) and couldn’t be more flattered. It’s funny because the piece they chose was a rejected design from a few years ago. I always liked it, and I’m glad to find someone else does too.
uTales Ebooks… adventures in capitalization
I am proud to be a (very) small part of the uTales community! uTales is a publisher of Ebooks for children, many of which are only available on uTales. My book, Baby Gorilla, is one such book. Please click here for a preview!
And here’s more info about uTales…
Welcome to uTales from uTales on Vimeo.
Warm Fuzzies
This makes me very proud to be a part of Arts Umbrella, especially because it’s a not-for-profit organization.
