Grape Vine Wreaths

I was out walking the dog the other day on the Genesee River trail near our apartment. They have cleaned up and done a brushcut. This means easier shopping for art supplies for me. There is this wild bamboo that grows near us. I have used it for curtain rods in the past when dried out. I was looking for some new ones.

The grape vines had just been cut so there were still pretty pliable.  I started to twist then into a circle to make a wreath. I made two and then went through things at home for embellishment.

The landlord told me they just cut down several on one of their other properties. (He saw me walking home with a bundle.)

I have made around 10 so far and am really enjoying the process.

The only problem that I am finding is that after awhile they get dry and brittle and will not bend anymore.  I talked to a florist friend that suggested soaking them in warm water. I tried it yesterday let see it this works....Speaking of my florist friend she had hooked  me up with some left overs from a trade show awhile back and with this project I got to use them.


 I have a bunch more vines on the porch and i have been going through my stuff and hitting up the dollar store for decorating supplies.(love the dollar store)

Etsy sales!

New  fall  clearance section. I have slashed my prices again! also sale for Black Friday Etsy / Cyber Monday Etsy new items for sale including new hair chopsticks!

Hair sticks are made from bamboo chopsticks with polymer clay handmade findings. Each stick is sand ed smooth and coated with polyurethane to protect and add shine. wrap your hair up into a bun then stick this in for a little fun!

Food Pop Art

                                             
Okay, so must of us have seen the brightly colored silkscreen  faces by artist Andy Warhol. Many, many art teachers have had students do a variation on Andy's work by drawing their own faces multiple times and changing the colors...
Food is the inspiration for a lot of my art. so we did Pop Art Food.
Here is the images of my steps poster.

One of the students wanted a cat instead of food I told her fine so could do that. She said so really did not have a favorite food.

The hardest part of the assignment for the kids seemed to be that they had to reference the color wheel for the complimentary color combination. It was also a challenge to change the color of an object from what it should be. For example making an orange not orange.

In the past I had done the assignment with middle school students using their favorite cartoon character instead of food. We used tempera paint instead of markers of colored pencil. I preferred the pencils/ markers  to the paint. This worked best for quick dry time,easy storage and overall convenience.

Godess Hour Tribal Class debut Nov 2010

Debut performance of new tribal group at Goddess Hour.  Directed by Deirdre hipswithattitude.uk.com

Pyschodelic pinwheels

Inspired by the psychedelic show currently up at the MAG.... I created this lesson. The show utilizes bold patterns and bright colors. I also looked at some art work by Bridget Riley and op art patterns.






For these pinwheels I cut 6 x 6 inch two sided two tone poster board. I cut and folded it into fours. We drew designs with Sharpie and we added color with colored pencils. The stems are made from drinking straws and I opened paper clips to make the piece to connect the straw to the paper pinwheel.

Beutiful Beads

 When I was a young teenager I had a friend who had a lot of jewelry. I wanted lots of jewelry too. I started making my own jewelery. Lots of beads...... I made my own from polymer clay and paper. I took jewelry classes and learned to work with metal. The non precious materials were usually my favorite. I drilled holes in acorns. I used bolts and fishing lores, gi joe heads and barbies things. All kind of stuff. I still do this.

 I also  need to clear things out once in awhile this boxes and boxes of crafting supplies. I have collected these bobbles for awhile now and was thrilled to watch a group of children pick through my treasures the other day during the morning program I lead. I gave kindergartners through fifth graders three boxes of beads and bobbles,some beading elastic, ribbon and pipe cleaners.

 I brought a blanket to put down on the table. On of my past mentors showed my this trick. we kids drop beads and they hit the table they will stay within the blanket. Other wise they bounce off the table and end up all over the floor.

This one girl is part Native American and recently was learning about Native American tribes in schools. She says the most insightful things and is very creative. She choose the gold craft coins,the tribal  print beads and some polymer clay beads and made this great necklace.She wanted the necklace to reflect her cultural background.

Other kids used letter beads and bells and made necklaces with them. One girl made a choker from safety pins and beads

One girl even made her school art teacher a gift, a pipe cleaner with beads ans a mini roll of tape that she found in my treasure box she said "You never know when the art teacher might need tape".

Today they thought the mini golf tokens were "real gold".
I love to here kids talk about their process as they create. It warms my heart....

Hand carved stamps with the kids

 I am still teaching classes on Saturday with kids at the art gallery. I have a new class called "Art Studio Follow Your Interests". It is fantastic fun, the kids are full of great of ideas. I teach the kids how to use a different materials and different technique each week the subject matter and what they do with it is up to them. I completed a series of printing techniques with this class. They first made Styrofoam prints where you use a pencil and press into pieces of foam similar to a Styrofoam tray. The lids of Styrofoam egg cartons also work good for this.

They also drew me a picture onto a small piece of garden kneeling foam. I took the garden kneeling foam pieces home and burned into them with a  wood burning pen to create reusable stamps.

The important thing to remember when making any print of stamp is that the image will print in reverse. I try to encourage kids not to do words unless they are sure they can reverse them. I have also had them hold up to the window what they wrote with text facing the window and trace it in the back to see it in reverse.


The last stamp we made was a carved plastic eraser stamp. The kids drew a design with a Sharpie and I carved it with a gauge tool like the type you would use for speedy cut of linoleum. I bought a packages of multiple plastic erasers for under a dollar and we carved those.

I can do all this with this class because it only has six students right now. I am unsure if a would try this with classes of twenty or more without an assistant to help carve/burn all those stamps.

I told the students that they could bring in T-shirts and using acrylic paint we could use the eraser stamps to print on a t-shirt with acrylic. Here is how one turned out.