Dust, Dribble and Dog Hairs.: art elements

Showing posts with label art elements. Show all posts

Tuesday, 31 July 2018

Seed Pod, Art Elements Blog Hop Challenge

Welcome to the Seed Pod Challenge blog hop hosted this month by Jennifer of the Art Elements Team. You can find the original link to the Seed Pod Challenge introduction blog HERE

I started off experimenting with wet felting something I had never done before. After watching various YouTube videos and digging out my limited stash of fibre materials and ordering a few more I made my felted piece that I wanted to turn into a 'sort of' sculptural piece.

As I am sharing my blog post with the very talented Paulette who is joining the challenge (and you will not be disappointed her entry is just stunning!) .. I realized that between us we had A LOT of photos so not to bore all the visitors to the blog if you want to read about my wet felting process I did write it up the other week for Art Elements blog, only I didn't share the finished piece you only get to see that here. CLICK HERE for the blog post in which I describe how my first piece of wet felting went.. don't forget to come back ;)

Sorting out what I wanted to use - the brown fibres are 'natural' fibres and they are so soft!

What will be the inside of my finished piece.

..and... the photos above and below is the outside of my finished piece.

Getting wet and soapy....

Left to dry in the sun.

The finished piece. My imagination took over with my seed pod challenge and 'sort of evolved'. I had this idea in my head that magic folk (I am a repressed children's author so bare with me....) live in the woods and they build their homes in the natural materials around them. Seed pods.

Just before I allowed my finished piece (photo above) to dry, I sat in the sun in the garden with soapy hands and sculpted and moulded the piece of felt into a shape I was happy with. In my imagination (story) my magic people wove threads of twine with seed pods and branches to create hanging 'pods' in which to live. I added some beautiful natural curls of wool (I name the sheep this wool comes from in the Art Elements post), to 'decorate' the opening of the 'door' to the home.

Now, if you have read the Art Elements blog piece in which I show and explain my working of the fibres you will know that my husband (a very un-arty man!) likened my 'pod' to a dead squirrel.

I added lots of seed beads and sequins in shiny silver to give the illusion of rain drops and the dangle at the bottom has a blue shell bead. Blue is the colour associated with the sea and the sky and also for wisdom and loyalty. These are very important to my magic people who live in the woods.

The Green Man is a beautiful ceramic cab from Jenny in the team and with my limited seed beading skills I beaded around him and added some bead leaves... every magic person has to decorate their pod house... right?

My husband still said it looked like a dead squirrel but I enjoyed the process and creating the story in my head (this is the abbreviated version for the blog!) whilst I wondered around the ancient woods with my dogs. Yes we really have ancient woods near us, we are very lucky.

I also did another seed pod piece, which sort of evolved from a video I posted in a sketch group I belong to on FB. You might have seen the video it has gone viral. It is of an artist filling a plastic up with various acrylic coloured paint and pouring it onto a canvas. I wanted to have a go but using my acrylic inks.

It is messy!! but fun. I did find I had to put 'glazing medium' on the surface of the canvas to allow the inks to move freely. I also didn't use a cup I just splodged it on and moved the canvas to allow the colours to blend.

I had no real plan in mind when I started. I just wanted to make a mess and have fun!!

When it dried - much lighter although the camera has washed out the colours a bit in the photo below - I left it on the side in the dinning room and 'umm'ed and ahhh'ed' over it for a few days, then I grabbed my Posca pens (I only have black and white) and added my favourite dried 'flower' heads that I see in the ancient woods. These plants start off as a cluster of white flowers in spring and when the flowers die off they are just as beautiful in their skeleton form. Each flower leaves behind a seed head. It is a bit abstract and not the 'norm' for me but I enjoyed the experiment. Not sure I would do it again though, it was super messy.

Thank you for reading my ramble and please enjoy Paulette's wonderful design with her very dangerous looking seed pods. Paulette did send me all the photos and words all done and ready to load but unfortunately they were too small to upload directly so I copied each piece out and hopefully have married it up correctly with it's right photo.

Introducing Paulette Scott who is taking part in the Seed Pod Challenge too.

Well to start off I go out on a nature walk looking for Devil Claw seed pods (Proboscidea Athaeifolia) walk all along the Arroyo - dried up stream bed in the South of Texas, none to be found down here, I suppose we don't get enough rain in the Spring for them to grow, so I got on Etsy and ordered some. They came in on the 11th and they are much nastier than I remembered.

Those little curved points are very sharp and hurt! I have cleaned them and dipped them in polyurethane to seal them.

I sat there trying to decide what to do with the pods. I decided to create Dream Catchers with them, but I want them prettier than the regular 'Tourist Trap' ones (perfect circle metal hoops, artificial sinew and fake eagle feathers). I asked myself 'what is the prettiest inspiration I have around the house??'

Our little girl Ruby, a Rose Breasted Cockatoo.

Inspiration found, now to get all the rest of the supplies, a trip to the bead store for beads and the very thin rat tail cording. For the feathers, I am using all of Ruby's own feathers, she moults once, sometimes twice a year and I collect them. A quick trip out to Hobby Lobby for some cord crimps.

Now I have everything so time to start.

After poking myself a dozen times I put on a small drop of E6000 glue on those nasty little hooks and once again start the webbing.

Next up was to embellish the individual hoops. Beads and feathers next.

After much sewing and fixing feathers I think I have them. I hope you like them as much as I liked making them.

I tie on the rat tail cording and start the webbing.

I need to stop now, or they will never be finished. Here there are hanging up.

You can find Paulette on Facebook.

Thank you for reading and hope you can hop over to the others that took part in this challenge.

Guest Artists:

Tammy

Raven

Alysen

Anita

Cat

Kimberly

Rozantia

Art Elements Team:

Jen

Saturday, 31 March 2018

Art Elements March Theme, Nests, Reveal.

The first themed challenged for Art Elements, since the change from Component of the Month announced in February, was set by Cathy Spivey Mendola and it was Nests.

I spent a few weeks going round and round with birds, nesting... birds... Spring but nothing was right for me. I searched Pinterest for ideas and again was coming up with birds, nesting... I was getting frustrated. Then like all good ideas this one happened as I was doing something completely different and the idea of 'leaving the nest' came to mind.

It is a bit of a standing joke in our house that I tell my 'grown up' kids that they need to leave home as I need an indoor studio - my studio for glass is out in the garden a purpose built shed studio and I love it but I need somewhere for my paints, my paper... I need a studio in the house and the only way I can have that is if one of them leaves home.... for now I use the kitchen table!

I 'knocked' this up literally within about 20 mins. I found a little box, some watercolour paper, grabbed my pen and paints, my new set of block letters to print - of which I get covered in ink! - and whilst waiting for some potatoes to boil I created this and stuck it all down with glue. It amused me and so I put it on the mantle above the fire in the kitchen and really didn't think more of it. As far as I was concerned this was the beginning of my thought process for this months challenge.

How amused was I when I got up the next morning and my 'grown up and still at home 24 year old son' had added to my 'art'. It has amused me so much that it is still like that now, a reminder that neither child is going to leave the nest anytime soon!

I have a love of words and puns and a chance remark from someone over on Facebook inspired this shadow box design. I forget whom it was but on some of my doodles this person had commented that I should sell the doodles to give me a nice nest egg... I ran with the comment.

I am still smudging my printed letters, I am too eager to cut it out and stick it down I need to leave it to dry! I wanted to layer this piece and contrast the greens of the money and background but still give a reference to leaves, nesting, trees... so used some yellow card to create the front layer of leaves which I then painted over with a light wash of green watercolour. I rather like the contrast and effect.

To see more of the entries in this months challenge, follow the links below.. I am intrigued to see how others have interpreted the word nest.

Guest Participants-

Kym

Tammy

AE team members-

Tuesday, 27 February 2018

Art Elements Rune Reveal with Niky Sayers

This month is the last month of a Component of the Month with Art Elements as from next month we are trialing a new themed challenge to incorporate all forms of medium and that is something I am really looking forward to!

But before we head into new waters we had the pleasure of working with a wonderful piece designed and created by the very talented Niky Sayers from the team. A rune. My rune was Algiz the rune of Protection, of the all seeing into other worlds and represented by Odin the God of the Gods, known for his ability to walk in other worlds amongst the living and the dead. Odin is the God of War and is accompanied by his wolves Geri and Freki. It is said that Geri and Freki struggled to find food so Odin gave to them the gift of sight in the form of two ravens, Huginn and Muninn who would fly high and find the prey for Geri and Freki. The antlers from Odins helmet represent the antelope which is the animal normally associated with this rune. I took most of my inspiration from Norse mythology but it is sprinkled with the stories from other cultures.

I love myth and folklore and magic. I had my runes read when I was in my late teens, I won't share the experience from that as it was quite dark - my life was very dark at the time and not just with teenage angst!

This is the rune Niky created. It is so beautiful that I knew if I tried to create a wearable piece of jewellery I wouldn't do it justice so instead I used it to inspire me to draw.

My finished piece is not quite finished or quite right. The mount is the wrong shape but it was one I had already! This is the first time I have used acrylics as a watercolour, light washes and layered, but I wanted the vibrancy that the acrylic colours give as my first attempt (no photo) was too dark and heavy that I created with a different medium. In this finished pieced I 're-styled' the ravens to give them more of a illustrative look, something more in keeping with my style and I turned the wolves around and made them howl. This worked better than my original design (below) which was leaning too much towards realism and I lost the quirky narrative style I like.

In the original sketch Odin was too dominant and the ravens too 'real' compared to the more illustrative look of the wolves.

I won't be doing any more to this piece, I enjoyed the process and have ordered myself some acrylic inks - watch this space! - as I love the vibrancy of the colours. I need to concentrate more on not straying into the realms of realism, I prefer my work to be quirky although I have to admit the ravens in my finished piece do make me chuckle a little more than maybe I should!

I hope you like the inspiration for my piece maybe one day I will execute it a little better.

I hope you will follow me and hop over to the other participants in this fabulous reveal.

Guests:

Art Element Members:

Jennifer Stout Cameron

Claire Fabian

Lindsay Starr

Niky Sayers

Tuesday, 31 October 2017

October Component of the Month with the Art Elements team.

This month, October, was the turn of Art Elements Blog member Niky Sayers to host the Component of the Month and she created these amazing coin clasps. Each one features a hare and has been hammered into shape before attaching the clasp fastening. It was love at first sight.

Before it even got to me I knew what I wanted to do. Life has got in the way a bit (when hasn't it just lately!) of experimenting and playing but in my head this was much bigger than it became and of course it is un-finished but I am working on it still.

I knew mine would be a story of a hare. It was around the same time that I walked my dogs, as normal, down at the river in the morning but we were early one day and as we quietly - for a change! - entered the fields there sat looking across the river and into the early morning sunshine was a bunny rabbit. He sat there for what seemed like ages and luckily my dogs didn't notice him so I could watch and be reminded of all the Benjamin Bunny and Peter Rabbit stories from when my kids were little.

I wondered what he was thinking.

When I got home I quickly doodled him into an illustration and that was as far as I got for a few days.

The days became weeks and before I knew it I had a few days left and so I made a very simple concertina book. My plan is to do the illustrations and text on separate pieces of paper and glue them on to the pages I have created, both covering the ribbon I have used to attach the clasp and bulk out the 'book', which is why the clasp is currently a bit more loose than it should be. Fingers crossed it will all come out right.

You can find more of Niky's work on her blog

http://silverniknats.blogspot.co.uk/

I am looking forward to seeing what the others created with this clasp and you can click below to follow the blogs with me.

Guest Designers

Art Element Team

Tuesday, 30 May 2017

May 2017 Component of the Month with Art Elements... the Reveal

Back at the end of April Lesley Watts from the Art Elements group announced her component for the month. A selection of delightful ceramic cabs with gorgeous rich colours in the recesses of a mold she made from a section of shell. To read the full blog post of the original article click on the link above.

Lesley creates beautiful pieces in ceramics and in metal clays - you can see more of her work on her Facebook page. Lesley does favour the more organic style of work, compared to my wacky designs but I did fall in love with these pieces as soon as I saw them. There were several colour choices to choose from but the green glaze really appealed to me.

I chose one of the round cabs and when it arrived I was not disappointed, these pieces are rich in colour and really tactile, I did have it on my work space in my 'kitchen studio' - very posh sounding corner of the kitchen dinning room where I keep all my drawings and pencils for when I take over the table! I kept it out on the dresser so I could just pick it up and touch it, in the right hands this would make a really lovely tactile brooch or pendant but I saw dragons. My first idea was a dragon drawn with scales using the colours of the cab to guide my choices but then I went on Pinterest searching for a quote that appealed to me and found this one...

'Never stop looking up'.

What a lovely positive saying and I immediately thought of giraffes and was cross with myself for choosing a green cab rather than a giraffe cab that would have gone with this idea better. For a few days I mused over this and stroked my cabochon until my husband commented on some other drawings had I done, I was lamenting (again!) about being quirky and cartoony and as far away from my realism portrait days as is humanly possible, when he said to me 'don't stop being different that is what makes you you.' (once in a blue moon he can be quite sweet, usually ruins it by then telling me I have got a big backside compared to when we met 25 years ago.... such is married life!)

So I modified my saying....

I am still really new to Art Journalling just for the sake of it, I doodle and draw each day but have to commit to the Art Journal idea and experiment with mixed media which I still struggle with but lo and behold, my cabochon became part of my giraffe and lets face it... never stop looking up or being that bit different is not a bad way to live!

For more creativity using Lesley's work please follow the links below....

Guests

Art Elements team

Tuesday, 28 February 2017

February COM for Art Elements with Jenny Davies-Reazor

This month Component of the Month challenge was set by Jenny in the Art Elements team. Jenny produced some beautiful polymer clay heart beads and cabochons.

Out of the cabochons above I choose one like the centre that lovely soft ivory/white with gold flecks.

My original idea was bridal, but 'love unrequited' kept sticking in my head and the image of a bridal piece of jewellery just wouldn't work for me.

I have been experimenting with art journalling which I do find a challenge. I have HUNDREDS of sketch books that I have scribbled and doodled in over the years, some have messages and diary style extracts next to them but the whole adding mixed media is completely new to me. I came across a lovely quote 'when the world says give up, hope says try one more time' and it really hit a nerve with me. My whole life has been a fight for survival on almost every level, whenever I feel like giving up something happens, a spark burns in me and anger gives me strength to not be beaten and try again.

My heart had found its muse.

The Chinese coin is one that I had in a box at the back of the wardrobe, I have had it for years and it is supposed to bring luck, I can't even remember where I got it from. The playing card is representative that life is a game of chance - a tarot card would have worked here too.... - the shells, beautiful shell creations in bronze clay and ceramic and made by Lesley the former and I think one of the other members possibly Cathy, I wish I would stop losing the cards to say who did what! Shells remind me of living by the sea and as a child holding the shell to your ear to hear the wind and maybe your future dreams. The skeleton leaves are signs of death in Autumn but also that when Spring comes they will live again.

It is unfinished. I wanted to do so much more but mixed media is a struggle for me I want it to be so full of ideas and drama and things to touch and read and colour.. but my control freak artist side wants to just use line and structure. I do love the idea of this though and I love how the heart inspired it. The quote inspired me to finally stop procrastinating and print my doodles as cards and prints you can find them on my FB group page which you will need to join and eventually in my Etsy shop - link on the side of the blog if you want to come and find me :)

A list below of all those that joined in the challenge so grab a cup of tea and join me in blog hopping to see what other creations these hearts have inspired.

Guests:

Art Elements team: