I Dream of Art

January 23, 2012 2 Comments

It’s funny how dreams work.  Some things you can understand and compare to your life, while others are just complete nonsense.  My dreams are incredibly vivid, they pull me into a whirlwind of senses so intense that I often wonder what is real.  One of the last things I did the other night before I went to sleep was respond to a post on Facebook between my friend Heatherlyn and I.

Her and her husband, Jason ventured out one evening to find a delightful box of free goodies outside their favorite music store.  Heatherlyn gathered a pile of vintage sheet music and instructional books to be used to both create and inspire her.  She inspired me to venture out and find a similar treasure, one to enjoy and use to create something new.

I fell fast asleep that night, dreaming that I was running into a house demolition just before the roof was about to collapse.  I somehow had the knowledge that the house contained a plethora of boxes filled with vintage newspapers, sheet music, and books.  I ran quickly into the dark room, coughing and struggling to see through the thick clouds of dust that surrounded me.  I spotted the boxes and grabbed what I could with the time I had.  The weight of my new treasures began to fill my arms when my Dad poked his head around the corner, hardhat and all, telling me it’s time to get out of the house.  I clutched the papers close as I ran out of the building, smiling and filling my mind with the unexpected goodness these materials would see.

I woke in the morning feeling like I had one mission for my day: to find some awesome vintage paper.  If I was in Minnesota, I would have known right where to go to.  Vintage and re-usable goodies are always right at my fingertips, whether it be from my own personal stash, my Dad’s house, or my favorite vintage or thrift shops.  But, I am in LA now and have no idea where the good spots are.

I ended up at a friend’s house that afternoon, who happens to be both a huge music buff and works in the industry.  I asked him where the best spots might be to find vintage paper, sheet music, or even a used bookstore.  The only conclusion we came to was to buy actual sheet music and age it with tea, patina or some other kind of finish.  Maybe next time, but not today.

I left his house and decided to make a quick stop at the Goodwill down the street.  They had a large bookshelf filled floor to ceiling with used books.  I was shuffling along when I came across a lonely road map lying on the bottom shelf.  I instantly picked it up.  My mom taught me how to read a map on our first road trip when I was seven years old; I’ve been fascinated with them ever since.  My mind began to wander as my ideas transformed.  I’m like a kitty cat when it comes to distractions.

On my drive home that night, I began to think of all the cool things I could do with the map.  Several projects are currently in the works, stay tuned for some more awesome tutorials!

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Melted Crayon Art

January 8, 2012 9 Comments

I love crayons.  I love the way they smell, their whimsical names, and the pleasant memories that flood me every time I use them.  When Andy and I were young, we would run next door to our grandpa’s house for visits and Fig Newtons.  On one particular visit, we pulled out his crayons and created a new use for them.  We used to do this by melting them in the microwave to create new, psychedelic crayons, but this time we decided to take it to another level.

We crouched on the carpet behind our grandpa while he was asleep in his chair, snickering at the plan that was stirring in our minds.  We carefully removed the wrappers, snapped them into tiny pieces and strategically placed them in the carpet in front of the radiator.  We sat in amazement as the brilliant wax meshed with the cream-colored fibers of his carpet.

From then on, every time we visited our grandpa’s house we would grab a handful of crayons out of the bucket and place the small chunks in and around the existing melted crayon pile.  I am not sure how long this went on for, but surprisingly it was our mother that noticed what we had done to his carpet.  I can’t imagine she was very happy with us.

This story recently came up in a conversation, which got me thinking about how I can productively melt crayons and not be reprimanded as an end result.  After a little research online I found that I could use crayons in a glue gun – who would have thought?

What you will need:

Crayola Crayons

Glue Gun

Canvas – size of your choice

Garbage Bags or Newspaper

Cardstock – optional

Paint – optional

Paintbrush – optional

The process:

I think you could do just about any kind of design with this project, whether it be streaks, blobs or shapes.  I had a specific idea in mind, inspired by a dream I had last night.  If you want to add any other kind of medium to the canvas to add to the crayons, do that step first.  I am really bad at drawing, so creating this silhouette took me a good 25 minutes.  Haha, check out her feet.

I see rain in her forecast

I carefully painted the silhouette after I had her transferred to the canvas.  I like to use oil paint, which was also the only black paint that I had.  Exercise caution if you decide to go this route, as oil paint takes about 24 hours to fully dry.  Somehow I still ended up with black paint on my face, which I of course did not notice until a good hour after my project was complete.  Typical.  You could probably also use a black permanent marker.

Next, I created a shield with the cardstock so the wax wouldn’t run all over the painted lady.

I can't see her face, but I can tell she's happy.

Remove the paper from the crayons.  I think I got a special box so this surprisingly took me longer than I had anticipated.  I used 18 crayons for a 12″ x 16″ canvas.

Scented memories

You will need to remove the component of the gun that is designed to push the glue forward, otherwise the crayons won’t fit.  My attempts to remove it with a needle nose pliers were futile.  I ended up removing the screws and completely dismantling the gun to remove it.  So, this will basically become my crayon gun since I ruined it.  Glue guns are about $2 at any craft store so don’t lose any sleep over this.

Use the garbage bags or newspaper to create a barrier around your workstation.  I was concerned the wax was going to splatter all over the place once it heated in the gun so I took the ugliest crayon out of the box and used it as a tester to get a feel for the wax flow.  It came out in a steady stream and I used the following color to push the existing color through, since my gun no longer had a trigger.  This also creates a nice transition between colors.  Start at the top and allow the wax to drip to the bottom of the canvas, working your way from left to right.

Halfway there!

This was actually kind of an awkward project.  I was crouched on the floor, focusing on not touching the drying wax with my hands or the glue gun cord or messing up my drying silhouette.  Use extra caution when you are working near the object you added to the canvas.  I slowly made my way through my pile of crayons until I reached the right side of the canvas.

I allowed the wax to dry before I made a couple of touch-ups with the black paint and removed the excess wax from the bottom of the canvas. I sat back and took in the views of the completed project, laughing to myself and wishing my little brother was here to melt crayons with me.

Rain, rain, go away...

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Art Jars #1

March 23, 2011 1 Comment

Drowning Heart

A few weeks ago I watched the street art biography Exit Through The Gift Shop, featuring the artistic vandal, Banksy.  Banksy is an anonymous British graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter.  The dark humor of his artistic work has been featured on streets, buildings and bridges throughout the world.

I was captivated by the amazing art created for all to see in the public and had an instant desire to get off the couch and vandalize a building.  I did not, of course.  But I got to thinking of other ways that I could express myself through street art.  I thought of creating small pieces of art and leaving them out in various places.  Then we had a horrible rainstorm and I pictured that mini art turning to mush.  I began to think of other options.  Mod Podge, lamination, jars…..jars!

It seemed like a great idea with the exception of the fact that I felt like I would be littering.  I have spent years lecturing people about being eco-responsible, the last thing I want to be is a hypocrite.

The purpose of putting these jars out in the wild is for people to find them.  So after contemplating my littering issue over the course of the last couple weeks I decided to go ahead with it, promising myself that I would only leave them in conspicuous areas.  That way I wouldn’t feel like a total ass for ditching glass jars where they would never be found.

I created the first art jar using magazine scraps, a red heart with a backdrop of the ocean.  I waited for the glue to dry before I sealed the mini masterpiece tight in the jar.  I was going to head down to the beach, given the theme of the jar, but decided to go  to one of the canals instead.  I left the Art Jar in a visible area on the popular canal walk in Venice, captured its last photo and walked away with a grin on my face and a slight guilt for leaving a glass jar outside.

Inside with the mini art I left a small piece of paper with information for the finder of the Art Jar.  The only thing better than leaving it for someone to find would be for me to know who found it and when.  You all know how nosy I am, I need to know the end result!  It was pretty fun leaving the Art Jar out in the wild.  I walked home and thought of all the states I can leave them in on my way to Tennessee and Minnesota.  This is going to be great, stay tuned for the next Art Jar adventure!

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Artventure

March 12, 2011 Leave a comment

It has been four years since I have been to Rhode Island to visit Laura and Pat.  I arrived late Friday night and got a tour around the house they bought three years ago.  We moved from room to room as she pointed out old pictures of our grandparents.  I told her I wanted to get copies of them and do an art project with her and Jane.  So we dug through a giant box containing pictures of our childhood and more.  I am the fourth of five children so you can imagine the small amount of pictures I have of myself as a youngster.  Based on photographic evidence, I was born when I was 13.

The plan to make epoxy resin jewelry was spontaneous but I was prepared, as I brought all my jewelry supplies with me from LA.  The only thing we needed were Patera Pendants.  While out for errands on Sunday we made a stop at a jewelry supply shop in Seekonk, Massachusetts, only to find that it had gone out of business.  We went to Micheal’s.  No luck.  We went to Home Depot looking for glass tiles.  No luck.  We decided to research other shops and made a plan to try again on Monday.

We woke early on Monday and made our way to the uniquely chic Thayer Street in Providence.  I had visited this store nearly 10 years ago but it was not there when we returned that day.  We found that they had moved locations so we hopped back in the car and headed to their new store on Federal Hill.  Too bad we didn’t call first, they are closed on Mondays.  I swear no one in that state works more than three days a week.

“This art project is so not in our cards, ladies.” I said in disappointment.

“Oh, it’s gonna happen.” Laura replied.

I had no faith.

We agreed to put the project on the back burner and headed to Boston for the day to meet Nicole.  We dropped Jane off at the Boston Airport later that day and drove back to Providence.  We decided to try one last store before we completely gave up.  We entered Bead & Wire and the man greeted us as is if we were the first customers he’d ever had.

“Do you carry Patera Pendants?” I ask him.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have anything like that.” he responds.

I decided to browse the shelves for anything we could use.  And what did I find on the back wall?  Patera Pendants.  Dude didn’t even know what they were; jewelry is dead in this state.  After he realized what I was looking at he went to the back room to retrieve a handful of absolutely beautiful bezels.  I was in heaven.

The next morning we headed to Staples to shrink the photographs we picked out.  Everyone that I have come across in Rhode Island that is behind any kind of counter is clearly very unhappy that they are there.  I love to shoot the breeze with people but I didn’t want to be anywhere near the woman behind the copy counter.  She was just oozing negative energy.  She was annoyed, short tempered and impatient.

We decided to find another business and headed to Kinko’s on Thayer Street.  We made the quick drive there and found the most delightfully pleasant man who was more than eager to help us.  He gave me a detailed overview of how to properly shrink a photo and I was an instant pro.  I love learning new skills.  Even though mastering a copy machine is really trivial; I know I will need to do it again.

After spending hours running around to get all the necessary supplies, we finally had everything we needed.  We anxiously drove back to Laura’s house, excited to get started on our project.  We first cut out our pictures and glazed them into the pendants to protect the coloring.  Working with epoxy is quite easy, but you have to work quickly.  We filled up the bezels and allowed them to dry and fully cure for three days.  I was happy that we were able to find everything we needed to do the projects and they turned out great.  They were creative, had a vintage feel and cured beautifully.  The majority of the items pictured below are for sale on my Etsy Shop.

Pictures set and ready for epoxy

Stirrin' it up!

The finished pieces

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