….day 87
Carla Sonheim’s prompt today was to create a design using lines or just doodling. This is just what I needed today. It was fun and relaxing. All three pieces were done in one of my many art journals. The first one took the longest but the other two were done very quickly.
…..days 85 and 86
I’ve decided to go back to my sketch books and rework some old pieces and draw at least one new piece each day. This way I keep my hand moving and working on my drawing skills at the same time.
The first piece is one of the collages that I made with my two year old granddaughter. I added some line detail. I’m not sure that I’m done with it but it was very relaxing and therapeutic at the same time. The second piece is a sketch of my walking shoe that I was literally wearing when I sketched it.
…..day 84
It’s been too long since I’ve created art; not sure why. I’ve had lot’s of inspiration but I think I’ve been surrounded by too much clutter. Tonight I cleared a space and produced another collage from the The Collage Workbook by Randel Plowman. In week 14 the challenge was to use stamps in our collage to create an additional layer of intrigue.
When I was a young girl my aunt had a personalized stamp made for me with my name. So it consists of my German first name Carola and my maiden name Winkler. I can’t believe that I saved it all these years. I used parts of envelopes and stamped labels and a bit of Washi tape to create my collage.
…..day 83 of 365 Days of Art
Every once in awhile I like to change things up. Recently I took a crochet class. After making numerous wash clothes and coffee cup holders I decided it was time to branch out or get more creative. One thing that I love making are hats, so I found a pattern for an Owl hat for my granddaughter. Normally I make things too large but this time it may be on the small side. If it is, I’ll hang on to it until more grandchildren come around or if someone else is having a baby.
Here is my first attempt at an owl hat for a toddler made with a crochet hook.
…day 82
I keep adding more colour, collage, line detail and background marks to my one-liner birds. I also added two new characters that I borrowed from Eva Ucgatwork. I love expressions and how they appear to be in awe of these strange looking birds.
….day 81 of 365 Days of Art
On Friday our granddaughter requested that everyone coming over for lunch on Saturday wear a Snoopy t-shirt. Our oldest daughter was the only one who could honour that request so Oma and Papa went to work looking for Snoopy clipart. I knew I had t-shirt transfer sheets so it was just a matter of choosing the design and finding some plain t-shirts that we didn’t mind messing up if things didn’t go as plan.
The first shirt did get messed up and I had to hand draw the lower half of Snoopy with a black Sharpie. The next two worked out much better.
I asked my daughter-in-law what colour t-shirt she wanted for her Snoopy Shirt. When she said black I knew that I couldn’t use the transfer sheets that I had so I researched how to transfer designs onto to black or dark fabric. It turns out that there is a special transfer paper designed for dark colours.
I made a quick trip to Michael’s and found the special sheets that I needed and the t-shirts were on sale, buy two and get one free. I picked up three new shirts and decided on the spot that I had to make shirts for daughter #2 and her husband. I loved how easy it was to use the special paper for dark colours and was very happy with the outcome. I think everyone loved their shirts.
….day 80 of 365 Days of Art
For the Tape n’Stuff assignment that Carla Sonheim gave us I made two backgrounds. Yesterday I posted the first one here where I explained the process for this project.
Here is my second attempt at this unusual assignment.
…..day 79
I went back to some of the one-liner birds that I had done and decided to redraw two of them onto the taped and collaged background that I created yesterday. After I lightly drew the shape onto the collaged surface I took acrylic white paint and filled in the shape. After it dried completely I used a Koi Colouring Brush Pen in black and outlined the shape and added a few details. I then applied some water with a brush to the black marks to soften them and create shadow.
Here is the first completed piece:
…day 78
In Carla Sonheim’s on-line year-long art class we were assigned to create some backgrounds (Part 1) for the next class. These canvases were to be created with collaged paper but instead of gluing them down we were suppose to use tape in a variety of colours and patterns to hold everything together. In other words the tape is part of the design.
Last night or early this morning I started making two canvases. I was totally engrossed in the process and by 2:30 in the morning I had completed two backgrounds. Here they are:
Step two is to paint something (an object, animal, person) in white paint somewhere on these canvases. Haven’t quite decided what to do but I have a couple of ideas. Stay tuned.
…..Day 77
I’ve included this knitting project has one of my art pieces for my 365 Days of Art. It took me hours if not days to complete this shawl. I had never done a lacy pattern before but I think it was the 361 stitches on the needle that caused me the most grief. If I dropped one stitch or miscounted the whole piece was off and trying to fix a mistake when you’ve completed a row was close to impossible to fix. I ripped out the stitches four times and one of those times I was already finished with the lacy section when I realized that I had misread the last row of the pattern and had 70 stitches too many on my needle. Arghhh!
The fifth try was the charm. By this time I truly understood how the pattern worked and the number of stitches remained constant until it was time to decrease. I have to admit that after the third failure I was ready to give up. After all, it was taking away from my time at my art table but I decided that this project was a form of art so I persisted. I made a couple of trips back to the yarn store, Spin Me a Yarn, where I was given the encouragement I needed and some helpful tips for this project.
If you’re interested this pattern is called Mesquite Shawl from Zen Yarn Garden.
Mama Cormier 