steampunk art necklace

i felt like making something new for everyday wear, a little more practical than a snail on a chain. so i sat down and created this!

the text is a dictionary clip, a definition of "art". the typewriter keys are from the lovely industrial chic collection from Michael's. i would buy all of it if i could, but it is too expensive. :( but you should check out the site anyway, i'm sure you'll drool.

i filled the text area with some 3D scrapbook gel stuff. it takes forever to get solid, but it's so useful.
can't wait for it to dry so i can show it off. :)
also, i am so glad i held onto some of that old barn wood from my wedding signs. it makes for great display backgrounds, and i just love having it around the studio.

Another Assemblage

with student teaching fast approaching and summer classes coming to an end, it's very hard to find time to craft. this piece has been in progress for a few weeks.

the shelf as actually a small house. i removed the roof and stairs to have a nice neat tray for assemblages.

I stuck with a common color saturation to make all of the items fit together.

I'm most happy with little sewing section and i love the twine that runs across the center. i think it's a happy return to assemblages.

I haven't had time or materials for this in forever, but it is very satisfying to see another finished project.

Nature Fairy

for Alter It Monthly's July theme, Dolls, i created a garden fairy!

The body is a broken Barbie torso. I used leftover petals from my wedding to cover it.
in each flower i placed a small glass bead. The wings are a metal butterfly I found at a thrift store. I held that together with a screw.

It is hung with an eye hook at the top. There is also an eye hook at the bottom for the shiny glass beads. I love the way the sunlight catches in it.

happy fourth!

here's a happy explosion!

something else 2D....

and back to art now. in addition to the frenzy of getting married, i am also taking 4 sessions of summer classes so i can graduate in december and become an art teacher! my first class from may was relief print. i was really excited about this. there are a few blogs i follow who are complete print nerds and i know what kind of close knit community it is. so im glad i'll be able to at least understand the lingo now. not completely proud of all of these, but i did learn things and thats whats important, right?

for this first one, it was based on Durer's work. we each  wrote a description of an animal and had to make a print from someone else's description. turns out, mine was a saber-tooth cat. but isn't he cute? this is my only print using colored inks.

for the next one, we recreated Goya prints. mine has the same composition as the original (Nothing could be done about it) but i changed the imagery subtly. the main figure is wearing a dress. the other figures around him are characters from the Catholic church. the message is about the Spanish Inquisition and the continued persecution of homosexuals. a little more heavy than just a cute kitten, but it's nice.

the next print was from a dream. this is a place i saw, high in the mountains and precariously held up by spindly sticks. every print has a different background. i used a chin-colle method with scrapbook paper for the patterns. wish the imagery was better, i do like the patterns. i think i'll use chin-colle with more pieces, more pieces i actually like.

the theme for this piece is Communication and the Art of Control. mine is about how the government works with the media to keep the people frightened and in control, more specifically, with health scares (bird flu, swine flu, e-coli). not that these aren't legitimate threats, but the government definitely uses that to their advantage. so mine has images from old Spanish doctors from the plague, with the bird masks. it also has some soldiers with gas masks. my favorite part is the community members. apparently, im good at illustrations, who knew? this one took forever because of all the detail, but i had so much fun carving out the tiny people.

the last project was a diptych. i could think of anything really, and we only had 2 days to cut and print an edition. so i went with a male and female skeleton gesturing towards each other on an abstract plane. nothing too deep and not that well executed, but there it is.

and now for some real art. in my current color theory class, we did a little mono-printing with wax paper. our teacher brought in some of her work for examples and i fell in love with it. any one of them would be perfect in my husband's future music studio (he wants a subtle orange, blue and earth tones color scheme). so i was able to trade 2 of my little works for this! it is a full sheet of Stonehenge paper, so it's pretty large. love it!

happy Earth day!

3 years ago on Earth day, my fiance and i went to our high school for some hardcore vandalism...we planted this. lol. it wasn't kept up with after we graduated, but i am still very proud of what we did all by ourselves!

he started the environmental club there and we were voted most earthy and natural for senior superlatives. this day was made for us, ha.

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SIDE NOTE

made it over 2000 views today, whoo!

three muses challenge: mail

the challenge at the Three Muses this week is.....mail! so i FINALLY had an opportunity to use the rusty mailbox door i found over a year ago. this is a shrine to goddess of mail.

first, i laid down some text paper from a Tim Holtz paper stack. next i used the doll head from my first and only WOYWW (remember that?) I took out the flowers that were formerly her hair and instead gave her a wig of newspaper.

i glued her onto the center of the door and wrote in some text with a calligraphy pen (rain, snow, sleet, hail; MTWRFS).

next i glued on the MAIL letters to the bottom and took some other letters form the Tim stack and cut them into circles. then i used some glossy accents clear embellishments to coat those and make them more 3D.

i then wrapped some postage string around one side (you know how i am about wrapping things) and it was finished! ta da! a shrine to the goddess of mail!

how i decorate my easter eggs

while waiting for another project to dry, i started to fiddle around with some stuff on my desk, and made this! it is a forest tea party inside of an egg.first, i used pliers to break into the ceramic (or maybe plaster?) egg. then i glued in some fake moss and a leaf. the table is made from a cork and the tiny cup and spoon are from the same Bratz play set as the bottles on my fish necklace.

so there is it@ so simple, took about 30 mins. to make, but i believe it's one of my favorite pieces. :)

yay!

i won my first challenge! The Time challenge at Alter It Monthly! Sooo excited about my prize, and hopefully you will all understand. Most people don't get very excited when you tell them you won an art challenge, and are less impressed when they hear that the prize is a box of broken watch parts. but i couldn't be more happy! the prize above was provided by Vintage Supply Co. (check out their cute etsy shop).
^_^

what i'm wearing today...

favorite animal=snail. and kitties of course. but i collect snails like crazy, don't know why, i just can't help but take them home! so in homage to my obsession i made a plastic animal necklace of a snail. just a cute and slimy friend to hang out with me all day. :)

and yes, those are the cutest buttons you've ever seen. i put them on myself. ^_^