Monday, December 09, 2019

Holiday Obsessions


Been busy making holiday gifts using vintage tins. 
I just want to share my progress as I'm really happy with them!

Antique Spice Tin Holiday Scene

Antique Spice Tin Holiday Scene
 Spice Tin Holiday Decoration

 
Old Spice Tin Holiday Decoration

Brocade Tin Holiday Decoration

I hope to make this house light up soon and put some tissue paper in the windows to soften the LED lights. More pictures soon!

Wednesday, June 06, 2018

Easy Marble

Finally got out the Easy Marble (made by Marabu) and here a a few of the better ones. I do recommend working with them in moderate room temperatures as it was very hot and they seemed to set up on the water faster than I could marble! Easy marble does not require any additives to the water and seems to be an oil based product. Joggles also has a video using them with gelli plates, but I haven't gotten that far yet.






Tuesday, June 05, 2018

QUICK POST - Font Love

LOVE this site! Alphabettes  is a site of all women & font love... research, creation, history! I'll be here for a while. 

Saturday, May 19, 2018

The Art of Part Diagrams

Thank goodness for the internet... we've fixed the dryer after almost 2 months of fussing and trying parts. But I realized how darn cool are part diagrams! These were so helpful in our repair too. Thanks to https://www.partselect.com/ and http://www.appliancepartspros.com. Hurray! Off to do massive amounts of laundry...

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Botanical Mandalas: 2 Inspirations

Spring is in the air and so are botanical mandalas! I love the idea of botanical mandalas and the two artists I'm featuring below create them in different ways, but both really beautiful. The first mandala artist is Daniel McPheeter.
 Daniel McPheeter's work:
He creates his mandalas with digital collage and images of flowers. His 2011 gallery show YouTube is below. His art takes it beyond just the circle and he has some really beautiful pieces. 



I also found Louise Gale's book Botanical Mandalas: Draw, Paint, and Create Expressive Mandala Art Inspired by Nature. When you buy her book you can also join her book club for free. There is also a preview of this book at this page and I'm so excited to see it in person (yes, I had to order it).

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Remembering that really cool coworker...

The one in the mask... made it worth coming into work to laugh so hard you'd cry. ✊😜




Saturday, May 12, 2018

Watercolor Crayons: Distress Crayon, Neocolor II, Gelatos, & More... Compared


Cleaning my studio (I'm avoiding homework) but thought I'd take a break and try out a sample Marabu Art Crayon I got from Jerry's Artarama. At time of this posting, Jerry's has the Marabu red art crayon on a special "buy it/try it" deal of $2.25. I started using Stabilo Woody crayons on my mixed media pieces and then Gelatos from Faber Castell and Tim Holtz's Distress crayons came out... well, I keep buying and trying as the textures, color ranges and forms are all a touch different. Below I have tried the previous crayons with the addition of Caran d'ache Neocolor II Aquarells and Dina Wakley's scribble sticks.


There are pros and cons with all of them: I like the chunkiness of the Stabilo Woodys and the Marabu Art Crayon. That shape seems to works great when working on large canvases, but the gelatos are too creamy for canvas in my opinion-they get used up rather quickly, so I save them for paper. The Dina Wakely are harder and can be "scrubbed" off the paper so you don't see the drawn lines, if your paper can handle it. I like them for details. The Gelatos and Distress Crayons are good for mixing and stamping. The Neocolor II's are just smooth and lovely, come in just about every color, but in pricier sets. A note on the Stabilo Woodys: make sure you get a pencil sharpener with your set as these pencils are too big for most pencil sharpeners. 

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