"If you hear a voice within you say, 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." --Vincent van Gogh

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Lots of stuff

I wanted to post yesterday but the day got away from me - so here I am playing catchup! The drawing for Love Squared has happened and the winners will be announced tonight! Head over to Monica's Blog to see how much was raised for the Komen Foundation.
I say "winners" because many, many artists donated prizes for the drawing. There will be many happy winners this evening! Head over to Amber Dawn's blog to check out the charm bracelet made from all the pink charms we swapped. The gorgeous jewelry is in the October 8th post and you can see my bottlecap charm peeking out at the top. It is amazing to me that you can tell a group of artists to "make a pink charm" - and you can get so many unique and varied results.

I got a few things in the mail yesterday (finally!). Below is a postcard that I made for a Cyber friend who lost her father recently. The heart is made from the paper bag technique, that yes, I promise I will post a tutorial for!!

The word "Love" in the lower right corner was done by twisting silver wire into the shape of the word and then pounding it flat. I'm rather amused that my handwriting is apparently neater when twisting wire then it is with pen and paper. Go figure!

Below is a piece that I started a while ago, but it got stalled out. I finally pushed through my stumbling point and, as always, it came together quite nicely. It is a thank you piece, 6" square, for Arlee. Arlee organized the Exquisite Corpse Round Robin that I participated in. She did an amazing job and the group is now in round two (which I did not participate in). The group makes a lot of comments about the "corpse" aspect of this - so I thought I'd send her a corpsalicious little piece of art to add to her collection. You can see the results of our trade at the Corpse Blog.

The bottlecap can be removed if she wants to use it for a piece of jewelry. This is a surprise for her, so I'm hoping she doesn't stop by my blog in the next few days - but Arlee, if you are reading this - surprise! and thank you!!

Below is a detail shot. It was interesting to me how the various sheers all melted in a different manner when blasted with the heat gun. The skull is an iron on patch that I received from Andrea during the Sweet and Sinister swap last year. She also sent me many of the ribbons, including the white leaves, which ended up being the final touch that the piece really needed.

And finally, I am doing a complex cloth round robin with three other ladies from the Surface Design group. We are sending one yard of fabric through each member, and we get to alter the fabric with the surfaced design method of our choice. We get our piece back in the end, although we might swap small pieces of it.
This is the yard of hand-dyed failure that I am sending. It is actually much duller in real life than it looks in this photo - and that's saying something! It is a piece I dyed last year, that obviously didn't work out. I can't wait to see what the other ladies do to it. Anything will be an improvement! I'm looking forward to playing with what comes my way, too.

I've got a few more projects to complete. This week has broughty myriad days off and early releases with the three kids, so I am trying to get things done here and there.

3 comments:

Jeanne Turner McBrayer said...

The two pieces you made are both very special, and I know they will be greatly appreciated. And I like that piece of dyed fabric even before it receives any additional surface design! Can't wait to see what it looks like when you get it back.

Anonymous said...

Gee, I like it too. It looks like the BIG BANG effect. Or, you might call it "Heavens Portal."

Wiseguy

arlee said...

Got it today as a total surprise and I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thank you Sweetness! I am DEFINITELY wearing the charm as a necklace!! Thank you thank you thank you!The whole is SO KEWL :}