52 Weeks of Art: Week 4

Week 4: Wire

Welcome to week 4 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     Wire sculpting. What is it? Thank you, Google, for showing me some amazing examples...

I found this beauty here with several other amazing pieces.

Check out this awesome piece here!

     Now, I haven't done much 3D art over the years, but I have made a few crowns out of wire for The Oldest for Halloween costumes. Wire and hot glue. Hot glue is the best. You can do pretty much anything with it.

Crown #1 -  about 5 years ago - Ice Queen

Crown #2 - about 2 years ago - Black Swan

     That's about the extent of my wire sculpting. Until this week. I pulled out all my wire supplies.

Thanks, Little One, for the photograph! You're the best!

     And I got to work...

Can you tell what it is yet?

     I have to admit, I was really excited about making this wire sculpture. I really got into it, so much so that I only took the one progress picture. Sorry about that. I used a few different gauges, 20, 24, and 26. If you don't know, the smaller the number of gauge, the thicker the wire.

And here's the finished sculpture.

Wire Jellyfish - from the side

Wire Jellyfish - from the front

Wire Jellyfish - from the other side

Wire Jellyfish - from the back

Wire Jellyfish Sculpture - 20, 24, 26 gauge wire and block of wood

      That's it. My tiny wire sculpture. In case you can't tell, it's a jellyfish. The Little One helped me out with my photography. We used a kitchen towel and a cutting board. Use what you've got, right?

On to rating wire sculpting...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for wire sculpting my rating is: 18

Ease of use: 4

    I think that as long as you've got some good pliers it's pretty easy to bend the wire how you want. The thicker wires weren't as easy, but I was still able to do what I needed with the right pliers.

Affordability: 4

     I don't know about you, but I don't normally have spools of wire laying around my house. Is that right, is it a spool? I think so. Anyhow, I had some, but I still didn't have the size I needed for this project. I did have to buy some. I just bought it from Joann's, using one of their many coupons. The total was less than $10. Not bad, but it could get expensive depending on how much wire you're needing for your project.

Accessibility: 5

     Wire of all sizes is pretty easy to get. Most craft stores carry it or you can order it online and have it delivered straight to your house. I got my pliers from Harbor Freight because they sell them on the cheap.

Fun to Use: 5

     I loved wire sculpting! I think I'll be making more sculptures in the future! I had a lot of fun with this project. I know that my kids got frustrated when they were trying to make their own, but they still had fun.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 3

Week 3: Food Art

Welcome to week 3 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     Now, you might be wondering what food art is. Yeah, me too. There were so many different ways we could have gone with this one. We could have made some art out of food. Like this...

Amazing, right?

     Or, we could have made some stamps from food and made some food stamped art!

Fun, right?

     In the end, we decided to go with cookies. Now, even with cookies we could have done different things! We chose to paint the cookies. Painted cookies? Yeah, it's a thing. And it's amazing! Just Google hand painted cookies. Go ahead, I'll wait. Check out these awesome cookies!

I found these here

     Here's some photos of me making cookies.

Getting ready to roll out some dough. Thanks Alton Brown for the recipe!

     I had to cut out my 3" x 3" squares. I have a bazillion cookie cutters. You want a dinosaur? I got 20. You need a heart? What size, I've got every one. You need your state? Where do you live? I've got all 50 states. You need a voodoo doll? Zombie? Check. Double check. Need a square? Uh... nope. Don't have one of those. Luckily, I have a ruler and a knife!

Cutting cookies into 3x3 squares

Baked and ready to ice. 

Look how shiny that icing is!

     While my icing was drying - which takes forever, by the way - I gathered up my supplies! I used AmeriColor for my paint. You can get it here on Amazon for $26 for 12 colors. FYI a little bit goes a LONG way. This stuff will last a long time.

Got my supplies all ready to go.

     In case you were wondering, the vodka was for the painting, not for drinking. However, I guess if you want to drink and paint cookies at the same time you could. I'm not a drinker, just a cookie painter.

Did some painting. Waiting for it to dry. 

     I added all the finishing touches with a food safe pen. 

Added the finishing touches!

Done!

Done!

It's a flower!

It's a field of flowers, can you tell?

     Well, what do you think of my cookie painting? I had fun doing it. The kids had fun painting the cookies too. And eating them. What's better than eating your work?

On to rating cookie painting...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for cookie painting my rating is: 19

Ease of use: 4

    Painting cookies was easy. Especially if you have any sort of painting experience. You just have to be careful not to poke holes in your icing. I don't know, maybe I just didn't wait long enough for my icing to dry.

Affordability: 5

     Cookies are really cheap to make. And pretty much anyone can bake a cookie, right? You don't need fancy cookie cutters, you can just freehand cutting your own designs. $26 for some food color gel might seem like a lot, but you can just buy individual colors. Also, a little bit of color goes a long way. You'll be able to paint MANY cookies with your food coloring.

Accessibility: 5

     You can get everything you need to bake your cookies and make icing at any grocery store. Food color gel can be found online or in specialty baking stores.

Fun to Use: 5

     I had fun painting cookies. I think the best part of painting cookies is having cookies to eat when you're done.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 2

Week 2: Weaving

Welcome to week 2 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week? 

     I've got to be honest with you, I haven't done much weaving in my life. In fact, the only weaving I remember ever doing are those God's Eyes that you make with Popsicle sticks and yarn. You know what I'm talking about, right? I think just about every child has made one of those. I was googling some pictures of them to put here so you'd know for sure what I was talking about and look what I found!

Tiny God's Eyes by Pink Stripey Socks

     Aren't these the cutest things ever? These are God's Eyes, tiny ones, but still. I remember making these as a child. Lots and lots of them. However, it's been 20 some odd years since I last made one, so my weaving skills are a little bit rusty.

     I had lots of research to do. Where do you go when you have to research? The internet! Okay, the library would have been a good answer, too. I remember when the library would have been the only answer. Does that make me old? Probably. 

     Thanks to Google I found this website. It's full of helpful information for a beginner. That's me!

Step 1: Gather Supplies

     If you're a beginner, like me, you might be wondering what you need for supplies. Good news! You don't have to buy any fancy equipment, no searching the internet for hard to find tools. If you decide that weaving is your thing, then yeah, go for it! Buy all the stuff! However, if you just want to dip your toes into the waters of weaving, you can do what I did. Make your own loom! All you need is some sturdy cardboard, hot glue, and a sharp knife. Seriously, that's all. 

Here I have marked all my lines on my cardboard. The square in the center is 3" x 3".

Here I have glued down some strips of cardboard for a little spacing and I've cut lines in the cardboard for the warp threads.

     All this cutting and gluing took me all of 20 minutes to do and then I was ready to go! I've got my loom, what's next? Thread, yarn, string, fabric, just about anything that you want to weave, really. I went with embroidery floss. Why? Because I have SO MUCH of it. Also, it's cheap and thin. Since I'm using a tiny loom, I thought I'd use some thinner thread. 

Step Two: Warp Your Loom

     The warp - and that's warp, not wrap - is the thread that runs vertical (up and down) your loom. I gotta be honest here, this was the EASIEST part of the whole weaving process. So easy, I thought, hey, I got this. 

My tiny warped cardboard loom.

Step Three: Plan Your Pattern - Or Not

      This part was not easy for me. When I first looked into weaving I thought that maybe it leaned more towards crafts and less toward art. Oh how wrong I was. All you weavers out there, I am so sorry I ever considered your masterpieces any less than the art that they are. In my research I learned that weaving has been important in many cultures. The patterns meant different things, the designs told stories. Do all the designs have to tell a story? No, of course not! Go abstract, make whatever you want! For me? I wanted my design to have some meaning to it. I looked into Norwegian weaving for some inspiration. I'm proud of my Norwegian heritage and I wanted to weave something to represent my Nordic side.

   

Sample of Norwegian weaving from the Scandinavian Weavers Study Group

Norwegian bandweaving

    Hahahaha. What was I thinking? Did I forget that I'm a beginner and I have no idea what I'm doing? These are not simple patterns. Beautiful, but not simple. So... on to idea number two...

Norwegian - Scandinavian - woven heart basket. 

     I took my inspiration from a Norwegian woven heart basket. These are typically made at Christmas time and hung on the Christmas tree. Children make these things. How hard could this possibly be to weave on a loom? 

     Hahaha. 

Step Four: Adding the Weft - the actual weaving part

Here's me getting started, thinking this is super easy to do.

Four HOURS later....

What am I doing?!

     I seriously thought this was going to be way easier than it was. I mean, it's only 3"! I was expecting to be done in no time at all. Ugh! At this point I am regretting my decision to add weaving to my list... I don't know what I'm doing. You see that big knot there? How did that even happen? I don't know!

Three more hours of work later...

Can you even tell what this is?!

     Halfway through the cream color I was thinking I knew what I was doing now. Nope. Those two halves of the heart are NOT equal. 

And ONE MORE hour of work...

And DONE! Well, with the weaving part at least.

     Phew! I made it! I don't know if you can tell, but I really got mixed up with my pattern here. Just kidding, of course you can tell! I got frustrated after a while and abandoned my pattern. I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I blame math. Math is hard.

Step Five: The Final Step 

     The last step is to remove your weave... is that right? What do I call the finished thing? I don't know. I'm going to call it a tiny tapestry. Okay, last step - remove your tiny tapestry. This part scared the daylights out of me. What if I cut all the warp threads and the whole thing falls apart?! I was brave, though, and I did it! I didn't get any pictures of it right after I took it off the loom - I was too worried it was going to fall apart. I just skipped ahead to tying off the ends.

Tiny Tapestry - DONE!

     After another HOUR of tying off the warp threads and weaving in the ends of the weft threads I was finally finished. Yay! This whole project took so much longer than I ever thought that it would. There were times when I thought I was crazy for doing this, but I powered through it and I'm glad I did. It's not perfect in any way, but I am proud of my tiny tapestry.

     On to rating weaving...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for weaving my rating is: 15

Ease of use: 2

    Is this easy to do? Yes and no. I think that if I had done a larger loom with thicker yarn it would have been easier. I also think doing a simpler pattern would have made it easier for a beginner like me. Overall, I think anyone can try weaving. Just be prepared to spend some time on it. A LOT of time.

Affordability: 5

     I don't think this could have been any cheaper for me. I used cardboard from a box I already had (thank you Amazon). I already had the embroidery floss. My whole project took up less than two skeins of floss. At most, that's $1.00. Like anything, though, you could spend a lot of money on supplies, equipment, and tools. If you don't know if you'll enjoy weaving or not, it's inexpensive enough to try it out.

Accessibility: 5

     You can get cardboard and floss, thread, yarn anywhere you look. 

Fun to Use: 3

     I have mixed feelings about weaving. It was time consuming and frustrating. But in the end, I was very excited to have my finished project.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Week Art Adventure: A Year of Art

Week 1: Watercolor

     I've decided that I am going to take the next 52 weeks and go on an art adventure! It will be a year of art. I have tried several mediums of art over the years, but there are plenty that I've always wanted to try and never got around to. So, my plan for the next 52 weeks will be to create a piece of art in a different medium each week. 

     I thought about how I was going to go about doing this. Should I start with mediums I already know and work my way up to ones I've never tried? Should I do the mediums by type? In the end, I just decided to go random. I put all the different mediums in an app and randomized it. 

Week 1: Watercolor!

     Because I will be doing a new medium each week, every piece of art will be tiny. Who doesn't love tiny? I'm going with 3" x 3". I know, it's not super tiny, but hey, I think it's pretty tiny still.

     I will also be collaborating on this epic art adventure with the amazingly talented Rebecca Johnson. You can find her on Instagram @RebeccaJohnsonArtwork. She's also my best friend, sister-in-law, and neighbor! Win, win win!

     I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm a little afraid to start with watercolor. While I have done watercolor before, I am no expert.

Past watercolor artwork - untitled

Past watercolor artwork - also untitled.
It's my oldest dressed as the black swan for Halloween.

     Why am I afraid to start with watercolor, you ask? Well, because Rebecca Johnson is a watercolor artist. THIS is her medium. She's amazing! So yeah, it's a little intimidating to be doing this with her knowing that she's pretty awesome at it.

Watercolor painting by Rebecca Johnson - Black Swan
This was a gift she made for my oldest

Watercolor painting by Rebecca Johnson - The Happy Couple
This was a gift for our family, my kids' grandparents

Watercolor painting by Rebecca Johnson - Bob
Another gift for our family, our dog. His name is Bob.

     Awesome, right? Time to push back my fear and learn from the master. We'll eventually get to a medium that neither of us know anything about and we can learn together.

All set up and ready to paint! I know, my palette is a mess!

Close up of my tiny sketch. Unfortunately, you can't really see the sketch so well here. Sorry about that.

Photo reference for my watercolor painting. It's a photo I took on our trip to Oregon. 

     Who thinks I'll be able to pull this off? Keep scrolling for the big reveal!

     Before we get to the finished painting, let's talk. For this adventure I didn't want to just check off each medium - especially the ones I've done before. I wanted to push myself, grow a little, you know? My standard go-to for watercolor is basically just splash some paint on there and then draw over it with pen. This time I went for something different. 

My finished painting still taped to the board.

Watercolor - Oregon Coast

     Well, what do you think? How'd I do? As nervous as I was to do this project with a REAL watercolor artist, I'm glad that I did. It was fun. It got me out of my comfort zone. Did it suddenly make me a world class watercolor artist? Ha! Absolutely not! But it was fun. I don't have a title for it yet, though. Any ideas?

     If you have never tried watercolor yourself, I highly recommend it! You don't have to go all out and buy the expensive brand name paints and brushes. You can always get the student grade Crayola stuff and still experiment and have fun. Did you know that you can also make your own watercolor paints? It's super easy and can be made with simple household ingredients! You can find some instructions to make your own here. I haven't made my own yet, but it's on my bucket list of things to try some day. If you make your own, let me know how it goes!

     I've decided that I am going to rate each medium on four different criteria on a scale of 1-5 for a total of 20 points possible. The different criteria are:

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for watercolor my rating is: 18

Ease of use: 3

    I really feel like this is a medium that anyone can try. The only downside is the waiting. If you're not a patient person, waiting for the paint to dry before you apply your next layer can be frustrating. 

Affordability: 5

     While the name brand paints, brushes, and papers can be quite costly, watercolor can still be affordable. There are many inexpensive paints out there, and you can even make your own at almost no cost. Inexpensive brushes can also be purchased, as well as paper. Unless you plan on becoming a professional watercolor artist, supplies for this medium can be purchased at any price level.

Accessibility: 5

     It seems like watercolor paints, brushes and paper can be purchased anywhere. I have even seen them available in grocery stores. So yeah, watercolor supplies are very accessible.

Fun to Use: 5

     I really enjoy watercolor painting, even if I don't know what I'm doing. There's just something about watching the paint spread across the wet paper that is really enjoyable. If you don't know what I mean, you'll have to give it a try.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!