Found objects and photography

Today my son asked me "Mommy why did you get interested in smashing things?"

"Well Joshua, do you remember the Steampunk wall hanging that I'm making?  Steampunk involves a lot of gears and wires and instead of buying them at a craft store I thought it would be more fun to smash apart an old electric knife cutter."  (This truly makes my art pieces one-of-a-kind)

Today I decided to go back to these railroad tracks that I explored a few months ago to look for more found objects.  These tracks are about an hour away so I don't make it up there often.  When I was there a few months ago I remember finding A LOT of railroad nails.  I picked up a few last time, and again this time, but what I was really there for was other rusted metal pieces. Rusted metal = steampunk look!

I am a very quiet and "to myself" kind of person so walking on railroad tracks by myself, enjoying the beautiful autumn weather is pure heaven for me.  I have always liked railroad tracks.  Maybe it's the idea that they could take me to different places that intrigue me.  Maybe it was the 1986 movie Stand By Me that turned me on to railroad tracks.

While I'm looking for rusty metal and taking pictures of these beautiful tracks today I remembered that photography was my first love, my first artistic expression.  So here again two of my artistic interests cross paths.

If you'd like to visit my Steampunk board on Pinterest you can find it here.  

  

Wreck This Journal

I have seen this book in stores but instead of buying it I went home and put it on my Amazon Wish List and forgot about it.  Well this past Christmas my mom got it for me and it has been so much fun "wrecking" it!!  It is definitely for anyone that wants to be creative but doesn't know where to start.

Here is an example of what one of the pages looks like (not done yet):

So you kind of get the idea right?  Keri Smith wants you to experiment, be creative, use any tools necessary to create something unique and one of a kind.  The title page was boring until my pink and orange markers attacked it:

A few years ago I challenged myself to learn at least the first 25 digits in the number Pi. (You know 3.14159)  So when I read the page that asked me to "add your own page numbers" the one word that jumped out at me was numbers.  I immediately wanted to write as many digits of Pi that I could fit on the page:

This was one of the first pages I did "Draw fat lines then thin":

I wonder why I haven't done this page yet? I love to sew, maybe I'll do something with this tonight:

Another example of one of my finished pages:

This page says "Tear out. Crumple."  I wanted to experiment with wet watercolors, to "crumple" it up before the watercolors dried to see if I could get a cracked effect.  It didn't turn out quite how I expected but I taped the page back in to show the shrinkage of the page:

And I saved my favorite page for last.  It's called a "Stain log".  I've seen this done with lipsticks but I have a slight obsession with nail polish (and these aren't even all of my colors!) so I decided to log some of my colors:

My absolute favorite, that I wear on my toenails all the time, is the Petites Sapphire, third row first one.

I have a board on Pinterest called Wreck This Journal where you can see other peoples creativity (and I've added my pictures as well).

Another New Endeavor

In 2000 I started garment sewing.  I eventually started quilting, something I said I'd never do, but that's another story.  It only took a few years for that passion to fade but I still loved my sewing machine.  I think the reason why that passion died was because I could never get the clothes to fit right. Plus I found other artistic endeavors to pursue.  I definitely have ADD when it comes to my creative brain!

My husband and I have been long time fans of Project Runway and for me fabric has always been a great source of inspiration.  I love their challenges!  One of the challenges was to shop a pet store for materials and one contestant made a dress out of dog collars.  One of the things I noticed on each episode was that they used dress forms.  Hmmm, I wonder if I got a dress form in my size would that would help me?  Yes!

(Stick with me here)... I LOVE Pinterest and have over 100 boards on my page.  One of my newer boards is called "Altered Clothing".  Instead of starting from scratch I could piece-meal different clothes.
This was the first piece I fell in love with (not created by me):

And this is another one (I love how she did the flowers):

And one day I aspire to do something like this (if only there were more hours in a day!)

So you guessed it!  My newest endeavor is Altered Clothing!  I went to my local thrift store last week and bought three articles of clothing.  A gray sweater which will be my base piece.

A black net-like shirt for draping:

And a dark charcoal gray knit shirt because I liked the "crochet" detail on the back:
                                                           Front:

                                                        Back:

My first cut was right up the middle of the front of the sweater because my original thought was to make a cardigan like the pink one in the first picture.  I ended up sewing it closed closer to the neck and leaving it open at the bottom, eventually adding the charcoal gray knit to that area so I could wear it like a sweater without my belly hanging out.
I cut the crochet off the back of the knit shirt and hand sewed it onto the back of my sweater.  I had two flowers left over so I added some detail to those and sewed those on the front.  For the net-shirt I used the sleeves.  I reattached these to the cut off sweater sleeves.
And this is the end product:

I finally bought myself a dress form for Christmas and I love it although I do wish I was on the smaller end of the measurements but alas I am not.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (almost)

Yes I know I've been MIA for a while but because of my job I now have less time to devote to my artwork.  I love my job (pre-k asst. teacher) and I love my art so I've really been torn these past few months.  But because I am making money as a teacher my artwork had been pushed aside.  During Christmas break I have had time to create again and I love it!  I made 2 fabric bowls for Christmas presents.  One for the director and one for the teacher I work with.  Our theme at St. Andrew's Preschool is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle so the bowl for the director looked like this:

Each of the classrooms is an animal from Eric Carle's books and I am the assistant in The Blue Horse class. I made this bowl for my teacher:

The other things I've done on Christmas break are zentangles, cutting fabric for a new quilt, working on an old quilt AND...

I got a dress form for Christmas (actually it was a present to myself).  I have sewn garments in the past but never with a dress form.  Every season when my husband and I watch Project Runway I get so inspired to start garment sewing again.  I love the fun and funky challenges these contestants must do: create an outfit using only products from the pet store. The beach and the souvenir shop will be the only two places you will be allowed to buy your materials, these were two of the more fun challenges.  I don't think I'll be that "outside the box" when I create my garments but I now have a board on Pinterest called Altered Clothing that has inspired me.  I also have a board called Wearable Art that look more like some of the challenges from Project Runway.

Just because I've been absent doesn't mean I've given up art, on the contrary, I have so many new ideas that I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to work on them.

Oil painting!

I have never had the desire to work with oil paints, maybe because it was the drying time that turned me off.  Maybe because I knew that all the Masters painted in oils and it was very intimidating.   I started out with acrylics probably because that's what my mom paints with plus sometimes she gives me her extras.  Most of my first brushes were from her also (she calls them her "scruffy brushes").  So I started out in acrylics.  Then a few years ago I decided I wanted to teach myself watercolors so I checked out books at the library, bought books online and practiced.  I loved watercolors.  Just about a week ago I decided that I wanted to try oil paints.

I have always been a big fan of Georgia O'Keeffe.  I have a board on Pinterest of some of her work here. Most of her paintings are extreme close ups of flowers just like a lot of my photography.  So that's where I started, books from the library on oil painting and my photography pictures.  My favorite flower is the black-eyed susan so I found a picture and started sketching.

Start with the lightest color first

Then the darker colors and here is the finished product

Before this one was completely finished I started sketching my second one, two little Amish children watching the horse auction in Lancaster, PA.  I took this picture last year among  hundreds of others so I think I may do an Amish series.  Anyone that knows me knows I am slightly obsessed with the Amish (and I'll be going up there again this year, I can't wait!)

A new (and addicting) website

Think Flickr meets Facebook and you get Pinterest.  I've gone to this website before but I didn't really understand the concept... now I do.  You create folders for yourself and then browse pictures that millions of people have posted and "pin" them into your folders to either refer back to and/or share with your friends.  You can also upload pictures so others can repin yours.  Pinterest makes it so easy because they let you know who your facebook friends are that are also using Pinterest.  It's free but you have to register.  When I did this I was put on a waiting list so I called one of my friends to ask her if this was common.  She said yes and that she would send me an "invite" to see if this sped things up and it did. 

You can check out my account here:
I am of course KimberlyJDC