March - In like a lion

We have all seen on the news the devastating storms.  I was blessed
and thankful that my family and ourselves were spared.  I do worry that
this is the beginning of an over-active spring.

I have not done much artwork the past few weeks.  I tried my hand at
pyrography and filligree craving on a large 40" diameter gourd.
I have to harden my gourds because finding thick gourds locally for
carving has been difficult.  I hope to try some more in the near
future but still my favorite activity with gourds is creating baskets.

I was recently inspired by the decorating blog apartmenttherapy.com to recreate a backlite canvas in my own style.  I used foil instead of paint to fashion the exterior of the design.  I fashioned a box to contain the light and the light was 20 bulb string of mini lights.  I like it sorta.  It will take a bright light to make the design to show up well and it has a heavy feel to me.  I am going to redo this project to get the lighter uplifting effect that I want.  So you will see more in the near future. 

If you want to see the orginal inspriration for this project, I have it pinned on my
www.pinterest.com boards.  Pinterest is a really fun site for ideals and inspiration.
It contains just about anything a person could be interested in (food, photography, design,
clothes) and gives you the link to find the items.

Creating the frame box was the hardest part for me. I don't know how a person manages keeping
those 45 degree angles together properly so you can nail them.  All of mine are off between alittle and alot.  It is not painted in the pic.  But I am in the process of putting a silver metallic paint on it.  Right now I only have it primed.  You will see the finished frame box on my next visit with a different canvas. 

If anyone can instruct me on how to hold together 45 angles, I would appreciate your comments. 
Please stay safe and see you soon.

A Variety of Art Interests

I am study about my blogging. So according to "Hubspot" those who blog have 55% more website visitors. So I most definitely have a lot a learning to do (LOL). But anyway, for those whom
have read my humble blog, I hope you have gotten to know me better and that I have made your days a little brighter with my dialogue.
As for what I have been up to in the past couple weeks.....

I completed a basket since I last communicated with you all but not yet embellished it. It is a new style for me cause it has the wire handle. I haven't been able to figure out the best way to attach the embellishments. I feel like it is sort of plain with out them, as it is right now. Maybe you could help me. I would love to know what you would might think about embellishing the basket. Some of the things that I have considered is 1.drilling holes in the upper band of the gourd, 2.tying cording with embellishment dangling from the handle, 3. working the embellishment thru the weaving. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this, so please leave comments.

I had a mishap this week with one of my favorite gourd baskets. When I list items in my Etsy.com shop, I will enjoy them around the house till they sell. Earlier this week, I found out that this might not be so wise. I was moving the swirl cut gourd basket (pic in an earlier blog) and knocked it off the shelf. It broke. There goes the time, materials and most of all the caring that one puts into creating any piece of art.

I have also been spending time learning a new technique.
This small apple gourd is my first carving project and I
hope that my carving of gourds gets finer. I also used
a gourd to make the leaf and then put one of the battery
operated candles inside. This was very fun to do.
Learning the control of the carving tools is hard to do.

I have been reading some of my favorite blogs since I last wrote. And they connected me a couple of new sites. One is Design-seeds.com, it is a wondersite for color exploration. It has given me some new ideas. I really like the old tin colors combinations. And plan on using some of this combinations. I just purchased some of the new chalk paints from a local distributor " Liz Douglas Design" and am currently trying it on some pieces that I am going to upcycle. But I have only just started them and will show you the results in my next posting.

According to what I have read, the prep for this paint is minimal compared to acrylic or oil base. So I have put the first layer on an old frame that I have. It is a plastered frame that is chipping away. I cleaned and sealed it hoping to stop the chipping. I also created some molds for the decorative corners and used paper clay to repair the missing parts. There is still some plaster missing but this will give it more character, I hope. So come back in a couple of weeks to see the results.

The other is the Gourd Art Enthusiasts forum (if that is what an "ning.com" is). The gourdartenthusiasts.ning.com provides a connection to those who grow and manipulate gourds into art forms. I enjoy making my gourd baskets and bowls but some of these folks are really wonderful sculptors. I enjoy the detail and beauty of these pieces. This site has a lot of information on growing and creating art with gourds. It hasn't seem to help me decide how to decorate my latest basket though ;-) It does give me so many ideals that I just don't know what to do next.

Some times when trying to decide, I will just paint a canvas. I painted the one below (a Jerry Yarnell pattern) and it is going to be part of an art display at the Clark County Library during the month of February. We have a great library that is dedicated to the arts and so many other interests. Our library does a lot with our community. I hope that yours does also. When going to college (so many years ago), I did not have time to read for enjoyment. I started checking out audio books and listened to them on the hour drive back and forth. I still do, I put them on the surround sound and crank it up so that I can listen to it while cleaning house, working on the computer or working on one of my projects. I really like to have one when traveling. And I still listen to them driving back and forth to work. I hope you will make the time to visit and see what your library has to offer. You are also welcome to come to Clark county and visit ours ( www.clarkbooks.org ).