Painting Stones

I have been quiet in quarantine, but crafting is still happening, if slowly. Yesterday I painted rocks with my friend Jasra! Here are a few favorites:

Paint pens on stone

Stained Glass Tree Mural

After running an errand this morning, I opted to walk home rather than take the bus. As a result I stumbled across a woman named Crystal painting a public mural in one of my local parks. When I inquired about taking a photo (which she graciously said yes), I was also invited to help paint. How awesome!

This is where she started the day:

The plan was to have the community help add the color so that it started to look like this:

Seriously, this was a particularly awesome surprise in my day.

Public art, created by the community = awesome!

There was a great mix of adults and kids helping out. This is where we got to by the end of the day. I can't wait to see what happens next week!

Comm Pad

I need to play with my acrylic paint stash more. My housemate asked if I had any paint to do her comm pad for her Imperial Crew uniform. Obviously she had not taken a serious look at the size of the craft stash.


Plus she let me play with actually painting. I had a hard time finding a yellow I was happy with, but fortunately it is just paint. So I was able to just custom mix a color that was slightly better.

Community Art Show

Warning: photo-heavy post ahead. Recently Chiquita's school held their annual community art show. Every year I am completely blown away by the talent of all the kids, parents, and staff at this school. This year was no exception.

There was a surprising amount of work in clay, which I thought was really cool. I loved that there was so many pieces at all different levels of experience. This little dragon in particular I thought was super spunky.


And this snake was really neat too. I'm sorry that this photo doesn't show the texture better, because it was such an interesting combination of smoothness with minor dimpling mimicking the scales.


There were wonderful paintings in acrylic, like this incredibly peaceful one:

And more in watercolor, like this quirky iguana:

There were several paper sculptures made from origami, like this beach scene:

They didn't stop on the small scale though. This model of the titanic, made mostly of paper with some plastic and wood, was over 4" long.

There was even some collage work, like these two images of tulips made entirely from greeting cards. What a great idea of how to use these!

I saw more fabric work than last year, perhaps because of the popularity of Laura's Sewing School. I saw a few mini quilts in addition to Chiquita's blueberry skirt that we submitted to the show.

I think my project next year will be knit or crocheted though. There were not many pieces of these types. The major exception was this whimsical crocheted trout by the local artist, Mara Bradford that I absolutely love. Free-form crochet is so amazing.

Every year I walk away from this event feeling super inspired, and it so cool for the kids to see art valued this way. I am full of ideas I want to try and things I want to make now.

Wings

In Deathly Hallows, I have to admit that the whole dragon plot point struck me as a little too convenient. (No I do not planning on spoiling.) With the prompt of "wings" for the February CMP ATC swap, though, I knew I wanted to do something with dragons. So after playing around with a couple different ideas, I ended up with this one as the dragon flew off. Something about the image of the dragon flying off into freedom just captures my imagination, despite not caring for the way it fell into the story as a whole.

gesso, acrylic paint & pigma micron pen on cardstock

Somehow this was my first experience working with gesso. I had picked some up a while back, because I had been hearing about it so much on the Creative Mom Podcast and on various art blogs. It was really interesting. I like the texture it gives and am looking forward to experimenting with it my moleskine now too.

Socks ATC

The December prompt for the Creative Mom Podcast Artist Trading Card swap was "gift". And I know my recipient is an avid Harry Potter fan. So it was only natural that I wanted to combine these two things. I was thinking about what my favorite gift that was given in the series, and the answer was quick to come to mind.

Although Mrs. Weasley is famous for her knitting, there is another knitter who knit Christmas gifts: Dobby! (Actually there are 2-3 more knitters if you count Hagrid's "circus tent" he was knitting on the train, Hermione's SPEW knitting, and Dumbledore's love of reading knitting patterns, but I cannot attest to whether or not they knit Christmas gifts.)

This ATC was worked on cardstock in watercolor.


Socks seen here:

• Vernon's sock ("foul" "mustard-yellow" and "extra knobbly") that Harry gave to Dobby
• One red sock with broomsticks and one green sock with Snitches, that Dobby knit for Harry, after buying the wool from the wages he is now free to earn
• the black "slimy" sock that Harry gave Dobby that won him his freedom - a bit grey from the wash?
  
• a violet sock from the pair that Ron gave Dobby (knit by Mrs. Weasley)
• an orange tube sock - because I can see Dobby doing tube socks at first before figuring out how to turn a heel
• a blue Jaywalker - because muggles aren't the only ones who fell in love with this pattern
• and finally a yellow sock in progress
  

Signs of Fall ATC

Does everyone else find their house full of leaves at this time of year. They are picked up on our walks home from school. This one for its amazing yellow color. That one for its mottled appearance. That last one for its funny shape.

Last year I played around with the idea of leaf line drawings. The basic idea was to put down a layer of paint. (I use acrylic.) Don't try to make it even, basically just slap it down. Then after the paint is dry use the texture of paint to pull out the shapes of leaves. Perhaps the curve of a denser area of paint reminds you of an oak leaf. The more you do it, the more shapes will leap out at you. And even if you don't see anything that calls out to you, the organic texture of the paint is great for giving dimensionality to a simple line drawing.

This year I tried something a little different.

Signs of Fall
Cardstock, acrylic paint, and Sharpie marker

For this Artist Trading Card, I started off with a fairly thick layer of orange, then a dabbed layer of brown, and finally a top splotchy layer of yellow. Each layer was allowed to dry before starting the next layer. And then after everything was dry I just started drawing with the sharpie. In the past I have worked with pencil first and then gone back over with ink, but I really like the organic feel of just letting the line fall as it will so this time I just went with ink.

At Water's Edge

I have been making my way through some of a slight backlog of episodes of the Creative Mom Podcast. In show 52 Amy mentioned that she wished that she had a book of reference models. At that I suddenly realized that I had exactly that!

So prompted to take down the book from my shelf, I worked with the "Illustrator's Reference Manual Nudes", which I picked up at a used book store year ago. One of the nice things is that it shows each position from many different angles so that you can pick the one that appeals to you most.

Picking one that appealed for what I was thinking of, I got to work on my June ATC. Like Jessica and Amy, I knew that I wanted to work with mermaids. I have a special thing for mermaids and nayads of all kinds.


Originally I was planning for this to be un-colored, because I liked it so much as a line drawing that I finally opted to leave it as it was. But then on a whim I took out my watercolors and went to work. I am not perfectly happy with the result (the cardstock doesn't take watercolor well as I had already found out), but I love the colors.

And this was the first time I had ever used white, which I know is verbotten by some purists. With the colored cardstock though I really wanted to get the white for the light house and a more natural skin tone (ie not tinted blue).

Reach for the Stars

This month's theme for the CMP ATC Swap was "Reach for the Stars". Chiquita has been interested in ATC cards, so this month she sat down with me when I went to work on my May card. Both cards were worked on colored cardstock, Prismacolor markers, and acrylic paint.My card is on the left. I really like how the skyline worked out; it reminds me of Boston's silhouette from the Cambridge side though I didn't worry about getting it exact. Look you can even see the pyramid-like Cambridge Hyatt.

The card on the right is Chiquita's, and the interpretation is totally her own. I love this frog card so much! I asked her if she would be willing to swap for one I made, but she tells me that she has plans for this one. She will make me another copy though, which works for me.

Summer Goals

I know everyone else in the blogosphere is doing Ali's summer goals contest/meme, but it is such a good idea to lay out my goals this way that I am joining the throng.

• finish my sister's wedding shawl
  
• finish my Hogwarts Sock Swap pal's socks (due July)
  
• finish the second Twisted Flower sock
  
• finish baby surprise sweater for my neice and make matching booties (due August)
• get started on my Christmas knitting
• make a thank you pair of socks for I.

Further for non-knitting goals I have:

• start Mother Earth HAED cross stitch piece
  
• draw or paint once a week, even if it is just a small sketch
• crochet star pillow for neice

And now for the obligatory:
If you do decide to enter the contest, please tell Ali that you linked from here. Thanks!

Cheung Chau

Today we moved from Hong Kong Island to the small fishing village of Cheung Chau. This has been a great island for creative inspiration. Salvbard has been taking lots of pictures so look for them soon. I have been doing some stuff of my own too.
My sock is coming along well. I kept finding myself wishing over and over again that I had brought my favorite size 1 40"Addis. Then when we were emptying out our bags completely to do laundry, I found I had packed a set in my checked luggage. Score! In my sleep-deprived pre-trip state, I don't even remember doing that.
Cheung Chau boasts a beautiful beach, well protected by a shark net. While Salvbard was enjoying the water, I took a moment to paint one of the local views. I am totally starting to understand why there are people who only use watercolor moleskines for everything. I have to say that it is really enjoyable to work in.
Also on the beach we spotted a mystery crocheter. This was sort of interesting, because I had been stopping traffic by knitting (well foot traffic as there is no vehicular traffic on the island) on the Twisted Flower sock. Little old chinese woman in particular seemed fascinated by the white girl with the needles. What is so interesting? I have no idea. Perhaps it is the idea of making socks in a place where you often do not even wear them. Maybe it is the idea of knitting, as my chinese co-workers are equally fascinated and mostly only learned to crochet in school rather than knit. Who knows, in any case it has been amusing to watch.

HK Museum of Art

I wasn't sure that we would have time, but I am really glad that we ended up making it to the Hong Kong Museum of Art. One of my favorite things about visiting art museums is just wandering around and seeing what calls out to you.
The 2 sections that we spent the most time in were the Lin Fengmian exhibit and the Calligraphy and Painting exhibit. I noticed that the pieces that attracted me most were of 2 types. There were those that used a strong sense of line to produce really clean images that spoke to me, as an artist, of strong confidence . There was also those that had a looseness of style, that allowed the artist to work in brush strokes that were evocative of what they were painting, while not being caught up in the exact placement of each line to be completely realistic.

These are both styles that seem unattainable to me at times. My own work feels more tentative. I am usually still happy with the result, but I spend a lot of time with hesitant small lines. This trip I am really trying to achieve more of that looseness, and with any luck maybe some of the confidence will follow.

Long Flight

So arrived safely after the long flight. Since I couldn't do my international security check until NYC, I didn't bother to start my socks in case they took my needles (5" US Size1 Brittanys). Even after I got on that flight though, I didn't get as much knitting done as I had hoped since all the courtesy lights in my row didn't work, which meant that after the cabin lights went out I couldn't really do something complex like this. Here is a photo of my progress so far, taken in the Hong Kong International Airport. Over by Arrival Hall B there was a beautiful black stone fountain with benches and plant life around it. The photo of the SIP was taken on one of those benches while I was waiting to meet Salvbard. (Sorry about the blurry photo.)
Towards the end of the flight though, I noticed that one of the other passengers had lifted the shade on their window so I did the same. There was the most beautiful sunrise over Taiwan, that I was immediately inspired to break out my watercolor moleskine. As you can see I was sitting basically right over one of the wings, but I really like its addition to the composition. I wish I had brought a finer pointed pen though. And yes this sunrise really had a pale green. It was incredible!At the moment though, I am exhausted. I am writing this in the airport, so we still need to get to the hostel before I can crash.

New Toys - Watercolor

I was in Central (Cambridge, MA) anyways the other day, and I was drawn into Artist Supply which I have passed by before but never stopped in. (BTW it was great. I totally recommend this store if you happen to be in the area. The staff was incredibly helpful, the selection was very good and the prices excellent. Yay for local business!) I was on the hunt for a water pen, such as I had heard about on CMP, to do watercolor when I am out and about.

Next thing I know I am walking out the door with with a Koi Water Color Pocket Field Sketch Box and a new waterproof pen. (I love my Pigma Micron, but I wanted to try something a little different. So I picked up a 0.7 mm Staedtler pigment liner, which I love! Even if my hand brushes the ink right away or I paint over it immediately there is no smearing at all on watercolor paper.) This gave me an excuse to break into a small watercolor moleskine that I had bought a few months ago. I know some people like to break in new sketchbooks with a special drawing or painting. I am of the other school of thought: just do, don't worry about being special. The swatch squares here let me get a good feel for both the paints and the paper without worrying about making "a piece of art". Now on to the more interesting uses.

A Place of My Own

This month's prompt for the CMP ATC Swap was "A Place of My Own". At first I thought I would do something along the lines of what Autumn Mommy ended up doing, my imagination. I just couldn't figure out the perfect way to do it though.

So I though, and I thought. Where was my place that was all mine? Then it hit me. Most of my crafting is done in stolen moments. I knit on the bus. I sketch in my moleskine in between other things. Painting is usually a shared activity, with my daughter painting her own work next to me. The one exception is spinning.

When I spin, I take a little quiet time to myself. Usually it is after the little one is asleep. I might listen to a podcast while I work or I might just enjoy the quiet zen of the sound of the wheel turning and the treadle moving. This is a time when I let the stress of the day slip away, and for a few minutes I just am. My hands just work. My mind is still.


Inspired, I grabbed some watercolor, my favorite pen, and a pencil. I sat in my spinning chair (not even replacing the flyer which I had removed to re-align the wheel) and set to work. After a quick sketch, I broke out my brushes. Usually I have to struggle to get the looseness I want when I use watercolor. For some reason this ATC was a lot easier though. I put my spinning wheel down on the cardstock and added the basket of roving I keep in the same corner. Bright puffs of soft fiber added some color where there hadn't been much before. Sometimes I guess you just have to let inspiration strike.