Whisper Craft Unveiling

Our game of "Telephone with Crafts" (or Whisper Craft Project, as we have been calling it) came to an end about a month ago. On the evening of Sept 1st we got together for the unveiling. Most of the participants were able to attend (with the exception of Van, who was in the process of moving to Guelph that very day). Thanks to Nicole for joining us all the way from Quebec!

The Whisper Craft Project, once again, was meant to be a series of art/craft creations, each inspired by the piece created before in the link. We started with an original inspiration of a photo and/or object; Van offered to be the starting point in the link. The rest of us followed in this order: Jess, Michelle, Katya and Nicole.

Below are photos and descriptions of each of our creations. We were each allowed to see (and be inspired by) only the piece created by the person before us in the series.

Van

Inspired by the dragonfly photo on the Microcosmos video cover, and another dragonfly ornament. More details to come.



Jess
Inspiration for whisper craft: When I first saw Van's whisper craft, I was drawn to the contents of the frame- colourful, diverse flowers. I was pretty sure I wanted to paint something, but kept rejecting ideas I had about painting flowers- flowers in a vase? Too literal. Garden of flowers? Meh. I then spent more time looking at her whisper craft, and decided that instead of focusing on the main subject of her craft (the flowers), I would focus on the cute little dragonfly in the upper corner. Once I had changed my frame of mind, I was quickly inspired to paint a dragonfly, with floral elements in the background.

Making the whisper craft: My craft was painted with acrylic paints on a canvas bought from Michael's. I used large flat brushes for the sky and to paint the earth green, and then used smaller round brushes to paint in the abstract floral background. I then used really fine, sharp-tipped brushes to paint the dragonfly, starting by painting it all black, and then filling in the colour patches. I had originally thought I'd use a gloss to make the wings shiny, but I ultimately decided to go ahead and make the whole darn dragonfly shiny. This was accomplished using acrylic gloss I picked up from Michael's (took about 4-5 coats to achieve ultimate shinyness).



Michelle
I've been going through a mosaic phase the past couple of months, where I obsessively want to cover everything I see in tile bits. So my whisper craft was going to be a mosaic, no matter what! I loved Jess's painting, and what drew me to it most was the grassy background.

I decided to recreate that background in bits of green tiles and glass. For the sky, in addition to having some blues, I opted to use mirror shards as well (bad luck for me for the next 7 years for breaking the mirror I used!). Mirrors, reflecting light, make me think of the sky. I switched the layout of the piece from Jess's wide (landscape) to tall (portrait), and used a wooden cabinet door as the base of the mosaic.

Instead of a focal point of a dragonfly resting on a stem (try getting THAT much detail with mosaics!) I added a bit of red glass to represent some flowers in the grass. The effect of the whole is very abstract. This could have either made it really difficult for the next person in line to be inspired, or gave Katya lots of options and possibilities and free reign to the imagination for her piece.



Katya
Michelle's piece reminded me of a waterfall, which reminded me of spirits that live in waterfalls, which reminded me of spirits in general. By that time I was already painting a sunset in the ocean and added an upside down ghost ship as a bridge to the Otherworld. It didn't photograph well, so instead I sent Nicole another piece (see photo below) which was inspired by the colors of the first one.

Unlike Jess, I cheaped out on the brushes (and everything else) and used my fingers and a mesh. The mesh can create a pretty cool texture. Hands take long time to clean. Enting. Oil on canvas.



Nicole
When I saw Katya's tree painting, my thoughts immediately went to an afghan pattern I had seen on Ravelry a few times, called "Tree of Life". I had no idea how difficult it would be, but I wanted to give it a try. I stuck fairly close to replicating Katya's piece by using a green and turquoise variegated yarn that I already had on hand. I noticed some light and darkness in Katya's painting that reminded me of healthy nature versus pollution; I tried to incorporate that idea into my piece by adding a smattering of other coloured yarn. The tree shape is created using Front and Back Post Double-Crochet stitches and I ended up deviating from the pattern a little bit to add some asymmetry to the branches. Finally, I bordered the piece using an orange, yellow and blue variegated yarn. I plan to use this crocheted piece as the centre of a lapghan or a shawl, I haven't decided yet.