Wood Burning!

I recently completed a project that was very new to me - I tried my hand at wood burning for the first time. I purchased a cheap, used acoustic guitar and removed the hardware/strings, stripped the original paint, and sanded it down entirely to the bare wood. I found some skull references online, and wood burned the images into the face of the guitar, and then filled the negative space in with freehand roses. I picked out some red and dark brown wood stains and a clear gloss varathane to use as a sealer, and used black acrylic paint for the sides of the guitar. After the stains and varathane had dried, I put all the hardware back on for a finished look.

Impressionist Night, again

We gave our Impressionist Painting experiment a second try last week, with successful results.  Between bouts of goofing off, and breaks to watch Jordan's film (we can't show it here, it's too large - but hopefully there will be a way to post it online somehow), we worked on copying Group of Seven paintings.

 Here's Angela hard at work on her painting, and see how great it turned out by the end of the night!

I chose Tom Thompson's "The West Wind", copied from a printed card.  And, in addition to painting it, I doodled it as well.

Here was my painting process, step by step, on a 9x12" canvas:

 

As a separate project, I tried my hand at wood burning (I was bitten with the wood burning bug the last time, when Stephanie showed off her work on the guitar).  I experimented on a 7x9" piece of plywood.  I tried to do my favourite doodles (the bubbles/rocks/circles), but the plywood was too rough/tough for the circles to come out smooth and round, so I drew a tree instead.  And a day or two later, I decided to add some colour to it as well (acrylic paint).  I love how it looks both like wood burning and stained glass at the same time!  I haven't varnished or shellacked it yet, but it would probably look even more like stained glass if I do.

Long time no craft...

It's been a while since we met as a group, but we managed it for the first time this year (even if only for a short night).  Stephanie is working on a great project (check back for details later, but see sneak peeks below).  We took some lessons from her on the art of wood burning.

I also worked on a personal project recently: spruced up my old hand-made purse with colourful silk ties (it will be interesting to see how long the silk will last, with the rubbing and the wear and tear of a purse in daily use):

Abstract Paintings - Update!!

So, a couple of months ago, the craft group was commissioned to paint a series of abstract paintings for a doctor's office. They are finally up and the patients have been raving about them.

It inspired some of the nurses to try their hand at abstract painting as well.