Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins last week!  Jordan carved a big orange one, Jess carved and painted the big white one, and I (Michelle) carved and inked a butternut squash, while Jessica looked on and knitted.

I don't know what kind of squash the white pumpkin was, but it was much heavier and denser than the orange one, with walls at least an inch thick when hollowed out.  Jess turned it into a painted clown.

Jordan did an elaborate carving of a headless horseman on his orange pumpkin.  The photo below is work in progress.  The final work ended up being eaten by a squirrel, before evidence of the intricateness of the final carving could be photographed.

I recently discovered the art of Zentangle doodles, and drew some in with black ink (pen) on one of the 4 layers of my carved butternut squash. 

And so as not to waste perfectly good vegetables, I made pancakes out of the carved pumpkin pulp, and roasted the seeds (sprinkled with salt, pepper, garlic salt and paprika, and tossed in canola oil - yum!).

Chantal's Quilt

Last week we welcomed Chantal to our group.  Chantal is working on a bed quilt.  I don't have a great photo of it (we'll get better shots, and a better description, when it's finished), but here it is anyway:

Painting, Tyvek, and Mosaic Tray

Our last get-together was multi-themed.  The common thread was painting though, with a couple of exceptions (Ellen, for example, worked on needlepoint over Skype from Ottawa).

Jordan started on his new painting (but isn't showing work in progress).  Jessica chose a monochromatic design, and used her fine, intricate floral stencils for the beautifully layered painting below (only partially finished):

Tamsen and I finished our collaboration - the mosaic tile tray.  I guess this is the place to give the whole story of this project, which started with a wood framed goose print (a thrift store find):

   

I painted a couple of ceramic tiles in brightly coloured backgrounds and tree silhouettes (using ceramics-specific and acrylic paints).  A layer or two of varnish, over the paint, ensured that the paint didn't scrape off during the grouting stage.

Tamsen broke up the tiles into shards, large and small, and rearranged them on the inside surface of the tray (the back of the goose print):



The next step was to finish the wood frame - and Tamsen is a pro at this (literally!).  She sanded all the edges (several times, and with different sizes of sand paper, if I observed correctly), and then used her fancy brush to apply 3 coats of shellack, which dried beautifully and gave the finished wood a nice, shiny, smooth look and feel.

I put the finishing touches on it all and turned the old framed print into a tray by attaching cabinet door handles to each end.  Because of some difficulty with the screws, I stumbled upon an interesting finish to the handles (the screws were too long for the width of the wood, so to make up the difference, I added shards of tiles to each end, which ended up matching the tiled tray very nicely... if I do say so myself).

And VOILA! the finished tray:

I also worked on painting Tyvek.   Tyvek is a wonderful addition to any fiber art.  It's paintable, it somehow absorbs paint despite having the feel and texture of plastic.  And its flat shape can be distorted by heat (for example, by pressing with a hot iron), giving a very textured surface, for those who love that sort of thing (and I do!).

Here were my painted sheets of Tyvek (my blank, white Tyvek sheets were just used FedEx envelopes, cut up):

I broke them up into even smaller pieces, and pressed them with my hot iron (in the garage - the fumes from this can be quite bad!).  The flat sheets bubbled and melted.  The process is very unpredictable, and you never know how much bubbling and/or melting you're going to get (but it's always fun to see the results):

 

 The unpainted back looks great too!

Paintings, then and now

This is a rough sketch for what I'm working on now, tentatively called "The spider cursing after sleeping in". I don't know when I'll be finished though, I'm quite slow with these things.

Another Painting Collaboration

This collaboration (between Jordan and Michelle) is a result of conversations about hand writing analysis (Jordan's got a very interesting story about his own hand-writing) and translations of Romanian pastoral poetry, to a background of Romanian hip-hop/folk music (none of which has any relation to the name we decided on - something along the lines of "Stormy City Skies").

Work in progress...

Details, of the finished painting, from various angles:

The finished piece.  I keep changing my mind about which orientation works best.

Painting Tile Trivets

So today was my first long distance craft night. I joined Michelle and Jordan through Skype and it worked out pretty well. We jammed to some Romanian hip hop and while they were working on a collaborative painting, I worked on painting a trivet. I've been obsessed with making trivets lately. Here are two of my previous projects:

This is based on a painting by Leonid Afremov. I recently discovered this painter and I love his style. His paintings are so colourful and bold. I used acrylic paints and then sealed it with a clear varnish.

I painted this one after reading about Mandalas. A Mandala is a symbol that represents the Universe in both Hinduism and Buddhism and is usually characterized by radial symmetry.

Today, I worked on a painting of a bird.

(in progress)

(finished project)

Now I think I might take a break from trivets for awhile :)

Mosaics, still

We've been joined by a number of new people the past couple of weeks:  Tamsen and Jessica (who, unlike the rest of us biologists and scientists, have actual fine arts degrees; Jessica not in the photo).  And Manasi and Jess (not the original Jess C, of a few years ago), biologists with various degrees of artsy/crafty aspirations (Manasi paints, and Jess croches and knits).


We're continuing with mosaic tiles, some of us starting new pieces, some grouting pieces started a few weeks ago. 



Here are Manasi and Jess, with their first tiled pieces (to be grouted next time):

  

 

Jordan grouted his first piece (wearing a very flowery apron, which I wasn't quick enough to get a photo of), and started on a new piece.  I had originally assumed that his first piece was abstract, but he tells us it was meant to be a beetle coming out of, or going into, the water - and I can see that now.

 

 Jessica grouted her original piece (an 8x8" trivet):

.. and started on a very interesting new piece, which I'm interested to see finished.  Her plans for the squares she left open is to fill them with grout, and make imprinted designs into the wet grout before it dries. 

 

 Tamsen and I collaborated on a tiled project.  Tamsen's background is in furniture restoration, conservation and design, so I wanted us to work on something together that involved some sort of fabric or mosaic tile design (my job) and wood finishing (Tamsen's).  We settled on a wooden tray, covered in mosaic.  I painted a couple of tiles in bright colours and dark tree silhouettes (acrylics, varnished after they dried, so the colour wouldn't rub off while grouting).  Tamsen broke up these tiles and rearranged them to fit our wooden tray (the tray is actually the back side of a framed print picked up at a thrift store - I'll have to put handles on each end to make it into a functional tray).  

Here's the piece after it was grouted (we had to decide what colour grout to use, and settled on white, which gives the piece a much more striking effect than gray would have - and it's a much smarter choice than pink!).  I'll post more photos once the wood has been sanded and shellacked, and handles added.