Work Examples!

Hey all! It was suggested that I post some examples of my artwork to share since I am newer to the UWindsor Crafters scene. I favour detailed realism and traditional pencil work (both coloured and graphite) when it comes to my drawings. However, my background in Fish and Wildlife has opened my eyes to the beauty and intricacy of natural animal skulls, and how I can combine my love for biology and art into one. For the past 3 years, I have been experimenting with acrylic ink paintings and designs onto animal skulls I have cleaned and whitened myself. All wildlife parts I obtain are not harmed for the purpose of art - most specimens I receive are roadkill, found in the woods,
donated from hunters, or were donated to the college I attended for educational purposes. I really enjoy giving these animals a chance to be admired again - a life after death, so to speak.

Welcome new recruit!

Welcome Stephanie to the group! 

(And, welcome back Ellen - nice to have you around in person this summer, rather than over Skype).

Stephanie has a background in biology, like most of the rest of us, but she also has the artistic bug (more or less a requirement, with this bunch).  Check back soon for further posts with more photos of her work, but for now, here are a few quick shots I took of her work at our Show-and-Tell a few days ago.






Painted animal skulls (my fuzzy photo doesn't do justice to how intricate the paint job on this is):

Sketches and drawings (in progress) in pencil and coloured pencils:

Craft night, Colorado-style

Another installment of a painting collaboration between Michelle and Katya, this one done from the exotic location of Golden, Colorado.  The paintings were done in oil (never again, for me - Michelle), and on previously-painted thrift store canvases (one of them very nicely textured).

Some furniture upholstering was in order as well.  This was done using a more primitive method (hammer and nails, rather than staple gun - and it worked surprisingly well!).

Crafty Pizzas

This isn't a food blog, but when we get together and get creative with food, I feel compelled to show off the results.  Especially when they're visually pleasing as well as incredible-tasting!





We celebrated a couple of birthdays (Angela's and Michelle's) last weekend with a pizza party for our regular crafty get-together.

Chantal made her incredible home-made pizza dough (maybe she'll share her recipe here later?).  She also made pesto from scratch, which some of us used as the base for our pizzas.

I (Michelle) made a couple of small pizzas on gluten-free (thin-crust) pizza-dough (store-bought).  I'll share the recipe for the funkiest of the two: "The Seaweed Pizza", on the right.  Toppings:  pesto base, prosciutto strips, sauted shiitake mushrooms, seaweed salad, crumbled feta cheese and shredded gouda.  The result was interesting, though a bit too seaweedy (I may have overdone the seaweed layer..).

Ellen joined us, as usual, over Skype, with her own pizza (mozzarella, spinach, tomato slices and prosciutto).

And we finished the celebrations with gluten-free chocolate cupcakes.  The frosting (not shown) was a combination of peanut butter, hazelnut/vanilla spread and blackberry-flavoured Green yogurt.

Angela's Mosaic

A Play, by Jordan

We did something unusual, for us, at our last meeting:  a play-acting, of sorts!  Jordan has been writing short stories the past little while, and posting them at his new blog (http://teacuptragedies.blogspot.ca/).

He also wrote a play a couple of weeks ago, and brought it to our meeting, for us to read outloud.  We split the 18 characters among us, and each read our parts - each of us with various degrees of theatrical ability (my own giggly delivery ranking among the lowest, I must admit).  No alcohol was consumed throughout any of this, but fun was had by all!  We'll probably do it again soon, if we can persuade Jordan to write more.  None of us was comfortable with our performances being captured on video, and Jordan declined to be photographed with the script, so here it is, on its own:

Check out a copy of "Lemon Cakes [A Farewell to Arms]":
http://teacuptragedies.blogspot.ca/2015/02/lemon-cakes-farewell-to-arms.html

Cityscapes

Hello from Ottawa! Over the past several craft nights, I have been working on a painting of the Toronto skyline. My brother just moved to Toronto so I decided to paint him something for his new apartment as a Christmas gift.

The early stages of the painting...it's acrylic on canvas. I always start with the background first so that the lines around the foreground image are cleaner.

I decided to paint the buildings bright colours to make it look like the city all lit up at night.

And the finished product!