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.

Autumn Endeavours

I have an excess of apples (that I don't want to eat fresh) this year, and Chantal kindly agreed to help me bake something fun and creative with them:  apple roses! 

We even made them gluten-free, and the crust turned out nice and crispy and delicious!  They tasted very nice with a dollop of sheep-milk yogurt too.

We only semi-followed recipes/instructions, and had to make things up as we went (partly because of the nature of the gluten-free dough, which doesn't quite behave like phyllo pastry dough, and partly because I didn't slice the apples finely enough and they didn't curve/bend like they should have).

And on a slightly different topic, Stephanie carved the lab pumpkin this year.  Check out her awesome design of fireflies out of a jar:

Impressions of Impressionism - Michelle's Poppies

Our task on this painting project was to pick a famous (or not so famous) impressionistic painting, and try to recreate it.  I chose Monet's "Poppies at Argenteuil" (I love the red poppies, and the sweeping fields, the line of trees in the background).  I worked from a printed sheet, originally a digital copy I found on the web, and I think my painted colours were off a bit because of the way the print turned out (darker than the original).

I like to show work-in-progress:

 

I originally started with the intention to copy the original as faithfully as possible, but half way through the painting decided to remove the  figures of the lady and child in the foreground.  Later on, however, I realized that they were an important part of the composition, and added them back in.

The finished piece:

Colouring and Jewelry-Making

We had a pleasant get-together this past week.  Angela's sister Sarah joined us (on a visit from far away Toronto).  Some of us worked on making jewelry, and on a weird coincidence, both Angela and Jessica brought colouring books to work on - the same book (Animal Kingdom, by Millie Marotta)!

Stephanie has a nice collection of beads and jewelry-making supplies.  I didn't get a close-up of the necklace she worked on last week, but here's a link to her Etsy site (check out the necklace she made out of the leg of woodpecker:  https://www.etsy.com/listing/243652463/woodpecker-foot-quartz-necklace?ref=related-2)