Painting Mini Pumpkins }{ crafting with kids

Here's an idea for an easy and fun activity during a Fall afternoon: painting some mini pumpkins.

These mini pumpkins are very inexpensive at pumpkins farms, but our grocery store also offers them as a kit that comes with some paint. Everything you need is right there in the package. If you get the pumpkins individually, acrylic paint should work fine.

Just give the kids (and adults!) some paint, brushes, sharpies or paint pens and let them come up with whatever design/pattern/faces they want. Fun for the whole family. And I also like the mini pumpkins early in the season because they don't rot as quickly as the bigger ones we carve every year.

Apologies for the wonky photos, they were taken while holding a 6 week old wiggly girl...

How do you like to decorate your pumpkins?

Intention }{ Illustration Fridays

"Perhaps not the best way to check his intentions after all..." 

Poor flower... And all for naught.

watercolor and gesso

Did you ever do this as a young girl? Did it ever work out?

Lighthouse watercolor

We're back home. Finally. 

I love traveling... Well, no, let me rephrase that. I love visiting new and not-so-new places far from home. But I hate the actual getting there - all the airport waits, the endless plane trips, horrible airplane/airport food. When I was younger and traveling without a child it didn't bother me so much. In fact I sort of enjoyed the anonymity of airports, the hustle and bustle of travelers. But now, it's all just too much for a little three year old and her mommy.

In any case, we made it back and we're settling back in. I haven't finished unpacking yet, but one of the first things I did was to download the pictures from my camera to the computer. Among all the trip photos I also found this old one that I had forgotten on the camera. 

It's a watercolor/mixed media I made for someone who's like a second mother to me. She loves lighthouses, and this one especially holds a lot of memories for us. At that point it was still unfinished, I added some seagulls, enlarged the rock, and glued the lace at the bottom. But then, I didn't take a picture of it finished...

What projects have you been working on lately?

Spring fairy collage }{ Tutorial Thursdays

I mentioned just a while ago that I love to make mixed media collages. Since they take a bit longer than my usual projects and stretch my creativity a bit more as well, I don't do them as often. They end up taking a lot out of me.

But, they are also so much fun. That's why for today's tutorial I want to share how I made my latest collage  "spring fairy."

N. and I have been taking some walks and collecting flowers for our flower press lately. We're running out of space so I've been thinking what could be done with the flowers. I'm going to share one of the projects this coming Monday on The Caffeine Coquette where I'm a network writer. But I still had some, so I decided to make a small collage.

The issue is that they always start small until a sudden burst of inspiration erupts and I can't stop. I'll spend hours and days working on it, thinking about it while cooking, before bed, while driving... That's what happened today. I ended up working on this piece for four hours.... And that's very quick for my collages, haha! The style here has been influenced by two of my favorite artists: Shona Cole (the background) and especially Julie Nutting (the girl). Enough talking, let's get going.

One piece of caution - this isn't a tutorial for kids necessarily, though I'm sure older kids can easily do this as well. For younger children too, all you need is a bit of adjustment.

Materials: 

• pre-gessoed canvas (but you can experiment with different surfaces - I often use cardboard or wood scraps) 
• 3 colors of acrylic paints (I used red, pink, and yellow)
• old shopping/calling/credit card
• packing bubbles
• glossy mail order catalogue
• scissors
• glue
• ribbon
• buttons
• yarn
• pressed flowers

Steps:

Step 1: Making the background. Drip a little of each paint throughout the canvas.  Of course, the dominant colors will be the ones you use the most of. I put lots of pink and yellow with just a bit of red because I wanted the background a little lighter.

Step 2: Creating texture on the background. There are several ways to create texture on an acrylic background, and this is one of my favorites. While the paint is still wet, take the packing bubbles and press them in several locations on the canvas. Let the paint dry.

Step 3: Making the girl. There are several mini steps here.

• draw a girl figure.
• Cut out the different parts that you want to have different patterns.
• Trace those parts on different patterns from the glossy mail order catalogue. I used different colors and patterns for the dress and print for the fairy's skin.
• Cut out the catalogue parts on the inside of the lines you traced.

Step 4: Putting the girl together. Once you have all the parts, putting the girl together works like a puzzle. You just glue each part where it's supposed to go on the canvas. I suggest trying it in different places and perspectives before actually using glue.

Step 5: Adding other elements to the girl. I painted her cheeks with a tiny little bit of pink watered down paint. For a sash, I used ribbon and a button. Then came the hair... I originally thought of cutting the hair out of the magazine, but decided it would look better with long green yarn.

Step 6: Adding the final elements to the background. I added some of our pressed flowers and leaves to the canvas (now dry).

This last step is the one part I should have slept on before finishing. I would have done the arrangement differently given the chance. But... in the interest of sharing it with you guys, here is the result as it stands now.

It's going on top of N.'s shelves in her play area.

If you want to try this with younger children (and I see no reason not to!), I suggest letting them do the background, the bubble wrapping press, and the gluing of the different elements. The result may come out super funky, but that's even better! All you have to do in preparation is to cut the different elements making sure they are big and simple enough for the child to put together. Also, have a hair drier handy to dry the acrylic quickly once the spread the paint on the canvas.

I hope you all like today's tutorial, long winded as it is. Can you tell I just love collages?

Beginner }{ Illustration Fridays

Beginner... There are so many beginnings. Every day is a new beginning, no? Every moment, we could choose to make a new beginning in one way or another, big or small.

When I saw the prompt for this week's Illustration Fridays, images began to swirl in my head. There were so many things I could do. In fact, anything I do at this point represents a beginning because I am a beginner in this world of drawing, illustrating, painting.

I chose to try two of the ideas I had.

graphite pencil on my sketchbook

N. reading a book, which she loves to do. She's beginning to sound out letters and find them in words in a book, though she can't string the letters and make a word yet. She recognizes all the letters though, and I'm pretty proud of her (gee whiz, she's only 2.5 y/o!). That's why I put the letters around her - this is what I imagine her thoughts to be as she leafs through her picture books.

watercolor and colored pencil on heavy weight watercolor paper

Spring is a new beginning every year - beginning of life, greenery, sunshine. Since lady spring has finally graced us with her presence I wanted to do something to honor her. I choose pink flowers, because they remind me of early spring. To me, these delicate light colored flowers represent the newly come, still shy palette of colors that will soon explode.

Happy Mother's day to all you ladies with little (or big) kids out there.

What comes to your mind when you think of a beginner?

Bunny postcards

It was supposed to be Books and Bunnies, but you see I'm having some technical difficulties with the "books" part.

I've been working on a "bookshelf" page that lists some of the books (eventually all of them) that are in my "crafty" section of the bookshelf. It's supposed to look like the tutorials page, but for whatever reason I haven't been able to get the thumbnails to work correctly. So, for now, the bookshelf is still WIP.

As for the bunnies... Who doesn't love bunnies? Or at least the picture/drawing version of bunnies? They are just so cute! So when Carla Sonheim wrote a tutorial on how to draw a super cool bunny I knew exactly what I'd do for B in the blogging challenge.

Unfortunately I don't have the type of pen she used for the exercise, and my pens just didn't want to bleed on the watercolor paper. So I improvised. I used a thin sharpie on watercolor paper and then just filled them in with regular watercolor. The scan didn't come out very faithful to the original, but you get an idea.

N. wanted to help, which gave me a really neat idea. Easter is coming up and it would be nice to send some Easter cards/postcards from her to family members. So here's what we did:

1. Cut watercolor paper in whatever size postcards you'd like to make. (we used 5x7)
2. I drew in the picture, without any attention to how good it was (we're not going for the MOMA here :)). Of course, if you're talented and want a nice picture that might be awesome. And if you have older kids, let them draw instead!
3. The little one painted with watercolor. I showed her how to do it first since it was her first time using watercolor (we always use tempera paints).
4. Write a message on the back (or front) and Voila! A small postcard a grandparent or other family member might appreciate. Easy peasy.

One more thing - I let her use my good paint, because I don't like the kids' watercolor they have available. It comes apart too easily and it doesn't look good. If you know of any good kids' watercolor, do share!

Do your children like to send cards or make small gifts for family members? What activities do you usually do when you want to send something?

Raffle for Japan

So this is my attempt to contribute to the relief efforts for the affected areas of Japan.

I'm raffling off a recent painting I posted here on the blog and a brand new, made especially for this raffle, iPad cover. You can see pictures and details below.

Here's how it works.

I will ship anywhere in the world where the post office delivers.

Each entry/comment will equal one raffle "ticket" for one of the two handmade items below. It's your choice which one you'd like to enter to win, just let me know in the comment. 

The 8x8 painting based on a loose interpretation of "Snow White" is acrylic on wood.

The iPad case was sewn by me especially for this raffle. As you can see, it's based on the Japanese flag, with a closing flap and a small back pocket for holding a cleaning cloth (for the iPad screen). It's made of 100% recycled fiber felt and it's washable. I used the iPad 1 dimensions, but since the iPad 2 is smaller, it would also fit.


Bids are to be made in US$
Each raffle entry must be a donation of $5 (International Medical Corps) or $10 (Global Giving).

To enter, go to International Medical Corps and make a donation of $5 or go to Global Giving and make a $10 donation for the Japan relief fund, when you have done it come back to this post and leave a comment with your reciept number and you must also leave a valid email address (you can write the address in the format of mymailname ‘at’ hotmail ‘dot’ com)

You may enter as many times as you like but each time you need a new receipt number. 


For help with the donation you can refer to this post http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-donation.html


Raffle closes at 12.00pm JST 26th March


If you make a mistake or forget to add you email address please delete the first post and re-write it.


Winner will be drawn by random (random.org).

The giveaway / raffle / auction is being held on this blog, in cooperation with a Bit of This and a Bit of That. We are in no way affiliated with global giving, that's just our chosen method of getting funds safely to the affected area.


If you are not interested in the two items listed above, do check out the other blogs and items being auctioned/raffled off at a Bit of This and a Bit of That. And thank you for your help.

Slowing Down

I think I have to slow down a bit.

There's a lot going on at work and I just can't keep up with it all.

So I'm going to work on fewer craft projects at any one point in time. I'm working on a painting right now. Then it's off to sew for a bit. But that's it, everything else is on hold until the craziness at work is done.

I also haven't had as much time to stop by every blog I'd like to read... *sigh* I miss all the eye candy!

In my last post I shared the sketch for my fairy tale based piece. So today I want to show you how the actual piece came out.

How do you balance all that's on your to-do list? How do you decide what needs to give?

Opposites - real life and fairy tales

February's prompt for the sketchbook challenge was "opposites." It had me stumped. I really didn't know how I wanted to represent opposites. Then today...

Actually let's go back a bit. I've been participating in this online painting class, Get Your Paint On. For this week's assignment, I reinterpreted a scene from a fairy tale and drew this sketch in my sketchbook in preparation.

I liked the idea so much that I've been perusing my complete collection of the original Grimm tales (it's a hefty book with lots of inspiration). I was doing exactly that in the cafe while taking a break from real job related work (oops!) when I noticed a man. 

I couldn't help but wonder... And this is what I did.

There’s a man sitting in front of me in the café. He’s carrying lots of plastic bags and I don’t know if he’s homeless or not. He’s wearing a sun hat and a heavy jacket. Is he just keeping himself warm from the cold outside? Does he have anywhere to go? Is he happy? Is he safe? He’s sleeping. It must be nice in here, nicer than anywhere else he has to go? I keep thinking that at one point, this man was someone’s baby. Did he feel loved? Did he know his parents? Did they hold his hand as he took his first steps? I hope he feels loved.

I actually don't think fairy tales and real life are opposites. I think they are pretty close sometimes....

(ETA - the print was hard to read...)

Fear-less

I've said this many times: "I can't draw" (and I can't paint either)


But I keep going back to it, time and time again.

It wasn't exactly an explicit part of my resolutions this year, but I need to face my fears. Fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of being a no-talent-don't-you-even-dream-of-leaving-your-dayjob kind of amateur...

Kelly Rae Roberts  shared this tidbit in her book Taking Flight:

I need to give this life, this art in my heart, in my mind, in my thoughts, a real chance to breathe and dance and live. And we'll see where that leap will take me. This is my promise to myself. This is my chance.

So this is me, taking a small step towards that leap. This is me attempting to give some of my deepest desires a chance to breathe before they suffocate me - no matter how the voices in my heart are trying to keep me from posting this.

Down to the last minute

My brain is consumed with academic thoughts right now... And probably will be for the rest of this weekend. Though I wish I could let it fly....

(acrylic on wood, 4 x 4)

Trying new things

Today, I'd like to talk about an artist that I really admire, and who I'm so thankful for - Carla Sonheim.

I always believed I couldn't draw. Crafting, knitting, sewing, stamping, yes. Drawing or painting? No way, no talent.

Then I found her book and her blog. I can't tell you how much it changed the way I see drawing and painting! I feel no pressure with her exercises, and that helps me have fun with it. And guess what? That made my drawings much better.  I'm still no illustrator, but I don't hate what I draw anymore. I have so much fun doing it that I now carry a little sketchbook with me everywhere I go, with some markers, coloring pencils, and chalk. I'm constantly doodling when I have the chance.

There are some amazing women artists and crafters out there, and some of them have inspired me tremendously to get out of my shell, try out new things, challenge my perceptions of what I can and can't do. Here are two of the results from following her lab.






What are your limits? What do you think you can't do? I hope you can find some inspiration, like Carla inspired me, to have fun with it.