Greetings from Wyoming! I am out here this week visiting my parents. I am having a great time. Mom and I are doing a bunch of crafty things. She has taught me a new felting technique. Needle felting on wire armatures:
I made the cat, and mom made the bunny.
This is a dog I made, and you can sort of see a santa in the lower right corner that my mom made. I think I have found my felt-calling. It's so much fun, and really easy. If you are interested, I can create a tutorial on how to do it. Just let me know!
Here are some photos from my parents backyard. It's so pretty here, but VERY cold. We wake up to snow almost every morning, but it tends to melt by afternoon.
This is a view of Sheep rock (in the background) as well as some horses.
This is a view of Elk Mountain when the setting sun turns it pink. My mom has made a few really cool birdhouses which I will show in next week's post. We have been going through a lot of stuff my parents have been storing for me trying to figure out what I want to keep and what my mom can garage sale. It's been weird finding items I thought I had either lost or thrown away, most of them are items dear to my heart so I am glad my mom has kept them. Jeffery and I are coming out again this summer, and we are planning to drive so I get to haul all of that crap back with me.
Last spring I saw a pack of robins hanging out in our front yard and I swear to God they were the FATTEST robins I have ever seen. They weren't birds, they were feathered balls. Yesterday afternoon I spotted a pair chillin' in the bushes:
Look how fat he is! Now that I have a brand spankin' new camera, I grabbed it and managed to take some pics through the window. I know it's not the greatest picture ever, but if you new how far away that bush is from the couch I was taking it from you'd be just as impressed as I was. Okay, maybe not AS impressed... :) There was another one just a few feet away, but unfortunately I had to take the pic through the window AND the screen so it came out weirdly dark. I fiddled around in Photoshop trying to make it clearer and I ended up (quite by accident) with a fairly arty piece. I see it transferred to a pillow...or paper. I saw some very cool cards at a flea market somewhere...and they were made with a photo transfer technique. I did this in college and have been itching to do it again. You basically transfer a photocopied image to paper using lacquer thinner. It has to be a photocopy, inkjet won't work. At least color inkjet won't. Lacquer thinner is NA-STY stuff, and I have read that a marker blender pen will produce the same effect. Anyway, my point is that I think Mr. Robin below would look good using that technique.
I like the graininess of it. And his red eye. I had no idea Robins have red eyes! Kind of creepy. I don't ever really mess with photoshop so I am sure some of you could come up with something really snazzy.
UPDATE: Terri was kind enough to let me know that the birdies above are not robins, but Spotted Towhees. Crazy! Thanks Terri!
A few months ago, I caught an episode of Crafters Coast to Coast where they showed Dedra Weissbeading apurse on a loom she made from an old frame. I love seed beads and I never do anything with them beyond hoarding them so this project has stuck in my mind forever. I have a lot on my plate right now and when that happens I have a tendency to distract myself with projects other than the ones I should be working on and beading on a loom is that kind of project. Since I live in the same place that has the largest selection of beads, (look at that building!) beading is a VERY tempting project. My next step was to figure out how to create the pattern/art I would bead. My first thought was to create graph paper where I could color the squares, sort of like a cross stitch pattern. That was super tedious and an utter failure, so I started to think more about cross-stich patterns, and if there was an easy way to create one in Photoshop. I knew there had to be, and I found this FABULOUS tutorial. Witness the results:
It's not perfect, but at least now I know how to do it. I am hoping to dabble a bit in the world of beading after the books are done, so..let's see...perhaps that will be June, July?
Something else I want to try, and have wasted many an hour scouring the internet for is carving a noah's ark. I think I have talked about wanting to carve wood before, ever since I had a class where we did it. The issue I have with something like that is lack of space. So I busy myself in the mean time doing research. Wisteria has a great example here. It may seem like an unsuitable project for a beginner, but my thinking is that the animals are small and there can be endless possibilities, so if I get bored with something (which is pretty much guaranteed) I can move on to a monkey, or a pig and save the harder Ark for last.
But, before I can do any of those projects, I have a very important little baby boy who is going to be born in a few months to my best friend so I need to get on the stick and start thinking about softies, booties, quilts and onesies. Oh! so much to do!
P.S. For those of you who inquired about prints, particularly, the Alice print...I haven't figured out a economical way to make things like that available yet. It's something I keep meaning to look into further, but haven't. Lame Erica, I know...lame.
I paid my tuition for my class yesterday and I am getting pretty darned excited for it. Classes don't start until April, so I have a few weeks to think about what kind of painting I want to try. I am not even sure we will get the choice. I can't help but think "What will the teacher be like? What about the other students? What kinds of assignments will we get?" I am going to buy a brand new sketchbook to devote entirely to this class. I wish I would have been this excited about school when I actually went, perhaps I would have graduated. Oh well...everything happens for a reason. I think the ultimate goal for me is to learn to paint in oils. They seem so complicated and daunting. I could get anywhere even remotely near to the brilliance of James Christensen, I will be content.
Also extremely lust worthy is the art of Lori Earley. Her art is on the current cover of Juxtapoz. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful....
I am pretty excited to see the results of this February's A Month of Softies, the theme being Alice in Wonderland. I didn't make a softie, but I in honor of the theme I present an illustration I have been working on, (on and off) for several years. It's just one of those that has never really come together the way I want(ed) it to. It's the mad tea party being held in a beatnik cafe:
I was talking to my friend Carrie the other day about the pros and cons of mortars and pestals, and while purusing the web for said items, I clicked on the Crate and Barrell site to check out their selection and discovered the answer to my prayers. Crate and Barrell has re-issued the Eva Zeisel Hallcraft pottery I have been collecting for the past few years. Oh Glory! All of the really cool pieces are back ordered. I usually do not purchase items with a credit card that I cannot pay off right away, but I may have to make an expection. Just as we started our new budget! Oh the temptation! It's almost too much.
