Bowls, Baskets and Altered Envelopes

Hello Readers!

It has been a few days since I was last here. It has snowed twice. I am minus two teeth and doped up on vicodin. I'm really glad to be rid of those two teeth! More will be coming out in the future and I'll be doped up on vicodin then as well.

Despite the fact I have not felt well for a good deal of the time gone by since I was last here, I have accomplished a great deal in the art department. I've also spent a good deal of my time studying the insides of my eyelids.

I'm actually feeling quite well today. The teeth came out on Monday and it's already the tail-end of Wednesday. 

I dragged out the paints today and painted a bunch of envelopes.

Along with acrylics on the envelopes, there is also marker.

I didn't have an agenda where these envelopes are concerned.

It was a 'free your imagination' session of painting.

The brush went where it wanted.

There started out being an idea on some of these.

And others just became.

The only thing they all have in common is that I started out with six colors of paint and stuck to it throughout.

Some ideas were influenced by other altered envelopes I saw early in the day.

Eyes always play a big roll in painting abstracts.

Zentangle tried to take over but it fizzled out quickly.

Faces appeared.

Wild colored hair seemed to be a good thing.

Swirls and color blocking.

Caterpillars were on the muse's mind.

Red trees and green bugs.

Swirls some more.

I have another 8 of these done and waiting to be photographed. You'll see them in the next post.

Murray wanted to be in on the photo shoot this afternoon.

This past summer I found these tongue depressors at a yard sale in the 'free' box. They were two nice plastic containers. I'd of taken the containers if they hadn't had anything in them but they contained a boatload of wooden sticks that I knew I could do something with eventually.

I came across a tutorial on how to make a purse out of Popsicle sticks and remembered all those tongue depressors taking up space on the shelf in the cutting room. I didn't know if the ratios would be the same between a popsicle stick and tongue depressor but I figured I'd give it a shot. It would either work or it wouldn't and the only way to know was to try. 

I had to take each of those sticks out of its paper wrapper before I could even start the project. I used all but 2 of the sticks. The basket is about a foot across and 5 or so inches tall.  It's a pretty cool basket for being made from free fodder! It's quite sturdy and weighs more than one would think it should.

I thought about painting it but I'm going to leave it the natural wood color. The tongue depressors are sanded very smooth and I like the way the basket feels in the hand.

I have another magazine paper basket in the works.

Postcard

markers on cardstock

This one still needs the other side done.

ATC

microscopic diatom

markers on drawing paper 

backed with a paper label

I finished some bowls that have been lingering around, taking up space that could be taken up by other projects still in the works.

This one was covered in black tissue paper with silver dots embedded in it. I thought it needed a bit of fancying up so I painted the outside a midnight blue and then promptly covered it in a thick layer of gold glitter. The inside had silver dots and that wasn't working out so well what with the gold outside so I put some gold glitter on the inside as well. The silver dots still show but they blend in nicely. This bowl is about 4 inches across and 3 inches tall. It's made from newsprint and white glue.

This bowl is also made from newsprint and white glue. I painted the inside yellow and the outside purple.

The newsprint was showing through the purple on the outside and from prior experience with this purple, I knew it would take at least four coats of paint to cover the newsprint showing through. I didn't want to paint four coats of paint on this bowl so I put zentangle-like drawings all over the outside and swirls all over the inside with a big fat black sharpie marker.

I really like this bowl!

A few weeks ago I mixed up some paper pulp and made a couple of bowls.

I let them dry overnight and took them out of the molds. They then dried for another week or so and I moved them to the kitchen table where they sat for another week before I finally decided to finish them.

This is the same bowl as the one above. It has that spout on it because I should have let this one dry another day or more before taking it out of the mold. I didn't realize it had that spout until I was ready to finish the bowl and by then it was hard as a rock and there was no fixing it. I like it like this though. It only adds to rustic look of the bowl.

I painted both of these bowls with three different brown colors of acrylic wall paint. They are very light in weight but look like they are made of stone.

I started this out as a basket. That didn't quite work out as planned. Early on it turned into a purse/pouch. It's made out of some wide mesh ribbon and fuzzy eyelash yarn. No pattern. I just started sewing and this is what materialized. 

I'm going to give it to my grand daughter for her birthday in August. It's just a little girl's size and I think a five year old would find it quite delightful. I am quite pleased with the outcome even though it turned into something entirely different than I first started to make.

I found a baby food jar full of big semi precious stone beads in the cutting room. I was itching to continue with the wire wrapping but had run out of cabochons. These stone beads all have buggered up holes so they were prime candidates for wire wrapping.

Most of the copper wire I use in my artwork comes from recycling electric motors.

There are many different gauges.

There are many different colors.

There are many different ways to wire wrap a bead.

The green ones are my favorite. Green and copper go so well together!

I still have another dozen or so of these buggered up holed stone beads and will probably make more of these.

I need to go through the wire box and organize that thing. 

Some wire is harder to bend, like this heavy wire for the bail on this one. 

Some of the pictures suck. Sorry. I tried to get a clearer picture of this one but it's so little the camera didn't want to focus on it.

This is my favorite of this batch of gemstone pendants.

Well, that's it for now. I can assure you all there are other projects in the works besides the basket and the altered envelopes I've already mentioned.

I also have another monster to show, another basket to finish and some paper mache birds that have been laying on the kitchen table for over a year that need some wire legs and feet. 

Thanks for hanging around to the end!

Remember.....

be good to one another!

It matters!

Peace

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