Maparoni

Granted this is silly.

Assignment was to take a recognizable symbol, object, etcetera and cover it with a single material -- a material not usually associated with the entity. The alternative title to this is "And called it Macaroni" (or perhaps ...called it Maparoni") as in ditty "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

Took a balloon, one of my favorite happy things, paper "mache-d" it, painted it, and then covered it with dyed macaroni. Used a bit of rubbing alcohol and food coloring with uncooked pasta. Drew the world on the surface, which is a bit tricky....so used to seeing continents/countries flat, the perspective is different, as is the scale of a single country versus the globe. Yes, it did take some time, especially since I used tweezers at the beginning.

Put the USA in "natural" color pasta to highlight this nation we hear all about. For being only 5% of the population, we sure do get around!

Stitched by Hand, Hand Printed on Silk

Took a print I had made of one of my childhood drawings, and hand stitched "hightlights" on the print. Print was made using gum arabic, printers ink, and water. Basically you make a toner based copy of the artwork (or photograph), apply a gum arabic/water solution, roll on printer's ink, sponge it off to a degree, and run it through the press on silk (or paper). Is washable if you use printer's ink. Don't know what else I would do with this...framing it in flat frame doesn't seem to the be answer. Have stuffed the "merely" printed ones, which you can find on earlier blog entry.

Stitched Drawing

Took drawing from my niece, and stitched on linen. Need to figure out display idea for it..turning it into a pillow is an option, but perhaps that makes her drawing seem less than art, which I don't want to do...the freedom and imagination in it is something to elevate.

Used sewing machine and hand stitching.

Book

Saw results of long term project -- self created book of the art of my father. I started this a couple years ago, taking photographs, writing and organizing on Shutterfly. Found the site cumbersome for words, and limiting in formats. Moved to a Google "blog," which I formated as pages of a book, front to back entry by entry. Blog format was much easier for me to maneuver and edit. Became relatively easy to move from blog back to book. Tried Bookemon, but went back to Shutterfly, as a lot of the book is pictures, and Shutterfly seems better for that, and the paper stock is heavier.

The above shows some spreads from the book...12" x 12", 100 pages in total.

Bar Cart

Re-finished a somewhat rusted bar cart. Steel wool sanding, metal brush brushing, and naval jelly to clear some of the rust. Practiced my skills of painting metal surfaces that have a lot of angles. I smelled a fair amount of spray paint.