Prairie Lily Memory

Glenn J. A. Gordon, my dad, passed away ten years ago today.  He was stubborn, and charming, deeply flawed and human.  We had a difficult relationship and it turns out I am so much like him.  Not that he was crafty, of course, although he dreamt up some creative jello salads in his day. 

His favourite flower was the prairie lily, and I have a tattoo of one on my left leg in memory.  This also inspired this new simple piece, which I finished today. 

It's a flat felted piece with wispy greens and orange, a piece of cotton glued to the back which helped make it easier to stitch (imperfectly).

Plaid and Snowdude

Time for another Stitch n Bitch gathering this week. 

Lots of holiday gift project ideas rolling around in my head but none ready to start yet.

So I wanted a quick fun project and I felt like trying something with plaid.  I ended up recycling an old shirt I no longer wear onto the embroidery hoop.  I drew on the two circles for the base of the snowdude and the rest just developed freestyle as we sat and visited. 

I like how this turned out and felt like it was best framed by the hoop itself and so cut away the extra cloth and am leaving it on for a small wallhanging. Learning more about stitching, this was fast cute and simple.

Crazy for Cards

I love to make cards for friends for birthdays and other special occasions.  It gives me an opportunity to do a mini project, trying out different ideas and using my collection of odds and ends beautiful papers.  Plus I get to give it away immediately and they are always appreciated for the personal touch.

Since I've been obsessed with letters/ typography my two most recent cards featured two varieties of stitched A's (both being birthday cards for Annes).

The first is stitched paper, something I want to try more of.  The second is a little cross stitch.
I was happy with both as were the recipients.

Robin's Craftorama 2011!

How do you bring some special excitement to a craft project and paint yourself into a productive corner with a public boast? Make yourself a challenge and plaster your FB page with a poster for it!

And so I give you the second annual Craftorama!

In October 2010 I made this event up for myself, making 10 crafts in 10 days and posting the pictures on facebook for friends as I went. For 2011 I cranked it up and aimed for 11 crafts in 11 days (in the 11th month).

The rules I set for myself are simple.

1. Each day complete a craft project and by the end of the day post a picture.
2. No repeats during the 11 consecutive days.
The goal is to make time for crafts, try some new things, and have fun!

Day 1 - String Art

I was recently dazzled by some typographical string art I saw online and wanted to try something similar. My friend Stephen found me a good piece of spare wood on his farm, I wanted something weathered but in good shape. 

I chose the word RECLAIM and the green colours to play up the repurposed nature of the wood in the message.  I used graph paper to plan the letters and nail placement.  Tie the embroidery thread to the first nail and start winding it, join all possible nails within the letter shape and reinforce the outline of each letter.  Finished it off with some coarse string to hang it.

Day 2 - Crayon Spectacular

My most unique craft, inspired by pictures I found on the net.  Take a white canvas (also looks good painted black), buy three or four boxes of crayons, and glue them points down along the top with regular white craft glue.  Take a hair dryer on high heat (hotter the better) and hold it in front of a section of crayons until they suddenly melt/drip/spray.  Repeat. 

Day 3 - Cross Stitch Yoda

This is only my second cross stitch ever and I think there will be many many more to come.  I've already been enjoying the 'Subversive Cross Stitch' site for a while now. 

Once I got my stitches tidier I was rolling.  Except that I was a fool to tackle this seemingly simple project in a single day.  Who knew cross stitch is soooo time consuming?  Not me.  This took ten hours.  Thankfully it was a vacation day. 

I love the design (found online) and the result.  Yoda rocks.  I'm also happy with how the simple framing works.  This is going to hang in my office.

Day 4 - Fimo Monster Magnets

My friend Cat is a magician with the fimo (modelling clay that you work to make soft, form, and then bake to harden).  I've tried it once before and would love to do more. 

This day I didn't have much time so I kept it fairly simple.  Bright coloured monsters with big eyes now hang out on my fridge.  Peel and stick magnets on their backs.

Day 5 - Vintage Book Cover Clock

I love crafts with books.  This was a fun simple project and I think the camp value is delicious.

Day 6 - Felted Snow Citizen

Oh felting, I still love you greatly.  And I love social activism.  This soft fluffy white citizen is bringing the spirit of the occupy movement to the holidays with a classic cardboard sign.  I heart this.



Day 7 - Leather Letter Punch Bookmarks

In my search for 11 crafts I wanted to take on in this great adventure I spent some time wandering around Michael's craft store.  No surprise there.  One fun thing I picked up on a whim was a small metal letter punch tool and some strips of soft leather to try it on.

The tool is fun and I am obsessed with letter/text based crafts at present.  The results were too subtle though, the letters actually show better in this picture than they do in person.  I'm wondering if I should use a harder leather.  More to explore here for sure.

Day 8 - Origami Wreaths

Oh how I love the Japanese Paper Store on Queen street.  I want everything in it and I want more ways to use the incredible variety of papers. 

I've done a little origami but have no great skill or patience for it.  These simple wreath ornaments are made with a few paper folds and no glue and I think the result is brilliant.  I plan to make lots for the holidays, and am thinking of stringing a series of them on a line for a garland.

Both the shiny holiday paper and the more sophisticated japanese papers turned out great results.

Each wreath takes eight pieces of paper, making the combination possibilities endless.

I highly recommend this project for non-crafters and kids 5 and up.

Day 9 - Snowglobes

I've always wanted to try making my own snowglobe and now I have.  The first is a tribute to the gay penguins at the Toronto Zoo being temporarily separated and pressured to mate with female penguins to reproduce.  I bought the penguins at a toy store, used a glass, glitter for snow, and a piece of grey hard plastic for the bottom.  Baby oil works slightly better than water so that the glitter snow falls more slowly.

The second is, of course, a stormtrooper in a mason jar.  The height of the toy trooper works perfectly in the jar, and I dream of more super heroes meeting my glue gun in the future.

Day 10 - Shrink Plastic Buttons

I just scratched the surface of potential for shrinkydink or shrink plastic with this one.  Permanent ink markers work, and pencil crayons are great, the colour intensifies after baking.  Cut the plastic sheet and decorate, then bake.  The plastic will shrink to one third the original size (shrinking your design along with it), become thicker, and harden.  Punch holes before baking circular designs to create cute buttons for yet more craft projects!

Day 11 - Recycled Painting

Find an old framed painting, stick on letters, paint over the letters, peel them up to let the original shine through your message.

Yes, my letter positioning was a bit sloppy.  Oh well, I'm not so straight myself.

Bigger letters would let more of the picture show through, I think to better effect.  Still, I'm fond of this piece and it's already hanging on my wall.

"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life."  You said it Picasso.

Farewell Craftorama 2011, you were a lot of work, and a lot of joy.  I am left a little tired and totally inspired.

Stitch n Bitch n Butch

Some fabulous downtown Toronto peeps have started a monthly Stitch n Bitch at a cafe just up the street from me.  I couldn't make the inaugural event last month but had a great time at the October meet up, and I brought my needlefelting.  I figure the butches need to represent.

I drank swanky iced tea and made a little monster I call a Tricopus (photographed at home on some awesome paper).

Mom's in the show!

I love a little craft challenge, with some odd parameters.  Sure, if it's a competition I like to win, but mostly on arts and crafts I wouldn't expect to, I just like to play.  And I find that it's easier to be creative within a few odd rules somehow.  Makes me think of new things.

And so it was when, earlier this summer, I saw the call for the second annual 6x8 Exhibition at the (Japanese) Paper Store on Queen Street.  The idea is that the first 200 people who come in and ask for one of their numbered pieces of identical 6x8 inch handmade washi paper (white, heavyweight, raw edges) get one to take away, make into something or put something on, and bring it back by September 1.  The results are then displayed in the store in September.

Here's the call for submissions:
http://www.thepaperplace.ca/wp/2011/06/07/call-for-submissions-6x8-an-exhibition-at-the-paper-place/

So I thought ... why not?  And ... I wonder if I could do something worthy of submitting?  The call encouraged artists to focus on the paper (it being a paper store and all) and so I thought of qulling.  Now back in October when I did that crazy ten days ten crafts binge, I tried quilling, which I hadn't done in years, or much ever.  Quilling is taking strips of paper and curling them and them shaping them into pictures.

Here's a fabulous example of a great artist doing some quilling:
http://en.paperblog.com/jitesh-patel-quilling-artist-51265/

Ok quilling it was going to be, on my piece of 6x8 washi.  What paper to cut up and actually curl?  I thought back to an earlier trip to Value Village where I piced up an old dictionary, you know the kind where the pages are a little trasparent, kind of a rice paper?  Yeah, that.  OK, I liked that idea, cutting up the dictionary pages to quill so that you could see the words, not legible but visible, on the paper.  I don't know why I thought to try a picture of a face, but I did.  And then that turned into a picture of my mom's face.  Using the dictionary to depict her is especially meaningful as she loved language, reading, had been a teacher, and an avid (if not strategic) scrabble player.

So I toiled away at the coffee table one night with an exacto blade and my favourite metal ruler and cut away strips of wordy paper.  Then I curled them around the thin end of a paintbrush, and slowly filled out a light simple sketch of my mom's face.  I did the big features first, and then later cut shorter plain white strips from the edges of some pages to fill in the skin.  I had been less than careful, shall we say, with the glue and lots showed around the outside when it dried.  Thankfully I had made it on a practice piece of the 6x8 paper, so I cut the shape out and glued it onto the official numbered piece.

I didn't make it to the little reception last night, but today I stopped by the store and saw all the pieces displayed.  Including mine.  I met my goal - I was happy enough with it to not be embarassed to see it amongst many artists pieces.  And so there's my mom, hanging in the show.

If you have a chance, I really encourage you to go by the store and see all the submissions.  There are some truly lovely pieces, and the variety is really fun and creative.  I am in awe of the delicate and compelling painting ones.

What's my next project???

Robot Tattoo Day!

August 31, 2011 I finally got my robot tattoo and I love it.  LOVE it.  The colours, the shading, the design, the size, the placement.  I'm very happy.  It took 3.5 hours of tattooing and the first two seemed pretty easy, the last hour and a half hurt a lot and laying still is not my strong suit.  Still, it was more than worth it.  Can't wait for it to heal.  And to get my next one.

Love is better than Anger

Wednesday August 24, 2011 I visited Nathan Philips Square in front of Toronto City Hall to witness and participate in the spontaneous free people's tribute to Jack Layton. 

"you are not gone, you are not forgotten, thank you"

The concrete walls and ground of the square had been filled with chalk love messages to Jack.  The rain had come earlier that day and washed many away, and left others dark and wet.  Even the rain felt appropriate.  It was quiet and still and introspective.  People left their thoughts and wishes and they faded and washed away.  The most common words I saw were "thank you Jack."

"Jack - Thanks for restoring my faith in good people.  Wish you could see the love you've inspired.  The rain may wash this from the ground but never from our hearts."

Jack would have loved the attention, and he would have loved the heart, the sharing, the community and the possibility for change this experience has inspired.

"Never apologize for working with others."

Appropriately, the mood of the square was gratitude and warmth, and even humour.

One of my favourites: "With great mustache comes great responsibility" :)

Love and Solidarity to you Jack, your family, most of all Olivia.

Now time for us all to continue the work, roll up our sleeves.  "So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.  And we'll change the world."

Vacation in Printmaking Land

This summer I'm enjoying the pleasures of home and good visitors instead of travelling.  One week of my vacation was spent in a school board course on printmaking.  I've done the course before, and students are allowed to use it as a workshop, pursuing their own projects with help as needed.  I skipped the etching component and spent more time on silkscreen and linocut.  Here are the results.

Vintage ties, round 2.  A previous year in this same course I made a few ties with CHIVALRY and geek on them.  I wanted to do more and after some fb input and debate, I settled on debonair, fierce, and a new version of geek as the words.

I love the use of text in visual arts and wanted to try something along those lines.  For inspiration I went to the book of poetry penned by my best friend Alison Calder, and sure enough found something very special.  The poem is called This is History and I love it.  I borrowed and altered and collaged together images of a rabbit face and wolf with the poem.  I was worried the text would be too small to silkscreen but it turned out really well and both Alison and I are thrilled with the final piece. :)

Fans of Fancybutch (if any exist) will recall that in the October craftorama I made stencilled hankies with butch symboles.  I wanted to make a set of these on silkscreen for various applications.  The fourth symbol changed from pi to a baseball cap.  My own tshirts with this set in silver ink make me giddy with boi glee.

My silkscreen turtle printed well on fabric and not as sharply on paper.  I plan to try again with different inks to see if that helps.  In the meantime, one four year old is getting a cool new green tshirt.

The biggest surprise this time around was my newfound love of the linocut.  I started with a little 'solidarity' piece.  Didn't realize til I was cutting how much I had bitten off with the lettering details.  Thankfully I did remember they had to be backwards.  The result reminds me of vintage political posters, and that is a good thing in my books.  Definitely going up in the office.

Realizing I had time for another project I got this idea of three panels with the urban animals of Toronto, each in giant size against the skyline.  What was I thinking?  The planning, drawing, and cutting of the three panels was a lot of work, but really good experience cutting for me.  And the result, well, see for yourself.  Worth it.  And inspires me to do more linocut.

So there's a slice of how I spent my summer vacation.

Parking lot play

Sunny spring morning trip to my favourite Zellers and what should I see in the parking lot but a tiny old fashioned and mostly empty fair!  So of course I dug my camer out and sauntered over.  These have been tweaked in photoshop for my sense of joy for the bring colours of the day.

Fimo you do!

A lovely afternoon with a friend making my first fimo creation ever.  Of course, Yoda it is.

Soot Ball

A friend requested a Soot Ball from Spirited Away, and here it is, quite simple and perfect creature for a felt project!

capturing the rainy mood

Sunday was a cold and rainy grey day outside, and in my head too, truth be told.  I took my camera down to Cherry Beach with one idea in mind but the wind of the water was so cold I retreated quickly to my car.  That's when I saw the tree through the wet window and was off on a new idea.  These were photoshopped a bit to add contrast and tweak the colours.  I'm pleased with the result, a little abtract and a lot moody.