the devoted woman

today i am trying to see the beauty of nostalgia and heartbreak.  a little over 6 months ago i completed a drawing that was about devotion and the heartache of a long lost love.  the photograph i used was of a woman whose devotion to her deceased husband manifested itself in her long, dreaded hair.  she is absolutely beautiful and as i studied her face and transfered her wrinkles and skin and long locks to the paper i became her.  i felt and understood her.  today i think of her and hope to find the strength and grace that she must possess.  

4' x 5' foot drawing in pen and ink

 

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celebrate love today and always!

happy love everyone!  i thought i'd share what i made for my love for valentine's day.  hopefully it will inspire those of you who are tired of v-day cards from walgreens and red construction paper hearts. i made lucky stars and wrote love poems, song lyrics, and quotes inside!

IMG_7846i listed some sources for good poems and quotes below but you could always write the typical "candy heart messages" in yours if you wish.  click here for some really good instructions on lucky star folding.

These lucky stars are known to have special meaning and the meaning can be tied to how many are given or received...

1 star: The only one 2 stars: Happy Couple 55 stars: Love you with no regrets 99 stars: May the friendship/love lasts forever 365/366 stars: Whole year blessing 520 stars: I love you 999 stars: Endless love

it is also said that if you gift 1,000 of these stars to someone their wish will come true!  i think just a few of these guys would make anyone happy though.

IMG_7851 IMG_7855if you are need of some love inspiration check out these beautiful poets...

Tyler Knott Rumi Pablo Neruda Bob Marley Khalil Gibran Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. " Mother Teresa

trophy fishin

i had to carry this guy all the way across campus today, which turned some heads. i think i almost caused an accident when some woman in her car couldn't take her eyes of me and my fish!trophy fishthis is made from lots and lots of hot glue.  i also used the clear film printer for the first time for the colored skin you see behind the hot glue scales.  i scanned a piece of handmade marbled  paper that i did in Italy last spring and printed that on the clear film.

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IMG_6493 IMG_7759 IMG_7756 IMG_6491 IMG_1347i like this kind of fishing :) so i decided to build off this project for the sculpture final last semester.  but instead of a fish, i chose a shark.  same idea with the marbled pattern on clear film although this time i played with the color a bit in photoshop and printed two of them.  i also melted the clear film and some thinner clear plastic with a heat gun for the body of the shark.  the tail fin is the plastic melted around some shiny, blue fabric too...

image (5) image (4) image (2)the net is still my favorite part, although there are still lines on the wood floor of my apartment from laying the hot glue down, crossing line after line. oops!

poetic alterations

last week i led a workshop at Urbana Free Public Library for a group of 15 or so high schoolers.  i wanted them to pick a children's book and remake it into a a small book of 5 - 10 pages.  i decided to crop the pages down to 5" x 5" and rearrange chosen text to create a short poem.  other options for page alterations were collage, drawing, and writing but i wanted students to try to include text somehow. unfortunately i didn't get any pictures of the high schoolers work but here's my sample for it!

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IMG_7585 IMG_7582 IMG_7583 IMG_7584 when the pages were finished we bound them together using a japanese stab bind that ended up looking something like this...

 

deconstructing the marker

project:  Object | Image i started taking apart markers for this project and have become fascinated!  first, i cut the plastic tube of the marker below the tip with a box cutter and then i can remove the inner tube which is a thin plastic casing that holds the ink-soaked felt.  that part i cut open after squeezing any leftover ink onto paper.  the colorful blobs, bleed throughs, and drips are the result.  i've been cutting those out and will layer them back together.  as for the guts of the marker i will be felting!  this is what i have so far....

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book arts at Hook Pottery Paper

for the past couple days i've been working in Andrea Peterson's studio finishing a book, Anamorpho.  yesterday we beat a cotton rag and recycled paper blend and added pigment to warm it and a denim thread for hints of blue.  the original color was a pale gray and after we added the pigment it became bubble gum colored!  we mixed the two and got this pale purply pink... garbage can of fiber!!

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We poured big 22" x 30" sheets and made them thick for the cover... IMG_7204 IMG_7206 IMG_7207

remember my "pink pages" post!?  the pink pages will be bound into a book soon!  i've been going back into some of those with water-based markers and wheat paste.  here they are drying...IMG_7221 IMG_7222we're emptying the dryer tonight and i'll be adding text to the pages this afternoon.  tomorrow will be binding and finishing the cover!

 

 

pink pages

   

 

the paper is cotton rag with a handful of blue jean and colored pink with red and burnt umber pigments.  the images are recycled from another project involving collage and image transfer onto white cotton rag paper.  i used natural dyes made from elderberries (purplish ink) and beets (pinkish).  i also used some cheap, washable markers, which is the bleeding color that you see.

still deciding how to assemble the pages into a book...

many more pictures to come!

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