Incongruous material

 Yesterday's assignment was to make an item out of a material that is out of character for that subject, (ie. use a hard material for a soft item or make something light out of a heavy material.) I thought a metal feather would work well. I like the way it turned out - would make a nice pin. My outdoor work is interfering with these projects... tomorrow it is suppose to rain and I hope to catch up. I am three projects behind and have no photos of several.

Day 143

 Maybe it's just the fact I've been doing this for 143 days, but I'm feeling a little bogged down....products have not been too exciting...or artistic, for that matter! I think I'll group a bunch today to catch up on posting.

The first is "something appealing to the sense of taste." I must admit I reworked a water color that I started a couple of years ago. My heart was just not excited about the project.

The second is an experiment in pop-up paper. I see the object of the process, but couldn't get into a decent subject. I always revert to flowers and landscapes when I'm stuck.

 The object of this assignment was to remember a childhood story and use it as a base for the drawing. I chose a Suessical looking house, as he is my favorite creative childhood author.

"Make something in a box." I kept this pretty little box - can't even remember what was originally in it - it seemed to need a perfect rose. These roses from my birthday dried perfectly and have held their color. (yeah, I know, can't throw anything away!)

This magazine project might have had possibilities, but I couldn't get into it! You just page through the magazine, cutting away, allowing underlying pages to shine through to hopefully convey a message. (Pretty lady with images of what is meaningful in her life.) I might try this project again later when I'm in a better creative frame of mind.

Textures

Yesterday's assignment was to compose something using a rubbing technique or do a rubbing of something like a gravestone. I found several textural items lying around my studio and used soft pastels (chalk) for the medium. It was so much fun, I did two!

Expressive food

 Today's assignment was to play with your lunch - faces are the focus. So here's my foodie critter.

Maps

 Create something using an old map, or ends up looking like a map. We are planning a fall trip to Machu Picchu, so I was digging around in my old National Geographic stuff and saw all these great Incan images. So this is a collage of what I hope to see when I travel. I loved the progression of pottery styles.

Non existent creature

 I had a Cub Scout craft kit for a bear-claw necklace. Unforunately unbeknownst to me, it was missing the promised bear claw when I bought it, so was just a pack of leather and beads. I am trying to clean out some of the extraneous stuff I have accumulated so the kit became the  perfect raw stuff for this little critter. I glued him to a piece of wood so he would stand up. Now I no longer have a bear-claw necklace kit, but I have this strange figure! Hmmm, may not have gained much here.

Kit with no instructions

 The idea here was to purchase a kit of some sort, like a model, and get rid of the instructions to make an unintended product. I found a color-yourself puzzle kit in my art closet and made a small sculpture out of the pieces. Requirements fulfilled - art product, iffy!

...on a musical note

Music production   

 This project was to "make a working musical instrument. It doesn't have to look, sound or work like any existing musical instrument."  I took the easy way out on this one. We have done this as entertainment for the grandkids before, and it is kind of fun! It works best with crystal for more bell-like tone, but any glass will do. Just fill to ascending levels (I used colored water for a little pizzaz) and adjust the water levels until you have created a scale. Then you can practice tapping out tunes. Another fun thing is to run your dampened finger around the rim of the glass to produce a tone. Now, you have a whole evening of cheap entertainment!

Computer keyboard craft

 Today two grandsons are with us today, so we did some keyboard crafts. We popped the keys out and Stan drilled holes in them for us. Then we strung them together with leather cord, wooden beads and shells. Mine are earrings, which are hard to see, but I wore them to Best Buy and a couple of people noticed what they were. Don't know that any of us will wear them much - but we did complete our creative project for the day.

Aluminum foil dancer

 Today's project was to create something out of aluminum foil. Actually, this makes a pretty good sculpture medium - I was quite surprised! My grandkids have done this at school, but I'd never tried it. That's one thing I enjoy about this project....using strange materials in different ways.

A word

This prompt was to make something lying around into a word. My grandson gave me an old keyboard that I've been playing around with, so I removed the letters for "word." I thought it was appropriate to place it with a Microsoft disk for its photo -  a word at several levels, ha!

Destination poster

Travel   

A travel poster, passport or stamp from a real or make-believe country was the assignment for this project. I'm behind a couple of days, so I'm doing a little catch up on posting. Stan and I took a wonderful trip to Italy a couple of years ago. I had drawn the bottles and fruit as a water color demonstration for an art class I was teaching  last year, and it reminded me of Tuscany. So I used it for a start for this project. I added on the landscape and wording to turn it into a travel poster.

T Shirt art

 Today's task was to decorate a T-shirt and wear it all day. I did this with fabric paint and a spray of water. It's still wet, and I definitely am not a wet T-shirt kinda girl, so will wait until tomorrow to wear it.

Spring   

 Today's assignment: Make something come through something that appears to be solid - I thought of a water spring that finds it's way through a rock bluff, often originating several states away. Missouri has a lot of springs. They are always cool, damp places where the vegetation grows even in the hotest weather. So here's my interpretation of a spring.

Triangles   

 The prompt today was to work with triangular shapes. Living in an engineer's house means there are lots of triangles, all sizes, shapes, and a couple of colors! I used some op art paper I bought at the Crayola store last Monday in K.C.  for a background. I placed the whole thing on the light table to give it some pizzaz.

Bird

 Something that flies is the assignment - I constructed a bird with flapping wings, origami style. I've never been good at origami - too impatient to follow step by step instructions! You-tube sure helps. I may fold other things in the future. This little bird will move it's wings if you pull it's tail and chest - how cool is that?

I'm trying to catch up with posting. I am on track with the every day creative projects but not with getting them on the blog!

Postcard alteration

 Here was another "silly" project. I was to alter a postcard and send it to someone. First of all, I could not locate a postcard - the one I found first had a 6 cent postage marking....how old is that? Finally I found some advertising cards for photo-processing. I added stickers (since I am not really in the mood for spending much time on this!) The arid landscape got a couple of  "oasis" trees, and a gorilla (for Kyle.) The flowers got a butterfly and a sweet skunk (for Rebecca.) I will mail them tomorrow....project done!

Woodcut

Woodcut  

Today's assignment was to work with wood. I used to do more printmaking, so this was a nostalgic project. I began by attempting an image of a raccoon, but was working way too small for the hardness of the wood. So, taking the grain as a cue, I found the face of an troll-like character. I am pretty happy with the results. As I work through these assignments, I am more and more aware that perhaps painting is not my best medium. I'm always rather tense when painting, particularly realistic water color, caring too much that it "turns out right." I think I may be doing more printmaking, and construction-art work in the future.               

Multiples

 Photography again....I'm behind a couple of days due to yard work! The assignment was to find a lot of something for your photo. The first is taken at a crayola display wall in the KC Crayola store (a really fun place!) There are big bins of crayons of many colors.

The second is of my thread drawer - don't know why I keep all this thread because I don't really sew much anymore. I've always liked thread displays!

Painting with light

 This was a lot of fun! You could use time lapse photography or just move the camera to do some painting with light. I used an area above my kitchen cabinets where I have some colored bottles and a lot of small spot lights. These are some of the images I got.

I like to play around with the photos on the computer - you can get some very nice abstractions of color, tone and shape. The top one is orton-ish,, the second is in duo-tone and the last a cross process.