Recycled Book Wreath

Earlier this week I made a new wreath for the front door, since the holiday one I made has once again been put into storage for the year.

I've seen people make wreaths out of books and sheet music before, so I thought that would be fun to try with some discarded library books that I had. Originally, when I thought of the project a while back, I was going to cut out lots of leaves, but I decided that would take too long. I had seen one made of sheet music on Etsy before where the papers were rolled, so that seemed like a good method to try for this project. I flipped over a large pad of newsprint drawing paper to use as a work surface, since I was sitting on the carpet and didn't want to get any stray glue on it.

I started off by cutting a base ring out of a cardboard box. If you have trouble drawing even circles, and don't have a compass, you can use different size plates and bowls to trace.  The book I used for this project is a discarded paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that I took from the free pile at the library (I feel that the choice of book makes the wreath all the more suitable for my home). Just ask at your local library, or even a used book store, to see if they have any books they are discarding or giving away.  I am always picking up discarded books to save for future projects.  The only other materials I used are scissors and a hot glue gun. You could probably also use regular Elmer's Glue instead of hot glue, but I was impatient and I also thought that the hot glue might be a bit sturdier in the long run.

I separated the book pages from the glued binding by ripping the book into a few smaller sections and then carefully tearing the pages off one by one. It came apart pretty easily and I hardly had to use the scissors at all. I quite like the slightly ragged edges that some of the rolls of paper have from ripping them instead of clean cut edges.

After separating the pages, I then rolled them into tubes, securing them closed with a strip of hot glue at the end of the roll. I started hot gluing the rolls of paper around the cardboard ring. The first layer of paper rolls was glued so that half the roll was on the cardboard ring and half was sticking out. The second layer was then glued on top of the paper rolls, moving in towards the center of the ring. Eventually there were three of four layers of paper, with the top layers being made of paper rolls that were cut in half to add some shape variety.

Ideally, I should have more carefully planned out the spacing of the tubes before gluing them, something I figured out too late into the project. I may have also been slightly distracted by watching Dr. Who on Netflix while I was sitting on the carpet working. Oops! There are a few gaps I might try and fix, but I only have a couple pages from the book left over and I don't want to mix in pages from another book and risk having the difference in paper color stand out. I might try again at some point with a different style of wreath, but overall it's not too bad for a first attempt.

All in all, the wreath measures about 18 inches across. It's not heavy at all, and all of the layered rolls of paper actually make it quite sturdy. I cut a U-shape out of cardboard and hot glued it to the back of the cardboard ring to make a hook for hanging it on the door. The wreath is easily lightweight enough to hang from a 3M hook.  I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, and it didn't cost me a penny since I either had the supplies on hand or was recycling.

A Pair of Foxes

Last Valentine's Day I painted this watercolor painting of two foxes for Jeff. This year, I thought it would be fun to make him a small sculpture of the two foxes from last year's painting. I first sculpted it out of clay (you can see an unpainted photo below) and then painted it with acrylic paint after firing it. I had debated about using glaze to finish the sculpture, but in the end I decided that paint would help me better reach the finished look that I had in my head, and luckily it worked out great. When it was all done, I sealed the paint with a flat spray finish by Valspar. The completed sculpture is approximately 3.5" tall.

Paris Street Art

While I was in Paris, I saw a lot of interesting street art. There were a lot of the Banksy and Shepard Fairey variety, as well as some interesting other little bits.

I had a lot of fun keeping an eye out for the little 8 bit video game characters that we started to notice around the city that someone has been making out of little glass and ceramic tiles and attaching high up on the sides of buildings. I looked it up when I got home and found out that the tile street art movement was started by an artist who calls himself Invader. Apparently he's been posting his tile art around Paris and the rest of the world for a few years now. I also found this post on another blog that shows more tile art in Paris, including some that I saw.

Sketchbook - A Fabulous Floppy Hat

Today was a snow day because of the big storm that rolled through the area. While I was enjoying the surprise day off, I had some fun looking through vintage clothes on Etsy. I stumbled across one store called Astral Boutique and had a blast looking through the 1960s and 1970s style dresses that she's selling. I picked out two dresses at a good price, and can't wait for them to arrive in the mail! But really, I just had a good time looking through the photos of the clothes she's selling and wound up doing a sketch based on the fabulous floppy hat that is used in many of the photos.



This was done in my moleskine sketchbook with an archival pigment pen and watercolor paint.

Printmaking - Self-Portrait

This is the demo that I made for my 8th grade students' printmaking project. They learned about the pop art movement, with a focus on Andy Warhol's screen printed portraits. The students carved their own portraits, using photos for reference to do a transfer on to the rubber printing blocks. After doing a series of test prints, the students then printed their portrait four times with their choice of colors. Below you can see the finished portraits by my students. The final portraits measure approximately 14" x 14".

Printmaking - Owl

I recently finished doing printmaking assignments with all of my classes. I had them use rubber printing blocks for carving. My 6th graders were making prints of the subject of their choice, so this owl print was my demo for their class. It's inspired by a vintage cast iron trivet that I own. Below you can see some of the work by my 6th grade students.

Paris - part 3

On December 30th we went to Montmartre for a second time with the intention to do some drawing and painting. The day started out nice and sunny so Jeff and I grabbed a seat outside Cafe des 2 Moulins, ordered some cafe creme, and got out our sketchbooks. I drew a picture of the little grocery store across the street. Jeff also took a lot of reference photos of Montmarte for us to use later on for artwork.




The Cafe des 2 Moulins is the one used in Amélie. We had breakfast there earlier in the week.




After the sunny morning, the weather turned rather gray and cold so we didn't really have a good chance to draw or paint outside anymore. The last drawing below was done while sitting outside Saint Severin cafe by Saint Michel at night. The weather was cold and rainy, but sitting under the awning and heat lamp at the cafe made for some good people watching.




While the weather in Paris may not have lent itself well to drawing outside, I do have 1500+ reference photos to use for doing art from home, so you can definitely count on seeing more Paris themed artwork from me in the future!

Paris - part 2

On December 26th we went to the Eiffel Tower. It was very cold but luckily it was one of the clearer weather days, which worked out perfectly for some sightseeing. After going into the Eiffel Tower we wandered over to the little Christmas village - Village de Noel, I think - that had been set up in the big plaza area across from the Tower. There were a lot of booths selling food and knicknacks, as well as music and an outdoor skating rink. We found an empty table next to the skating rink to sit and rest at, and since the view of the Eiffel Tower was pretty good from there I decided to try painting. I was determined to do at least one on location painting while we were in Paris.



I had to work fast because my fingers were getting really cold, and the sun was rapidly setting. The orange lights on the Eiffel Tower turned on as we were sitting there. While I was painting, a small group of kids stopped by the edge of the skating rink and watched me. They started talking to me, but since I don't understand French I could only smile and shrug. The kids had a hastily whispered conference and then attempted to talk to me again, with the lead girl haltingly saying, "You draw bee-yoo-tiful!" I laughed and thanked them. They giggled and skated away. Cute kids.




After finishing the little watercolor painting, we went inside one of the food tents so I could hold my sketchbook by a heat lamp to get it to dry. The cold was what kept me from doing much painting outside - too hard on the fingers and the paint just took too long to dry. Once I could close my sketchbook, we walked around and took some more photos of the Eiffel Tower.





And the next morning Jeff asked me to marry him. Definitely the best Christmas break ever!