painting

You are currently browsing articles tagged painting.

And because I’m obviously behind on posting what I’ve been doing so I might catch up a little faster if I just dump a bunch of pictures into one post. Not as much story but you get the idea.

This is a basket/bag (Ravelry link) knitted in the technique called mosaic knitting which I did for a KAL (knit-a-long). The boy has claimed it for his own. The technique creates a thick two color fabric without the usually gyrations required of colorwork.

mosaic knitting two color basket

I had a black tee-shirt left from the boy’s Ninja costume last year. The boy has always liked owls, but we recently watched the movie Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole which refueled the owl interest in our house. I handpainted just the eyes, top of the head, beak and a bit of shoulder to suggest an owl staring out of the darkness. I really like how this turned out.

hand-painted owl in the dark tee shirt

owl face hand-painted on black T-shirt

And another skirt for the girl, recycled out of a pair of my old corduroys. I used the fabric but I only kept the hem and side seams and carefully recycled the back pockets. There are pleats in the front and elastic in the waist. It’s in a longer length as requested. I also used some of the fabric from the pants to lengthen a favorite pair of pine green corduroy pants that still have a lot of room in the waist. No picture of that, oops! but similar to what I did to the boy’s pants here.

hand sewn brown corduroy girl skirt

back patch pocket detail on handmade corduroy girl skirt

And the reason behind all the sewing? Besides the motivation of school starting and cooler weather, I spent about a month and a half knitting a sleeveless sweater for myself that turned out . . . well, about the way I expected but I didn’t care for it at all. Sort of turned me off knitting for a bit. I’ve also been working off and on with a bench the boy and I rescued from the side of the road. One corner was in quite poor shape but the rest of it was well made with good quality hardwood so I decided it was worth some work. I’ve cut mortises and tenons, drilled holes of all sizes and mixed and shaped epoxy type filler and sanded, sanded, sanded. I’m not quite done yet but there will be a post with pictures of the transformation when it’s done, since we have about a month left to enjoy it before it gets too cold for this year.

Tags: , , , , , ,

This post is for you, ArTchrJan.

rag rolled hair curls

Okay, this is actually the back of the girl’s head while she is working on the project to follow. She asked for curly hair so I put her hair up in rag rolls, too cute huh? Anyway, here’s her beach scene collage cut with the “special” scissors. We have an assortment of scissors with different edges like waves, scallops, etc. That’s a person on the beach and a sea monster in the water.

construction paper collage

Friday the boy brought one of our plain canvas bags to me and asked to paint it. The girl immediately wanted to paint too of course. As usual, I requested they make a sketch first. Otherwise the girl is apt to just scribble. Here are the results, including the feet of the artists; a Pokémon ball (or so I was told) and a tiger cat with red rat. And now we have a one-of-a-kind library bag! I think I’ll request they paint some others.

pokemon ball painted on canvas bag

tiger cat and red rat painted on canvas bag

And this project is a little older, maybe a week or two ago. the girl and I made this juice can lid mosaic out of Sculpey. Actually she did most of it, rolling the clay through the pasta machine and cutting out the shapes with canapé cutters, I just helped fill in the blue background and worked the oven.

polymer clay sculpey mosaic flower on juice can lid

Tags: , , , ,

kids opening croquet set

The boy and the girl went up to the county for a sleepover at my parents’ house. While at their grandparents’ house they picked berries, roamed the field road in the ATV, made ice cream with grandmom, helped grandpop mow the lawn and developed a taste for playing croquet! DH and I were at home cleaning, rearranging, painting and having a little fun too.

img_5204 bee balm or monarda

Back home they played outside in the sprinkler while my friend Jan and I did tie dye which is still batching, pictures of that later. But here are some playsilks quickly scrunch dyed in Kool-Aid. The orange and the pinky-red are new and the blue and green are several years old. Both kids play with these a lot so I figured a few new colors would be welcome.

playsilks dyed with Kool-Aid

This morning the girl and I went down to Artist and Craftsman Supply to pick up some PINK procion dye since we discovered yesterday that we are all out of PINK. They are homebased here in Portland ME but have a number of stores in cities across the country, maybe one near you! I did look specifically at the acid dyes thinking I’d bring some home to dye fiber/yarn but I couldn’t decide on a color. Maybe next time after I do a little more research.I also picked up some extra Sculpey in colors we are running out of and a bargain pick of pretty nice paint brushes for the kids in fun colors with gel handles. I haven’t been there in at least a year and now I remember why. I go in there and I just want to buy some of everything!

colorful paint brushes

Tags: , , , ,

My friend Jan has a blog! Actually she started it a while ago but she’s introducing it now so I thought I’d put in a plug about her and her work. She is a painter and sculptor. She shares art with children with patience and enthusiasm.

Jan is my friend, fellow artist and mom. She has taught me so much and we love to get together to work on art projects or just hang out. We are about the same age, each have a boy and a girl, her younger child and my older child were born ten days apart and have been friends since then. Our husbands both love the Boston Celtics, U2 and Lord of the Rings. We all go to church together and have worked together on various projects at church and at our favorite camp, Gander Brook.

Just a peek at one piece so you’ll go look at her blog. She does accept commissions by the way!

kids-portrait-3-6 by Jan Obenhaus

Tags: