Little Tweed Owls

So I've been working on something new & super-cute, if I may say so myself.

This little guy is waving hello - awww!

and I just love Mr. Green Wings on his mod background:

What do you think of my newest creations? I'm working on a couple of other animals, too, but the owls are all I have done so far. I'll have these little cuties for sale in our WonderCraft booth tonight at First Thursday on South Congress, tomorrow at The Bleet-Up & next week at Cherrywood Art Fair. Hope to see you at one of these craftabulous events!

MADE: Cheshire Cat applique & fabric bird sculpture

This crazy cat was made for my friend who's having a baby girl. They're doing the nursery in an Alice in Wonderland theme. I was quite happy with how it turned out, this being the most ambitious applique project I've done to date!

And below is my most recently completed fabric sculpture. You may recall my post about the beginnings of this piece called, "Art Waiting to Happen." Well this is what happened:

Inspiring Places: The Blanton Museum of Art

I recently visited the Matisse as Printmaker exhibit at The Blanton and fell in love. I hadn't set foot in this lovely little gem of a museum on The University of Texas campus since I was an art student at UT, and I'm really glad I've rediscovered it.

This collection of etchings, lino-cuts, lithographs & other prints by Henri Matisse was phenomenal! I've been a big admirer of his work since I first saw his Woman in a Purple Coat at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston on a high school field trip. Getting a long look at that wondrous painting up close & personal had a powerful effect on me and influenced my decision to pursue an art degree.

What has always astounded me about Matisse's work is his extremely adept handling of line. He had an uncanny ability to capture the essence of his subject matter with a few perfectly placed, wonderfully expressive lines. Matisse's magical way with line holds true for all of his artwork, be it a seemingly simple painting of lemons in a bowl or one of his colorful paper collages, but I find it especially lovely in the portraits he drew.

His Young Woman Contemplating a Goldfish Bowl (below), one of a series of etchings of women gazing at goldfish in a bowl, really knocked me out. I love the little details: the curls of hair, the overlapped hands and the way the ladies' chins rest on them, and of course the shapes of the goldfish themselves, all suggested by a few carefully observed lines. These lines by Matisse never seem over-worked. He placed them confidently & gracefully, without regard to perfection, which imparts so much energy and expressive character to his work.

Unfortunately, the Matisse as Printmaker exhibit at The Blanton is now closed & will soon be heading up to Canada for a showing at the Art Gallery of Alberta. But The Blanton has tons more to offer! They have very impressive & renowned permanent collections as well as an ongoing variety of temporary exhibitions.

And get this, admission is free every Thursday! How great is that? Get on over to The Blanton & treat your eyes to some fabulous art! Find all the details on their Visit page.

Young Woman Contemplating a Goldfish Bowl

Milk & Cookies appliqued art for Miss Salty Oat

Just made this for my pal, Caitlin, who is moving away to Washington, D.C. this week. She's an amazingly prolific stitcher, sewer & all-around crafty gal who makes the cutest things! Her blog, Salty Oat, offers tons of inspiring photos & crafty tips. The name was also the inspiration for my art piece; the salty oat at Quack's is her favorite cookie. I hope this sewn version (along with a chocolate chip, just for good measure) will bring her sweet memories of Austin!

For the past few months, we at The WonderCraft have been lucky enough to have Caitlin as our intern, and we sure will miss her! She's been a big help to us and it will be sad to not see her smiling face around the shop anymore. We'll still be carrying some of her adorable work at Stella's though, such as handmade napkins and cross-stitched buttons & wall hangings like little Clarence. That will be nice. Wishing you all the best in DC, Caitlin!

Iron-on Flocking Craft for Pixel Pop Event, Tonight!

Weeeeeeee! My WonderCraft partners & I have had so much fun getting ready for Pixel Pop, a comic book-themed art, fashion & music event! I made this painted cupcake hoodie, which also has a paint tube across the bottom pocket. "H" is my nickname, to distinguish me from my partner Beth A, aka "A."

Tonight at Pixel Pop we'll be making these iron-on flocking designs with party-goers & I think it's going to be so much fun! Guests can make a hoodie like ours, a t-shirt, a tote bag, a sew-on patch or pocket, or superhero-style wrist cuffs like Jen is sporting here. The cuffs are made from t-shirt scraps & let you play Wonder Woman or your comic hero of choice.

I love the giant scissors on Beth A's hoodie below - supercrafty!

So come on out to this fantastic event tonight at The Mohawk. There will be lots of fab local artists such as our pal, Anne Marie Beard, whipping up custom mini-wallets on the spot; a cool fashion show from Team Fabrication; great music; food and drinks & more! Along with our crafty make & take, we'll also have a pop-up shop with selected items from Stella's Boutique. And best of all, the door fee benefits Health Alliance for Austin Musicians!

I Heart Art: Paper Sculpture

I've been a big fan of Matthew Sporzynski's work for a while now, ever since I first noticed his paper sculptures in Real Simple magazine. He is amazingly talented, & I just love paper sculpture. When I was a high school art teacher a few years back, I even had some of his pages from Real Simple hanging on the walls of my classroom! So I was really excited to read about his new gig for Sherwin Williams on Craft. He's using paint chips for the constructions in their ads - brilliant!

Here are a few more of my faves from Sporzynski's gallery on RealSimple.com:

Everything is made of paper; even the "suds" on the floor! Amazing.

Have you seen any really creative ads lately? Please share!

Art Waiting to Happen

Oh, the (almost) blank canvas - sooooo much potential! It's an exciting part of the artistic process, I think. I like to let my ideas simmer, so sometimes I prep my canvas & then wait a bit before starting the main subject matter, as I've done with this garage sale frame here. I've painted it my fave shade of peacock blue & added a two-tone fabric background & some cute trim on the inner edge. Now it's just waiting for my next fabric collage to take shape! I'm thinking about creating a Charley Harper-esque bird, inspired by the recent Shout-out to Charley Harper on Craft.

Oh, and what's that dear little deer, you ask? Take a closer look.

It's a crazy-cute, lacquered deer plaque I found at a thrift store. Isn't it cool? I thought it was so cute, but just in need of a pop of color & some texture. I'm going to add some fabric collage on top of it, without covering up the deer. I'm imagining a kind of fabric flower & tree forest, with a tiny little bird or two. What do you think?

Appliqued Kitchen Towels - Christmas in May!

Yesterday we had a WonderCraft meeting & I finally gave my biz partners
their Christmas gifts! Geez. It's May.

 

I made a seahorse towel for Beth A, lover of island vacations & scuba-diving explorer of the sea.

For Kim, a true Parisienne at heart,
an Eiffel Tower in the clouds.

And I designed this Robot Chef character especially for Jen, lover of robots & all things sci-fi.

I had every intention of giving these handmade goodies out during the actual holidays, but... I didn't get them finished until February or so, then I wanted to wait until we were all together & our schedules were crazy (although there were several times we were all 4 together when I just forgot them). But anyhoo, I finally gifted them & they were a hit. Better late than never! : )

Stella Did Renegade

Here are pics from The WonderCraft booth at last weekend's utterly amazing Renegade Craft Fair (in Austin for the first time ever!). Everything about the show was craftacularly blissful.

Beth A got up on the roof during set-up to do some cleaning & decorating.

From the time the doors opened on Day 1 until they closed on Day 2, our interactive area was hoppin'!

We showed guests how to "Trick Out Some Timber" with a simple image transfer technique, & then use decoupage &/or picks from our stash of cool ribbon, trims, buttons & baubles to give it some unique flair.

Here comes the Minor Mishap Marching Band!

A steady stream of shoppers enjoyed browsing the handmade goods inside Stella's Boutique (at times it was shoulder-to-shoulder in there!), & we had our famous design-your-own pinback buttons station just outside the door.

A big "thank you" to everyone who came out! We had such a fabulous time spreading the crafty love & made lots of new friends. Can't wait for Renegade Austin 2011! {Oh yes, I think it's gonna happen!} : )

I Heart Art: Palette Knife Painting

oranges painted by Amanda Wood

This post was inspired by my friend Mandy, a fellow artist. We were both high school art teachers in the same school district just outside of Seattle (she still is). Lucky for me, she was in Austin for a couple of days & I got to hang out with her this morning.

lemons painted by Amanda Wood

We had so much fun! We grabbed some chai & breakfast pastries from Upper Crust, then had a lovely chat at The WonderCraft trailer, which is only 2 doors down. It was so great to show Mandy the creative stuff I've been doing & hear about her latest art inspirations, too!

Both of the fruit paintings above were done by Mandy. She's just recently taken a class in palette knife painting & has fallen in love with the technique. It's a really fun way to create paintings in the impasto style, in which the paint is applied very thickly to create three-dimensional effects.

Back in the days when I used to paint a lot, I enjoyed using thick, goopy paint in my paintings, too. It created this luscious texture that always reminded me of cake frosting. Seeing Mandy's latest paintings & hearing about how much she enjoyed that class got me feeling nostalgic for the paint tubes I rarely squeeze anymore and the easel that is leaning against my work room wall, all sad & neglected. Maybe I'll paint something this afternoon...

Here are some more palette knife paintings I love, found on Etsy (& available for purchase there, at quite reasonable prices). As you can see, the thickness of the paint varies widely from artist to artist...

Faces of the City LXXXII by Aja of Sagittarius Gallery

India by Aida Sabic

Out on Our Own by Donna Walker

Great Vienna XIX by Catalin

Echinacea Meadow by Beata Sasik

The smooshiest, goopiest paintings I could find are by the artist above, Beata Sasik. She really lays it on thick! Crazy, huh? I love it!

What do you think of impasto painting? Do you like the three-dimensional qualities of it, or do you prefer flatter, smoother paintings? Feel free to leave links to your favorite painters in the comments; I'd love to see 'em!

Pretty Pics: Golden Gait Mercantile

All of the above pics were taken at Golden Gait Mercantile in the exceedingly lovely Victorian village of Ferndale, CA. Ferndale was a stop on the second leg of our big Seattle to Austin road trip of August, 2008.

Yes, the trip was a while ago, but I'm still going through all the photos, editing them & archiving them in my Flickr Travels collection. Better late than never, right?

Pretty Pics: stacks and stacks of 45's

On a recent road trip with friends to Victoria (about 2.5 hours southeast of Austin), we stopped in to the Salvation Army. [editor's note: just accidentally typed "Salavation Army" - anyone need a quirky-clever name for a new bakery?] There was a table set up with stacks & stacks & stacks of dusty old 45's, all of which appeared to be Tejano music (maybe not Tejano, but they were all in Spanish).



It was beautiful, yet I found it a bit sad for some reason. Someone had spent a long time acquiring this collection of records, and why were they now giving them all away? It was like a visual declaration of someone's decades-long passion for music. The first thing I thought of was that this person had died, and so his or her family gave all of the albums to the S. A.


Maybe it was much less somber than that; maybe it was the collection of a former DJ who just transferred them all to digital files & no longer needs the vinyl because he doesn't do the wiggy-scratch anymore. yeah, that's what i'm going to choose to believe.