April Art = Decorated folders

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April Art = MAIL ART

In April I finally caved and joined Swap-Bot... which resulted in a lot of ephemera in this household.....

April Art! Silk-screened T-shirts for the art night posse

I think my favorite way to print t-shirts for friends is by telling them to supply me with a t-shirt (whatever size/shape/color THEY like).  I enjoy the variety that results :)

Here was an attempt to weave together metal (copper wire) with glass in a "warm glass" kind of way. The stuff that looks like paper is a form of glass, too. Glass powder glued on to a particular kind of paper. It's... odd stuff. I'm not sure how to use it to get any result that I like just yet. I'm not sure where my pictures of these *after* fusing have disappeared to.... they weren't that impressive anyway.

The big glob on the right is intended to be sliced apart and rearranged, too.  Someday.

Some fused glass experiments from February

Those disks were an experiment with frozen frit.  I'm not done with them yet.  Now I'm going to slice them with a wet-saw and rearrange them and see what happens.

Silkscreening happened!

Silkscreening happened at my house in January!

gratuitous kitten shot

Kitten is not pleased that the string stopped moving.  what do you mean, you needed to take a picture.  Keep the string *moving*!

(He's still alive despite that horrible terrible awful cold that some of you heard about.  Been off of antibiotics for a week now, but is still having some weird breathing noises start up now and then... sigh....  but he IS full of spit and vinegar again, which is a relief!)

Nightlights - abstract stained glass for Jennifer

Lessons learned:

1. I forget how much i enjoy stained glass.  (You'd think I'd use this knowledge to get moving on those 4 window panels for my kitchen cabinets - eh?  nope.)
2. Better planning needed, next time, for where that nightlight bracket lands.  Aim for a seam next time.

Nightlights - fused owl for Lara

Another very late Xmas gift....

After the first firing, both nightlights were flat.  I kept the abstract one flat,
but wanted to try making the owl light curved.

Curved owl light in the dark.

Daytime view of the curved owl nightlight.

As always, more lessons learned:

1. First attempt at curving the panel was on a metal dish of unknown origin.... stainless steel is OK, but this one was not guaranteed steel.... and i ended up freaking myself out thinking of all the awful chemicals i might be unleashing on my house and stopped that firing.  Next time, no messing around like that.
2. If using a ceramic (unglazed) bowl.... ventilation is key.  (I broke that bowl in half -- but it worked anyway!!)
3. This nightlight, so far, seems to be of a more decent weight for the glue I used.  I've not heard of this one falling apart just yet....

Nightlights - abstract fused glass for Linz

A very late Xmas project ....

Two nightlights fit on one shelf for firing.  The one in the back is the one pictured here.

Here's what it looks like (kind of) when it's turned on

And here's what it looks like in broad daylight.

Lessons learned?

1. Three layers at this size (roughly 4" x 6")  is too heavy for the first kind of glue I used :/  Linz reports that it fell off of the nightlight bracket in less than a week :/
2. It's harder to take accurate "in the dark" pictures than I imagined
3. I still like fused glass with that extra layer of clear on the top (to make it look deep or submerged) a lot.

A coordinated art trade! And it happens every year. Neat-o!

I think I would like to go to this someday:
http://www.yumaartsymposium.memberlodge.org/

Trading my art for other folks' art can be way more fun than selling it :) and learning new techniques is always fun....AND both of these are a most excellent reason to visit a state I've never been to.

Pictures of recent projects are slowly migrating off of my camera and will be showing up here soonish.

Exciting things in my basement....

• Envirotex Lite (what's the difference between regular & lite? idk! but I'm going to find out!
• Roving + two felting needles....
• Many, many half-finished metal curiosities!
• A dozen+ landscape paintings that will get MONSTERS painted into them in January!
• A piano waiting to be disassembled into many different pieces for different uses.... i forsee a bench, some jewelry, and some sculptures coming out of this :D
• Generally organized chaos!!!!!

Fabric scraps

Here's to playing with fabric scraps and pretending I can quilt!

VFW Craft Fair

Last weekend I was in a spur-of-the moment (like they called around 7pm the night before) craft fair. I met some nice people, didn't sell much, and am super grateful to those friends who stopped by to hang out :)

2012 Dziesmu Svetki Milvokos

I guess I made enough stuff to fill a table :) I almost even look a little professional, if I do say so myself.

I was at Milwaukee's Latvian Song & Dance Festival from July 4 - 8. This year I was selling sandblasted glassware, jewelry, decorative switchplates, and lino printed cards. My mom had the table next to me, which was fun :) Now slowly moving onto (what feels like a monumental task) photographing jewelry and other items to post up for sale on Etsy.

Organized!

See? I can be an organized printmaker, if need be!

Proof of concept.... Wood + metal + Latvian designs

Here are two examples of the new idea made into actual physical real life objects....

Three newest pendants

Today's efforts after work yielded these! #27, #28, & #29 in a series of fifty. I am 58% finished with my bezel setting challenge! Yea!

Another proof

Here's another similar card with Latvian roots that's turning into some new cards:

New prints!

Here's a proof of a new Latvian card I'm working on --- I've cleaned it up a  bit since this picture was taken and have started printing cards for Dziesmu Svetki like this: