Rosenow Flowers in Vectors

I honestly can't remember if I've posted this before, but I found it randomly combing through my files, and I wanted to share. The original photograph is from the lovely and amazing site of Rosenow Floral Design. Erin is based out of San Fransisco and does truly incredible work. When I saw this picture on Erin's site it just was so fun. This vector art is in Photoshop, which means I did this before I knew Illustrator. Oh...the possibilities of these flowers in Illustrator!

Love (draft 1)

Just something I was playing around with today. I might put a bird's nest on the upper left corner of the 'O.' Originally I was going to give the person more color but I like the graphic element of having him (eventually it will be a her) in black and white. Maybe the bird/bird nest will be black and white as well. I should also put in a little moss and maybe unify the colors. I'm not sure how I feel about the 'O' being a different color although I think it would be less interesting w/o the color change. Also, maybe this will be my Valentine's Day card this year. Hmmmm....

Mixed Media (as in a computer and paint)

I like Illustrator. I like Photoshop. I like paint and collage. I have no idea what to do to combine them. Here's attempt one. My response? A grand old, "eh." But like so many things one must start some place. I think I need a goal, like, "Do a poster on X, and use both real and computer art." Ha! If it were just that simple.

Card for Peter and Danielle

Spray Bottle Boxes

This concludes the Week of Gifts for Theater Productions. I leave you with the poster board squirt bottle. We had a crew of some 22 people and each of them we wanted to thank. Squirt bottles became a symbol for us due to the shirt design so I thought this was apt. The body is cut out of a single sheet of poster board, painted, folded up, filled with candy and then topped with the cap. We made sure to give everyone a feather duster as well. I think our crew was pleasantly surprised overall. I'm excited about this design b/c it involved a wee bit of engineering. Also, folded poster board opens up many a possibilities for future holiday-themed gifts.

Bottle Clothes

This isn't the best image but these are tiny tequila bottles with Wal Mart vests on them. (Side note: How I love my hot glue gun.) The play follows a woman as she works minimum wage jobs. One of the places she works is "MallMart." I made these for my castmates as part of the closing night gifts. So a great group of people!

Taking a break from crew gifts, this is a piece I made some time ago. I'm still figuring out if I even like it. I have such mixed feelings about polymer clay. I marvel at what people do with it (I'm looking at you Dayle Doroshow) but everything I do I feel looks odd. I wore it this week and liked it but the jury is still out.

Etched Glass

We were having trouble coming up with ideas for our running crew (the crew that is with you during the actual performances. They include the people running lights, sound, costumes, and the stage manager.) Someone suggested a shot glass for our stage manager, and I suddenly remembered that people etch glass. It's a terrible idea to try and learn a new skill on a strict time deadline but glass etching is really straight forward. The most important thing is to make sure your stencil is good and securely fastened to the glass surface. I used reusable letters and found that if I allowed them to fully dry between etchings, everything turned out well. I made 8 candle holders for our crew. Glass etching is an excellent idea for gifts that surround a very specific theme like a theater production. There will be more of this in my future.

Spray Bottle Magnets

There's a theme here.

These are magnets I made for my castmates of Nickel and Dimed.

I made over 20 of them, which isn't bad in that they are pretty straight forward. What takes the most time is cutting out the little pieces.

Meet Daily

I am going to be out of the office tomorrow. More posting on Monday. This weekend is the close of my play, and I am still trying to get through all the crew/cast gifts finished. Tomorrow I think I might try etching glass. Fingers crossed.

Reunion

This is just a random graphic I wanted to try this morning. I envision it as the invite to my 10 year. I want the theme to be "Come as you are."

Magnets

Tonight I am crafting until my fingers fall off. (But only in the non literal sense.) I'm bad at delegating and I've taken off more than I can chew, but I think if I work hard and stay focused I *might* (might?) be able to get through a huge set of crew gifts before Wednesday.

The image to the left is the design I did for our cast/crew t-shirts. Now I'm taking the design and making magnets. I printed a sheet of them and then color copied a bunch. Tonight I will be sticking them to magnet sheets with the help of matte medium. Hopefully the bubbles stay to a minimum and everything is easy. This is never how it works but one can hope, right?

Add to all of this that I'm house sitting. I keep realizing I've forgotten some necessary supply. Thankfully they have a good work table and two awesome dogs to keep me company.

Paper Engineering

This is the prototype for a gift for the crew of the show I'm working on. We had our opening weekend this past weekend. We have one more weekend and then life resumes to normal. (Whatever normal means.)

These will be made out of poster board and will be filled with candy. Also, hopefully they will have cuter designs although I'm not yet sure what that will be. We have to make 20 plus of them.

Andrew Pate

We have a program here on our local public broadcasting called Oregon Art Beat. My mom just passed along a segment on painter Andrew Pate. It's about a 7 minute clip and worth the watch. It's not about technique it's about hearing what's going on inside the mind of a painter. I like how he talks about it being difficult to interact with people about his work and how openings exhaust him.

Also it makes me itch to get out my watercolors and do some wet into wet. Beautiful.

Watch here.

John Salminen's Palette

John and Kathy Salminen left today, and we (including the cat Katie) were all sad to see them go. I'm running off to opening night of our play so I'll include the link to John's work tomorrow. You can find it off of our website ccpvideos.com or Google him. Pretty amazing stuff.

Here are some close ups of his palette after his workshop. I love abstract palettes.

(Update: This is the paint John used for his DVD workshop, "Urban Landscape in Watercolor.")

More Pattern Stamping

More pattern stamping. I want to try this next with paint so that the colors are stronger.

Nickel and Dimed Flier

Here's a flier I did for the play I'm in. Note the date. That's 2 days away (AAAAAAHHHH!) I had all these grand designs for crafty gifts for my castmates and, well, you know how it goes.

It's been fun to learn about the craft of acting through these last few months. Like painting or pottery it all takes work. I feel like you have to be half way in to realize how much work it'll take you to travel the distance and be at all good. Again, true with all the art forms.

Stencils and Stamps

I've always liked buying rubber stamps more than I like using rubber stamps. I see the designs in the store ("oh what a cute goldfish!") but when I get them home to my inks, I don't like the outcome ("How the heck am I going to use a goldfish?!") So I have all these stamps. And yes I kind of keep buying them. If you're like me, this technique is for you. Take all those stamps and use them not for the individual image but for the texture the image can make.

Decorative Ribbon Candies Tutorial