Birthday Card

This was my first foray into the awesomeness that is Happy Tape. There will be more. Maybe next year's valentine's day cards will be Happy Tape accessorized.

This was a birthday card (a hoooorrrribly late birthday card) for my friend whose name starts with N.

Happy Birthday Monster

I made this card for a friend who was thinking about boycotting her own birthday. I share the birthday mixed feelings thing (ooooh and I'm coming up on one!) so I felt that it was appropriate that the little monster was eating the Happy Birthday.

I was really excited about this design and may use it again. Little birthday monsters may be going out to all my friends for years.

Clumsy- Illustration Friday

I searched Clumsy and found a story of an art student who tripped and ripped a Picasso. You can't help but have empathy for her. Originally I was going to try and have people with Picasso-like bodies walking around on a street with a stray ear here, stray nose there, but I don't really have those drawing skills. So I started constructing bodies out of rectangles. After I placed the five people, I began laying body components elsewhere. The idea is that any of those other pieces could be rectangle people. We are all very fragile whether we are made of right edges or not.

I'd like to try this at home with acrylic paint and fabric.

Have I mentioned that I need to learn to draw? Yeeah.

Hello Again

Part of what I love about blogs is that they can act as a file cabinet for what we've felt and what we've done over a given time. Despite my best efforts, my daily life isn't as organized as it could be. I have notebooks sprawled with notes, thumbnail sketches and lists. Inevitably, one notebook is replaced by another and soon I have a whole bookshelf full of notebooks of half formed ideas. (Sound familiar?) A blog, on the other hand, keeps it organized. Thank you Google.

So in my own personal efforts to grow as an artist (little 'a' for the time being :), I'm going to try and become more focused in my CraftAmor postings. I'm not saying the posts will be any more focused, but I'm going to try and consciously use this space to log where I am and what I'm doing be it wedding crafts, work progress, weekly challenges (I hope everyone at InspireMeThursday is OK) or fighting the long fight of learning to draw. So yes. Hello again.

Man Painting

This is a painting (drawing?) I did recently. I played around with background options in Photoshop. Another thing I'd like to try is to take stamps and stamp in words in a horizontal line behind him. Fill almost the entire space with this stamped word.

Show Cards

Show Cards

These are the cards I made for my castmates for my most recent show. The show was called "String of Pearls," and I thought about trying to use pearls as a motif but couldn't quite figure out something I liked. Instead I went with chairs. We each brought a different chair and spent the entire show on stage (even when we weren't playing any characters.)

Painting/Collage Practice

Here's something I worked on last night. I like it better on the computer than I do in real life. In real life it seems too light. I need to make it darker but I'm not exactly sure how.

I think in my next try on a different piece I will try to create texture all across the page (face and background) and then mask out the background or then hit it with more colors and texture. On this piece I painted in the face and then worked up the background texture but after adding to the background, the face looked completely mismatched with the activity going on behind it.

Also, I should say that it was great being able to use things I'd learned in Ann Baldwin's 2nd DVD ("Text and Texture in Mixed Media Collage") in a way that wasn't necessarily exactly what she was teaching. That's a big step for me. Also made me realize I need to review the individual techniques in that b/c I was having trouble remembering the different times Ann suggests using molding paste vs heavy gel gloss.

Candy Boxes (by me)

I made these as thank yous for a show I was recently in. It was called "String of Pearls" so each candy box is wearing felt pearls. These were part of crew gifts. I also made photo magnets, which are sooooo easy. I love love love them. We had someone take a picture of us holding large paper "pearls" I made out of construction paper. I had to fiddle with it a bit in Photoshop but I made the "Thank you so much!" legible and then just printed them out on somewhat expensive magnet paper. It's truly magical.

These would be great for a Mother's day, Father's day, or even Valentine's Day for friends. Dress them up as favors at a bridal shower? All sorts of box possibilities!

Gift Wrapping

This will probably be the only Christmas present I give or wrap this year. (We aren't doing Christmas presents in our family this year. Instead we are baking together. I love it!)

However, I'm trying to get better at wrapping. I'm kind of awful at it. Here's this year's attempt. This was for our always super fun Christmas office dinner.

It turned out better than usual. The one change I'd make is wrap the yarn so that the knot is at the bottom.

Illustration Friday: Crunchy

This still isn't exactly the feel I had in my brain but I decided to get it up anyway.

Here are the changes I'd like to make:

The colors aren't quite right. She disappears into the background.

Maybe the problem is that I'm using too similar of values for the whole thing.

Second problem is scale. Something just feels off about it at this point. Like she needs to be smaller but clearer. Is that possible?

(This is for Illustration Friday)

Card 2

Thanksgiving

Little Thanksgiving gifts for my castmates.

Birthday card

Chinese Batik pattern

I go in and out of being interested in patterns. OK, scratch that. I am ALWAYS interested in patterns. I go in and out of feeling some sort of desire to play around with designing them. I kind of think it's a holiday thing. Something about the holidays makes me want to hang out in Illustrator and Photoshop.

(click image for bigger version)

Pattern Play

I made this in photoshop with one of the free dover clips (sign up here) of the week and a free download from Mae.

Owls

These are part of our Save the Dates...which I still haven't finished but seriously just need one more weekend. I just need to actually do it!

This is a shot of all the owls before I paired them with their background paper. You can see that I still have their feet to cut out. Cutging out their feet probably took twice as long as the rest of the owl in entirety.

Welcome Home Sign

It's hard to read in this picture, but this was the sign I had hanging in my cousin's apt for when she and her (new) husband got home from their honeymoon.

This was another really simple project. All you need is paper, yarn (or string whatever), scissors, tape and a pen.

Welcome Home Boxes

My fiance and I recently house sat for my cousin while she was on her honeymoon. When she left her apartment, she had all these vases filled with flowers from the wedding. By the time she got back they would have all been really quite dead so we cleaned them. It seemed sad to just have these empty vases welcoming them home, so I filled the largest one with little welcome home messages. I used the left over paper from the banner I made. It wasn't fancy, but it was fun, and most importantly she loved it.

I should try and remember to do things like this more often. Random acts of crafts...or something like that. :)

Woot

Take THAT Halloween!

*cough*

Just say'n.

Also:

What's inside: here.

How I made the outside: here.

Work mast

I made this mast for the this week's newsletter. (I do a weekly newsletter for work.) I'm not sure we're going to get to use it due to some last minute changes so here it is! (Click to see the larger version :)

Peacock Feathers

I'm just playing around with a few if the tiger's eye ColorBox ink pads and fun pens from PaperSource. This could be neat on basic brown paper as a pattern for wrapping paper. Also maybe one as a card.

Cartoon Art Museum

I'm currently in SanFran and visited the Cartoon Art Museum. I have to admit, besides seeing Sargent's and members of the Bay Area Figurative's work, this has been my favorite douse of art. It also is a great example of the merits of line. So on the left is my CAM-inspired drawing. There will hopefully be more.

Save the Dates

These are our ultra home made Save the Dates. I was up until almost 2 working on them. Tonight will be another late night but we'll have basically all the inside-envelope work finished. Woohoo!

Happy Happy Happy

I've been having a hard time with birthday cards of late. Normally birthdays are where I excel. Weddings are the killer for me. I am yet (barring one) to make a wedding card I really really like. It's like the pressure gets to me or something.

I need to go back through my blog and find examples of cards that I've done and really liked and use those ideas for birthdays and weddings. I have to remind myself it's not terrible to use a design I've already used. It sounds silly to say out loud but there you have it :)

Oh happy day (indeed!)

This was from a friend's birthday months ago. Sometimes I get sizing wrong. Cupcake should have been larger. It's a fine example of how idea and execution are two different things.

Aug 14th Stamp

This is for our Save the Dates. Stamp made from rubber 3M adhesive stuck on a large tile. I made this for a test but then we really liked it. Our Save the Dates aren't very formal. OK actually nothing at our wedding is going to be very formal.

Thank You Card

These are the thank you cards I made for the surprise engagement party. (I'm engaged!)

I took an already really pretty card (I will find the name of these later in that I can't remember) and I cut a circle at one side. On the inside, I glued down a pretty piece of paper that coordinated with the outside (like the purple polkadots.)

Then I glued in a string. On the string I had another tiny piece of card stock that read "thank you."

One note: Originally I was going to use a punch to make a super clean circle but I ended up having to cut them by hand because the punches only go in so far. Also, next time instead of thread to hold the "thank you."

Oh hello there

So I have been absent for awhile, but while away my hands have been busy. Crafts await!

Yay Card

Happy Birthday Laurel!

This is my sister-in-law's birthday card. It's suppose to be a chihuahua. Her and my brother have two chihuahuas and they really do think of them as children.

Collage Journal 10

Collage Journal 9

Collage Journal 8

Collage Journal 7

Collage Journal 6

Collage Journal Day 5.1

Right side of page.

Collage Journal 5

Left side of page.

Collage Journal Day 4

I normally don't try anything with figures from magazines. I don't do very good with them aaand I should learn that's no reason not to try. So try I shall.

Collage Journal Day 3

This has nothing to do with this page but last night my family and I went up to Portland to join with the rest of our immediate family to celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday. My brother organized this whole night where we started for drinks at the top of a hotel bar, then proceeded on a tour of Portland's waterfront in bicycle cabs, had dinner at a fantastic Italian restaurant in our own room and finished with Voodoo doughnuts. My brother can work a night. It was all a surprise to my SIL and family is a great way to spend a night.

So happy birthday Laurel! May your 34th year be the sweetest yet. 

Collage Journal Day 2

I've been working on cleaning, really cleaning, my studio lately. The result is random Tupperware containers filled with tiny scraps. One is full of wisps of tissue paper. Another brims with card stock scraps. I hate throwing this stuff out because it just seems there must be *something* I can do with it.

And wallah. The collage journal has made these Tupperware containers gold minds. Today's entry, for example, consists mostly of those tiny pieces. It's also good practice for my brain to turn of its analytical harpy and just be able to grab paste grab paste my way through a night.

Collage Journal Day 1

The past few months I've been working on arts and crafts but have kept my head down in terms of this blog.

I've started working in a collage book, and I'm going to try and post an image a day from this visual journal.

The visual journal is a board book, and I'm spending a small amount of time in my studio every night working with paint and collage. I'm not trying to create anything grand here. I'm just trying to keep my hands in the materials and form the discipline of doing a little something every day.

Happy Birthday Amy

Birthday card. I was happy to get in a few papers I made myself including the back ground paper and then a few of the strips as well.

Happy 60th Dad!

Note to self: Do NOT touch the ink to see if it's dry. It is not dry. It will smudge. It won't smudge once it is dry so just leave it alone!

Inspired by Patty Van Dorin's Journal Pages in Vol 1 of Somerset Apprentice.

Decorative Envelopes Tutorial

Update

I've been quiet here for awhile, which is ironic because it is in large part because I've been working on more art.

This might change ever so slightly in that my work plate just filled up to the top. (But all in a really good way :)

I'm currently editing two DVDs. The first one is during work hours and it's Donna Zagotta's. (If you'd like to be notified when either are about to be released feel free to email me at kelly[at]ccpvideos.com)

Donna works in watercolor and gauche and has a pretty incredible process. Also, there is something soothing about watching someone paint with gauche.

The second artist I'm editing is Robert Dancik. In his DVD Robert works on a material he helped produce called Faux Bone. I'm working on Robert's in my free time and it will be ready to the public in less than three months.

I'm very excited about both of these projects and it's neat to be editing two incredibly different art forms in tandem.