i made: a journal!

 i've always wanted to try bookbinding, but it always looked so intimidating as i tried to read two-dimensional words to describe the process of coptic binding... not what i ended up doing here.
my 5-week online art class with misty mawn starts tomorrow! and we're supposed to have a journal to work in. so, along with most of the other participants, i made one! she showed us this easy way to sew your pages directly into the cover to make a spine. i used watercolor paper so i can paint in it! the cover is a piece of a dropcloth i had used for practice when i was brainstorming for this project. it's part of the word "beauty". i love that it's abstract ;) and i can't wait to use it :) good thing class starts tomorrow!

 ps. i made this journal over the last two days. not today. i didn't do anything creative today. literally. i laid around on the couch and tried to get up - all. day. at least i'm finally blogging!
pps. i also forgot to journal one day this week. other than that, i have kept all my resolutions so far this year! uh, maybe i forgot to floss last night. ;) how are yours going?

i am my beloved's

i've been wanting to get a tattoo for over a year. one that says "i am my beloved's and he is mine" on my foot (picture it running in a v shape just inside where flip flops sit). jason and i keep going back and forth about its permanence. still haven't come to a decision, so today, i decided to paint some shoes with that same phrase (a lot less permanent ;). 

i started with these shoes that i never really wore, and painted all the fabric with fabric paint! after removing the ribbon, of course :) sanded them, and wrote the script with a sharpie :) they might get another makeover tomorrow... i can't tell until i see them in the daylight ;)

 the meaning behind this is twofold: it is sort of a "remembrance marker" for both my relationship with jason and with God. we came out of a super-hard time together with a renewed commitment to our relationship (and while some people might just renew their vows, i want a tattoo - more permanent ;) also, i had just come out of a really long time of darkness, doubt, and despair, and feel like this would be sort of an ebenezer to God's faithfulness... i once was lost, but now am found. 

so, we'll see about the tattoo, but for now i still have some memorial shoes :)

so my creative project the last 2 days (i said make art/be creative every day, not finish a project every day ;) has been turning this old t-shirt dress into a studio apron! inspired by watching misty mawn creating in her studio with an apron safely protecting her clothes underneath, i've always wanted to have one specifically to use in art-making... one that doesn't matter if it gets paint all over it because that's its intended use! so here's mine... and i took shots along the way to give you sort of a DIY... :)

i started with this dress, which had been cleaned out of my closet to get rid of. i love the crochet details of it, but it has just never fit right (that i can remember) so i was freeing my closet from it... but what a great way to salvage it! here's how:

step one, CUTTING: i first cut directly down the center of the back of the dress. then, i cut off the sleeves and continued the curve down and back until it was at the same height as the string that would tie around the waist. third, i trimmed a few inches off either edge, making it the right width to wrap around my hips. out of that excess, i cut two long strips for the top straps (mine were about 3 1/2" x 20").

step two, SEWING: i have told you before that i am no seamstress (and if you look close at these, it will prove it.) i left it as simple as possible... you don't get a lot of extra time when you have a two-year-old! first, i sewed the straps, turned them into long tubes, and turned right sides out. then, i made a seam along the unfinished edges. i (lucky for me :) had a tie already attached to this dress, so i just sewed it in a straight line to the edge. last, i sewed on the straps to the top, to be tied behind the neck.

then, my favorite part: i added a row of little rosettes along the seams of the ties

as you can see, i made good use of all the scraps that got cut off in the reconstruction process :)

here's a video tutorial on how i make the rosettes - i'm sure there are lots of ways, and i think i made this one up myself, so if you have more sophisticated knowledge, please ignore my movie ;)

and, voila! a finished apron, ready to get splattered with paint, dotted with beeswax, and otherwise stained with evidence of art-making! (this was the best shot i could get of me wearing it, home alone, and not knowing how to use the timer function on jason's Canon 50D - sorry!

yesterday's art: he has my eyes

this piece started out as a drawing of joey. i actually first tried to do a real-life drawing of him while he watched a movie, but he didn't even stay still enough THEN! this two-year-old is an active kid! ;) so i grabbed an old photo of him and drew from that. i hated it by the time i was done. i need lots of practice drawing faces (guess that's one thing that might come out of the class i'm starting with Misty Mawn next week! so excited!). even though the eyes turned out a little funky, i like them. i think i recognize a little bit of myself in them... i asked joey this morning "who is this?" and he said "it's joey!" so i guess he sees a little of himself in them, too ;) i sort gave the piece a "grid" feel by touching corners of these found objects - two of them were found on our family walk down the railroad tracks on new year's ( and the square nut was from my collection... :)

so far, so good with making art, journaling, and flossing every day - 

how are your resolutions going?

the beginning

before i posted this, i had exactly 67 posts on each of my blogs (which is a little crazy, considering that i started this one 2 1/2 years ago now, and the other one, only this summer!).  for a lot of reasons, my art (and therefore, this blog) has been somewhat neglected the last couple of months.

but, as you may have noticed, it's new year's. january first, 2012 (the last year of our world ;). and i have resolved, among other things, to make art every day. i know, you say, i've made that decision before, and even posted about it) twice: here and here. but it never lasted past a couple of weeks. first of all, i'm going into it with a healthier attitude this time. usually if i miss a day in something like that, it's all over. i've failed at my resolution. but now, for me, although i do plan to make art/do something creative every day, and post about my adventures in creativity, i know (now) that i'm human. and life happens. if i miss a day or week here or there, it's ok. but it has just proven (along with eating well, exercising, resting, etc, also on my list) to help me thrive and live and love better, so i'm choosing life here!

second of all, they say it takes 21 days to make (or break) a habit. in the past, i haven't even lasted that long... but this year, i only need to get through the first EIGHT DAYS on my own - then, i'll be forced to make art every day for 5 weeks, thanks to misty mawn and her open studio workshop jason bought me for christmas! :) i can't wait!!! and so, by the end of february, i will have made art every day for two months, and i'll be good to go! (right?? ;)

 

so, to start it off, i did a "blind contour drawing" (you draw just the outlines of something, looking only at the object/person and not at your paper) of jason, and then turned it into a mixed media piece by attaching it to a canvas board, painting, and texturing, attaching a piece of wood that we found on a family walk down the railroad tracks today, and journaling in some song lyrics... the beginning of a david crowder band song:

Lord, i'm tired
so tired of walking
and Lord, i'm so alone
and Lord, the dark
is creeping in
creeping up to swallow me
i think i'll stop
rest here awhile

like i said, it's the beginning of the song. it gets more hopeful as it goes along, and i trust that's how this story will go, too. 

i forgot!!!

in the craziness of the holiday blur, i totally forgot to tell anyone (not even my family!) that two of my pieces were featured in the Jan/Feb 2012 Cloth Paper Scissors, since i was a finalist in two categories of their "Artisan Search"! here's my two little bios, one for art journaling, and one for my jewelry, with one of my pieces next to each :)

also, i have the cutest two-year-old kid in the world.

o come, immanuel

christmas tree and chai smells intermingle
and both are bettered,
if that were even possible
pungent fresh spicy sweet aromas
greet me as i come to this moment
of longing,
heart wide open,
hoping for a supernatural acquaintance
with him for whom i yearn every moment.
him who i push away in my moments
of deepest need
for him.
my senses of smell and taste, exuberant
as i tell him how much i love
what he made for me!

now i gently cup a little dead leaf
in my touch-sensing palm.
all browns, and a crack breaks
through the leathery loveliness
of life-veins now dry.
its top gathered as a stage-curtain
waiting to reveal the glory
and beauty of One
so deeply desiring of my own affection.
my gaze turns from the created to the One.
i adore him.
o come.

that was a couple of days ago. today, our advent calendar revealed the task to "read a Christmas book." i immediately went searching through joey's too-full shelves in search of one. i know he must have one or two, at least, right? i found one little dumb foam book called jingle, jingle, and then read him the nativity chapter in a bible stories book, hoping to unpack more as i get through the "christmas boxes". but as i sensed God inviting me to rest and read the next chapter of Beautiful Outlaw, to become better-acquainted with this Jesus, i was not expecting a Christmas story! but, on the second page, here is what i read:

No king has ever taken such a humble path. His first step was a staggering descent - the Son of God becomes a son of man:
Let the same mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient. (Philippians 2:5-8 NRSV)
"Humbled himself?"
"Humility" hardly begins to describe the incarnation.
That's like saying it would be a humble thing for you to become a goldfish, to live in the bowl, in a fishy world, trying to help those other fishies become something more like Phoenixes. It boggles the mind. The eternal Son of God, "Light of very Light, Very God of Very God...one substance with the Father," spent nine months developing in Mary's uterus. Jesus passed through her birth canal. He had to learn to walk. The Word of God had to learn to talk. He who calls the stars by name had to learn the names of everything, just as you did. "This is a cup. Can you say cup? Cuuup."
Or did you think baby Jesus came into the world with the vocabulary of Dictionary.com?
For ages upon ages, his generous hand fed every creature on earth; now it is he that has to be fed, spoon-fed, drooling most of it down his chin like every other toddler. The Son of God doesn't even know how to tie his shoes. Someone had to teach him how to tie those sandals John the Baptist said none of us were worthy to untie. "The rabbit goes around the tree and down through the hole...like that. Now you try it." Picture seven-year-old Jesus in the shop out back, learning from Joseph how to use a hammer and a saw. He who hung galaxies in such perfect poise, like a hundred billion mobiles, has to be shown how to nail two boards together.
I take my shoes off. The humility of this is beyond words.
John Eldredge, Beautiful Outlaw

i hope this speaks of christmas to you as it did to me. o come let us adore him, emmanuel, God with us, Jesus.