Climbing Hydrangea

Have a Wonderful Day!

Love/Moss

Have a Wonderful Day!

The Weaving Project

Unity/Variety: The Weaving Project 

Bellevue Arts Museum 

Bellevue, Washington

June 29-September 22, 2013

UPDATE: Extended until December 1st

WOW!!! Extended again until February 2nd!!

 

It's coming together. 

 

Almost 700 CDs. Each a unique weaving by kids, family, and friends.

 I submitted a proposal for an installation to the Bellevue Arts Museum, and they said yes. Originally, I said we'd make 300. But we made more! My Art Club students, classrooms at my schools, high school students, and even a few members of my quilt group have made a weaving to add to the piece. The kids are so excited to have their work hanging in a museum, and so am I.

 I laid them out on the floor at the Happy Valley Grange, and then used clear twist ties to attach them in columns.

 They will be hung on the wall. On another wall, there will be about 70 more hung as a starter piece, where visitors to the museum can make a weaving to add to the installation. I'll be teaching a couple of workshops, and kids who come to the Kid's Fair in late July will make them too. (LOTS of kids! LOTS of WEAVING!)

About the piece:
Unity and Variety are two principles of composition in art, and they are two driving principles of community as well. The weavings are as individual as the people who made them, beautiful and unique. And I see their beauty increased when they are joined in the larger piece, part of the larger community. We may only see the colors and textures of the weavings, but the CDs contain data and information, much like the hidden, inner story of the individuals around us.

The CDs and yarn are thrifted materials (Value Village, others) that found new, upcycled life in our artwork.

I'll also have a smaller piece of 64 weavings that I made: "I Contain Multitudes".  My title is based on a quote from Walt Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes."

If you're in Bellevue, come see our work. Add your weaving too.

Straw Flowers

We needed another quick project to work on after we rubbed off the rubber cement from our water color abstracts. 

 

We used short lengths of straws to blow pools of watercolor. 

The next week, we looked at photos of flowers and then drew them with black pen over the watercolor splats.

I think some of them would make beautiful fabric!

 

These are small- only about 4inches x7 1/2 inches. Small scale is a good way to try out a technique, and in this case, a good way to avoid getting light-headed too! 

 

Make it a wonderful day!

Flowers From Elsa

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Water Color Abstracts

 

I love how these turned out! Seeing this reminded me of how useful and interesting a masking fluid can be when working with watercolors.

 For the first class of the unit, we tried out water color techniques on practice paper- wet on wet, dry brush, rubbing alcohol, and salt. While everyone worked on their practice paintings, I had two or three artists come to my table to use rubber cement on their good water color paper to create an active line. (I put the rubber cement in squeeze bottles so it would be easy to apply.)

Rubber cement works as a masking fluid, but it must be used carefully, with supervision and good ventilation. At two of my schools, I was able to set up a table right outside the classroom.

The next week, we painted right over the dried rubber cement, remembering to use the techniques learned the week before.

We took a few minutes the following week to rub the rubber cement off to reveal the line of white paper.

Make it a Wonderful Day!

Shading Doodles

 Here is a mini project we did after we finished our pencil sketches. Art Club artists drew a squiggle and then tried different shading techniques in the shapes. Blending, cross hatching, circles, and stippling create different textures too. The small scale meant they were completed quickly.


Make it a Wonderful Day!

Chartreuse is Green

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A Rose is a Rose

Have a Wonderful Day!