Entries Tagged as: recycle
Happy Holidays!
December 25th, 2009, Comments (13)
Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it and Happy Holidays to those who celebrate in other ways! I just got back from festivities with part of my family and tomorrow we'll resume with another part of the family. On my mini tree, I have an ornament that I made back in pre-school, a reindeer made from clothespins. And I had to snap a picture of it because it fits so well with the recycling theme (and I still adore it after all these years.)
As an interesting side note, my mom tells me that when I was very small, before I knew any bad words, I'd call people clothespins when I got angry with them. As in, "You clothespin!" Hehe. Not sure why clothespins were bad...maybe because they pinched?
I hope that your holidays continue to be magical. And if you're feeling a bit stressed out, you might try listening to the recording I've linked below. I have one Catholic and one Jewish parent, so I got a kick out of Tama Kieves' hilarious impression of her Jewish mother doing a stress relief meditation. And even if you don't have Jewish family, you'll probably get a giggle out of it too.
I shall return as soon as the festivities end to share the totally optional theme for January for the Creative Every Day Challenge. Exciting!!
Honoring the Dark, Welcoming the Light
December 21st, 2009, Comments (17)
A Happy Solstice to you! Today is our shortest day of the year. And even though we're just starting winter, I always feel a hit of joy knowing that the days are beginning to get longer now. This week I attended a sweet little Solstice celebration with some friends. Gem, who led the festivities, selected some beautiful pieces to read out loud and one to listen to. The one I got to read was so beautiful, I wanted to share a piece of it with you. It's by Chris Heeter:
What if darkness has nothing to do with fear?
Or sadness.
Or all the weight we attach to the night.
What if these dark days...
were seen as precious,
sacred even, for the very lack of light...
This really touched me. How lovely to think of this time as a sacred time to go within. I tend to think of the dark as a negative. Partly because the lack of sun has me dragging a bit and I long for the days when I can be outside more, feeling lighter and more energetic. I have to work a bit harder during this time of year to stay active and creative and joyful. But I like this idea of releasing the darkness from fear and sadness and seeing it as a special time. How can you honor the dark, the unknown, and the unseen in your life? What ideas might you want to let go of? What art could be created from it?
I often feel like art-making is a reaching into the unknown. I didn't know what was going to come of my experiments with art today. With the recycling theme in mind, I used a cardboard shape I found while unpacking some glass bowls this week. I had saved one, not knowing how I'd use it, but knowing it was a cool shape and I could do something with it. I ended up using a scrap piece of mat board, putting the cardboard shape on it, and then using a glimmer spray (which is very sparkly in person) that was given to me by my bff ages ago, to create a stencil.
I then played with ink to create the solstice image above, a winter scene with a woman carrying a lantern in the forest. Another little glimmer.
And speaking of glimmers, I had an incredible light added to my day by the arrival of this spectacular, art-filled thank you card created by a group of Art Every Day Month participants that were brought together by Laura Duldner. Thank you so much, Laura for organizing and creating this beautiful piece. And thank you to everyone who added their sweet words and art to it! It brought tears to my eyes and I'm so very grateful for all the kind words and seeing all the little pictures of people's work. So cool!!! I've propped it up on my easel for now and will be putting it up on the wall soon.
I wish you all a beautiful Solstice. May you find loads of glimmers in the darkness.
Recycled Ornaments
December 15th, 2009, Comments (6)
I've been enjoying what the Creative Every Day Challenge participants have been doing with the recycling theme! A few people have recycled items to make super cool Christmas ornaments. Seeing them reminded me of the clothes-pin reindeer I made as a kid (which I still own and love!) Those handmade ornaments are the best kind I think. 
Regina, at Creative Kismet, used old paper rolls, to make these adorable hand-painted ornaments. She's got a great tutorial on how to make them too!
And Melissa, at Dandelion seed on the updraft, embossed the lid from a tin of raisins to make a fabulous ornament. So creative!
Do you have any favorite ornaments made from recycled items?
Recycled Bits and Pieces in Art
December 11th, 2009, Comments (12)
A little sneak peek of something I've been working on for a book by arist, writer and teacher extraordinaire, Carmen Torbus, that I'll be featured in along with an amazing group of artists. So exciting! And it's so hard not to share the whole thing because I love the way it came together! But soon enough.
I share this little snippet because it fits well with the recycle theme going on this month for the Creative Every Day Challenge. In this piece and in a lot of my art, I recycle bits and pieces of paper to create the collage backgrounds for my paintings. In this small section, is a bit of to-do list stationery and some sheet music.
Where do these bits and pieces of paper come from? Well, like many creative folks, I'm a collector. I see interesting pieces of paper and I have trouble throwing them away. So, they get stored in boxes and eventually used in artwork. Sometimes I buy the scraps at fairs that sell antique goods in the summer, sometimes I trade with other artists for scraps (I loved doing this for a 6x6 collage project), and sometimes I find the bits myself in everything from my own scribbled notes, junk mail, and doodles on rice paper. My sister-in-law recently gave me a great stack of old blueprints that I adore using and my bff recently gifted me an old book of design forms. I like having the variety, so when I sit down to collage, I can pick through my supplies intuitively and use what works for me in the moment.
Sometimes it's easy to forget what we have, so it's good every so often to sort through it all. Whenever I do this, I'm always inspired by what I find and re-discover amongst the boxes. What are some of your favorite recycled goodies that you use in your artwork?
p.s. I was recently interviewed as part of the "Inspiring Women" series on the All Things Girl blog. All Things Girl is a fabulous zine filled with great articles, art, and interviews (and you can submit your artwork too!) that I highly recommend checking out!
Creative Recycling Linkage
December 9th, 2009, Comments (4)
After an intense period of creating over the weekend, I've been taking some time to rest with the hubster who has the week off. We've been enjoying a lot of relaxing, movie-watching, and reading. It's been lovely.
I'll share some of what I've been up to soon, but in the meantime, I've collected some super fun ways to play with the totally optional theme of recycle this month for the Creative Every Day Challenge:
* I love the look of this plastic bag wreath seen on Vickie Howell's blog. So cute with Target bags. I also loved Vickie's instructions for turning greeting cards into tree ornaments!
* Recyclart might be the coolest recycling find I've discovered this month. It chock full of amazingly creative artwork and diy projects that utilize recycling to make super cool things like this vintage button rings, inner tube vases, and beach plastic artwork.
* This cool project shows how to make a wastepaper basket out of...waste paper!
* Here's a great interview with artist William Wagenaar, owner of Reclaim2Fame and creator of super fun recylced, sculptural creations.
* I enjoyed this Craft Sanity podcast interview with author and clothing designer Cal Patch, someone who strives to make all her own clothing and do as much repurposing as possible.
Heading into a month of Recycling!
December 1st, 2009, Comments (19)
Hello, all! So we've moved into the month of December (ack, time flies!) and the (totally optional) theme for the Creative Every Day Challenge this month is Recycle (which you can read more about here.)
The first thing that came to mind when I thought of this month's theme was a project I did back in June, when I recycled and old, unused yoga mat and created stamps and stencils from it. You can read all about that here. I then used the stencil and stamp of a eucalyptus branch and a leaf stencil to make fun art like this:
Fun, eh? What sorts of unused things around your home could be recycle into fabulous art tools?
p.s. The details and sign up form for the 2010 Creative Every Day Challenge will be up either Wednesday or Thursday, hopefully tomorrow. Til then, toodaloo!
