Frida Kahlo Inspired Self Portrait

Last week The Crafty Chica, Kathy Cano Murillo, challenged her blog readers to paint a Frida Kahlo inspired self portrait to honor the artist on her birthday.  I don't really paint, but I loved the idea.  So, I started with a box of chocolates, which I happily ate.  Then I sketched the portrait to go on the top of the box.  I cut it out, put it on, added colors, inks to age the box and attached some dangly earrings.

Note the uni brow and hint of moustache! Very Fridaesque.  I decided the piece would be about my inner artist, so the inside of the box would have to reflect the joy of creating art!  I love sculpting food!  Especially chocolate and coffee!  I used polymer clay to make the skeleton bits and chocolates.  Of course I had to add jewels and wire work.  Those things bring me joy, as well.

Then there's the Sacred Heart that my ribs can hardly contain.  That's all about my spiritual life.  You can't see it here, but I lined the inside of the box with a sparkly ribbon.  I do love to have sparkle and brilliant colors around me.  They feed my inner artist.

If you're not familiar with Frida's work, click here to see her work and read about her amazing life.

Daisy Makes the World a Prettier Place

Daisy is a fabulous subject. A lovely blank canvas When I read the Cloth Paper Scissors calendar challenge rules, Daisy sprang to mind with swirling, vivid colors around her. I thought about making her pretty, but it became about Daisy’s sense of presence and how that would interpret the theme.

I began by printing her on transfer paper and ironing the image onto an old white cotton pillow case. I took her to the fabric store and held her up to the brightest colors and amazing patterns. When we’d chosen our elements we went to work. I drew the scene on cardstock and cut it apart to use as a pattern. I fused the background fabrics to the work surface, added the throne and seated Daisy.
I gathered a selection of beads, wire, buttons, flowers and gems. I punched up Daisy’s image with colored pencils and gel pens, then burnished her with the back of a spoon to polish her coat a bit. The throne is topped with a ceramic button (I made a pile of them last year to make earrings; ceramic is my first love). The bones I made using polymer clay. Finally, I added the title by printing it on inkjet printable shrink plastic. Even with all the beading, wire wrapping and gem gluing, it’s Daisy that makes it pretty.

Zombie Coffee Magnets

So, I've been channeling some self indulgent art.  I love coffee and coffee cups, they are everywhere in my art!  I bent  a round cookie cutter into a coffee cup shape and cut a bunch from a slab of earthenware clay.

The tiny angular scraps that cutting the cup shapes left made me think of contorted faces, so I went with it!

I applied them to the coffee cups, fired them, decorated them with wax resist (crayons and black acrylic paint) and glued magnets on the back.  I love those little guys!

As I was catching up on blogs this morning I found a site called BRAINS vs COFFEE!  So funny!

Here's the link

BRAINS vs COFFEE

Go see it!  You'll love it, too!

Sweetie

This is Sweetie.  She's a handmade clay whistle.

Each whistle begins as a hollow ball.  To achieve that, you make two pinch pots and join them together.  After the ball dries a bit so that it's firm, but malleable, it can be shaped and smoothed.  I like to carve, stamp and finish the details before cutting the hole and adding the whistle mouth piece.

When the piece is dry it can be fired.  The firing turns the clay to the consistency of an unglazed flower pot.  Now, I don't mind glazing, but I prefer the process of wax resist.  I color on the pottery with crayons, then I paint the whole thing with brown or black acrylic paint.  The paint wipes off the waxy part and soaks in the parts that aren't waxy.  Next they heat in the oven to evaporate the wax (the color remains).  I finish the piece with colored pencil highlights.

Each whistle has a unique sound and different breath pressure to achieve the sound.  If I were an expert whistle carver, I'd be able to control those things, but it is what it is.   Sweetie's whistle sounds like a Ghost Train when blown at a medium pressure.

The Tootsie Roll Cheesburger

This is a Tootsie Roll sculpture

The little fruit flavored ones come in lemon, cherry, orange, lime and vanilla.  And, of course, there's the traditional chocolate.  They require some kneading before they can be mixed for color blending and shaping. For the bun I mixed one vanilla, two lemon and half of a chocolate. The meat is one cherry and half of a chocolate.  Those are the only color blended pieces, the rest are the candy's true colors.

You can do a lot with them, but they tend to stay soft, so smaller sculptures are best. 

And what could be better than sharing  cheeseburger and fries with a friend!

Click here to see My grandneice's Tootsie Roll cheesburger

Fairies in My Garden

Caught these guys this morning.

They were all kinds of pesky!  Now I'm afraid to let them out!

Colorful,Over-the-Top, Scary Door

Here's my C4 Challenge for April.  Click here to read what the challenge was.

It's clay decorated with crayon (wax resist) and burnt umber acrylic.T he door knob is a crystal bead from my grandmother's broken jewelry collection sitting on a spacer bead backed by a rectangle of copper sheeting.