Fox Print

Polystyrene Put to Use

Ahhh. 

Art.

It's been a while since I got to creating something.

My eldest daughter and I have started experimenting with print-making, so I took advantage of this time, to get my own creative energy flowing.

We had been sketching on mural paper taped to the floor. 

I often leave this out for a few days and little sketches are added turning it into a large brainstorm. 

I was using shapes to make creatures, when I designed a Fox out of triangles. 

Later in the day, when we were testing out polystyrene for print-making, I etched the Fox.

We used an Olive sampler tub of paint from Home Depot, meant to test or touch up wall colour.
I placed the print in the center of large card stock, the results looking decent enough to frame.

Been a while, Honey Bunny

Honey Bunny

How long it's been!

Thankfully, a dear friend, met and made in Shanghai, put in a request for a painting.

I managed to pull off a piece before meeting the newest addition of their family this weekend in Michigan.

And she is a honey bunny!

The theme was left up to me, which sometimes proves more of a challenge than meeting a specific request.

However, I had completed a piece for her eldest daughter two years ago, so I made them suitable to be seen as a set; changing up the animals and slogans.

Big Sis's Piece

Wonderful weekend with an adorable family!

Chestnut & Biscuit's Name Canvas

 Little Monkey

Little Lion

Besides my Canadian customers most requested Jersey Canvases, Name Canvases are the next most popular request. Since all work is custom, including a child's name add's that extra touch of personalization.

With some gift-catching up to do, I prepped two small pieces for friends son's Biscuit & Chestnut; boys who are just as unique as their English monikers! Sticking to neutral tones allows the paintings to be hung in a variety of locations where they will easily blend in, while little pops of lavender are visible in the animals polka-dotted bowtie's.

A Little Dear

 A little deer...

...and a duck!

We have been lucky enough to make lifetime friends here in Shanghai.

Ones that we can continue to connect with when we are all back West!

We were lucky to connect recently to celebrate our matching "Bumps" and the second birthday of their daughter, who we still call 'Baby S'! So we brought along a custom canvas for the occasion.

Together Again!

Labour Of Love

24 hours of potatoes

I really do love my little sister.

She set me to the challenge of making 4 canvases for her firstborn's Eclectic Nursery.

Her and hubby decided on some song lyrics they love, picked out some bedding for colour inspiration and forwarded their favourite font.

Lettering is tricky and I debated taking the project to the printers.

Instead I cracked down, made potato stamps and mapped out how the letters would fit on each, different sized piece.

 Halved & Held in H20

The potatoes have to be cut carefully so there is as flat a surface as possible. 

Otherwise the paint will not adhere evenly.

They also have to be kept in water from going brown, or worse, shriveling and changing your font shape.

 Felt Stencil

Then I took a piece of heavy felt and cut it into a square, the maximum size I had planned to work with. 

To figure this out, I had to measure how many letters would fit into each line on each canvas. Urgh!

 Lettering

Fortunately, my sister chose a font that was all capital letters and fairly square.
Letters have to be cut backwards in order to be read correctly when stamped.

The first round of stamps turned out to be too large and would not fit onto ANY of the canvases. 

So I started again.  

Cutting each letter off the original stamps, we cooked them up for our daughter to have alphabet potatoes!

Water Tray

I laid the stamps out in alphabetical order on the lid of one of our totes, so they could sit in a layer of water.

 

Mapping & Stamping

Though I tried to cut the potatoes carefully, I still had to blot off the water and paint each stamp before applying it to the canvas, so each letter was completely covered with paint. This also prevented giant paint blobs smudging the font. When I applied the stamp to the canvas, I had to run my hand along the back to help the canvas and stamp make complete contact. 

There are still a number of "holes" in the font, but I think it gives it a little character.

Chocolate Brown

The white lettering went first and was fairly 'clean'.

The brown lettering required hand washing in between so I would not get paint all over the rest of the canvas.

The end result, I liked much better than the white, despite the extra time it took to wash up.

Still have one circular canvas to go, but that will be script free-hand.

Now, we just have to wait for my nephew to arrive!!

 He's Here!

April 21, 2013

Wyatt Dawson

 Lyrics Canvas

Look at the beautiful nursery his mom and dad made!!

Twist on the Classic Family Tree

Fingerprint Family

O's nursery had a twist on the classic Family Tree. We found a wedding idea to replace the typical guest book: a fingerprint tree. We took this idea and changed it to a Family Tree and tied it into the Woodlands theme.

Signed and sealed

We had family members place their fingerprint on the branches and sign their first and middle names.

Family members that have passed received a special symbol in their honour (Green Apple for Granny Smith, seagull for Grandpa Harold, bluebird for Uncle Warren...)

Big little signature's

 

Growing Girl

Hide & Peek Fox

Every year about the time our daughter is about to have a birthday, I tend to go craft crazy. The paintings that are half done and hanging around the house get pulled off the wall and finally tackled. It's actually nice to be able to work on pieces at my own leisure; they seem to turn out best when I have no deadline, wake in the middle of the night with Ah Ha! idea's and go running for my brushes.

Our woodlands nursery theme is my all-time favourite projects, but we ended up never using the nursery, so now our whole house looks like a childs room! The pieces are spread out bringing bursts of tangerine and sunshine yellow to all corners of our rented abode.

The idea for our height chart came before Olivia turned one and I was feeling a bit blue about the fact that we have no permanent place to call home; no doorways to mark up with her height progress, or tree in the backyard to grow along with her. In the end, I decided to stick with our woodlands theme and paint a tree that could travel along with us wherever we go.

The fox was once a raccoon, but he seemed kind of drab.

So last week before O's party, raccoon became a fox.

The owl, now up top was not there until last week either even though the painting has been hanging for a year now! Owl was inspiration from an aspiring artist here in Shanghai, whose work I saw last month. She paints with lovely strong outlines (something I love to do and my art teachers always scolded me for) blocks her colours like a stained-glass window. She goes by the name Keok Ke, but has no website for me to introduce to you. We purchased a mouse pad with Keok Ke's art on it and she got down to O's level and gifted her an artsy button for her coat.

O was very proud to stand against the piece for her yearly 'height mark' and compared it to last year (a whole 9 centimeters taller!) and the day she was born (37 centimeters taller!). And so, our Canadian woodlands follows us around the globe;)