Displaying My Paper Sculpture

The snip that I cut for my  retiring high school art teacher is all boxed up and ready to ship off to my sister.  My hometown is two hours away in the best of traffic, and three plus on most days, so it will just be easier to let my sister take care of the set up for me.

The small 3D pieces that I make are easily set out flat.  Some folks use the loop of monofilament on the top and hang them.  At home, when there is little breeze around to disturb them, they pretty much stay in place.  However, having a large one on display in public presented problems.  I cut this piece thinking that it would sit on a pedestal, but I didn't consider the fact that the breeze from folks moving around would make the snip fall over......often.  Hanging it like a mobile from the wall was an option, but I don't know what kind of hanging system they use.

And on top of everything else, I had to think of a way to display the piece that would not be too much of a hassle for my sister to have to deal with.

Worrying about the display woke me up multiple nights this week.  I conjured up several solutions and finally came up with what I thought was a good solution. So, this afternoon I shopped for the things I needed to construct it.  On a fluke, I stopped by the thrift store to see if there was anything there that would work. 

I was happily surprised to find a heavy wire stand, made to hold this funky, bejeweled candle.  Though the size was right, I wasn't convinced that it was going to work, but for a buck and a half, I wouldn't be losing too much.

Well, it turned out that it works pretty well.  I asked Mark to chose which one he liked the best and he chose this one. The snip is suspended about an inch off the table surface.  It should provide enough stability to not fly off the pedestal.

Phyl asked how both my art teacher and I are both retiring the same year.  I took my first art class my junior year in high school and my teacher was only a couple of years out of college.  She's only 7 years older than me.  The woman is well preserved though. I am envious!

Tribute Piece - Scherenschnitte for my First Art Teacher

My first art teacher is retiring.  (So am I, in case you didn't know!)  My home town is having an art show in her honor.  Former students have been asked to submit work.  So I made a snip for her. 

It is the largest paper sculpture I have done and it took me probably 20 hours or so from start to finish.  (Though I have yet to figure out how to put it on display without having it fly away when a breeze hits it.)

The figures represent parts of her life.  There is one figure of her painting.  There is a clothesline with tee shirts hanging that represent her annual tee shirt design for the town festival.

There is an image of her walking her dog and on the opposite side is her with her family.  Up in the tree limbs are hidden art supplies.  Palettes, paint brushes, tubes of paint and buckets of paint are just a few of the items.

Hacked

Hey, folks.... It looks as if I have been spoofed or hacked.  Please don't open emails from me today or click on links.  Sorry.  Jan

Cave Egg

This is a gift for a lady, who I don't know, who is right now driving my truck. Mark went to a caving convention in another part of the state this weekend. Yesterday, he made a misstep in a cave, and dislocated his shoulder. He made it out of the cave and they drove him to the nearest ER to set it back in the socket. He is better today, but thought better of driving my truck home. So some local lady who was at the convention is driving my truck back here as we speak.
The egg features a caver crawling in a cave and has bats covering the whole rest of the egg.

Creativity: Beatrice Coron at TEDxCapeMay 2013

Acid Etched Brown Eggs

When dying eggs, I found that the normal store brand eggs didn't take dye well.  In my search for a solution, I read where organic eggs had not been treated with the same chemicals as the regular eggs.  The chemical treatments were what kept the dyes from taking properly.   As I went to buy the organic eggs I discovered that there was a national shortage of organic eggs.  Figures.

A friend of the family sells eggs produced on their farm, but it turned out that they only had brown eggs.  This led me to look into how to do pysanky with brown eggs.  One of the things I discovered was acid (vinegar) etching.  This weekend I finally had the time to try it.

Here is what I got:

You draw on the egg with wax, the same as you do a normal pysanka design.  Then, instead of dipping the egg in dye, you let it sit in the vinegar for a while.  The acid in the vinegar eats away the layers of the egg.  The longer it sits, the deeper into the shell you go, and it turns out that it gets whiter as you do deeper.

The last steps of the process involve varnishing the egg then emptying the yolk.  I am a little concerned about the strength of the shell as I puncture it.  We'll see how it goes.

Pysanka of the Week

This was my favorite egg created in Snippyville this weekend.

This pysanky season I decided to try and create eggs with more precision than I had done before. I bought a couple of beautiful pysanky books and tried to recreate some of the designs or at least parts of the designs.  I still do not have the precision of line that I would like, but I am advancing.  That is gratifying.

I am getting anxious to create more free flowing and original designs, but I still need practice in the precise designs.  Time to mix it up a bit.

Break for Scissors

I took a break from egg art today so I could cut this
card for a coworker.

Franz's Pysanka

Pysanky In a Bowl

There are lots of ways to display pysanky. This is one of my favorites. My grandmother gave me this bowl about 30 years ago. I don't use the bowl often so when I see it, I think of Grandma. I love seeing lots of my eggs together though. It is like having all my old friends around.