special boxes for secret stashes

tiny cube, closed, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

this beautiful little cube was constructed with book board and lovely printed paper. I made 4 box types total in a tiny boxes workshop this weekend: cigar, matchbox and a portfolio, as well as the cube with separating lid.

I love tiny boxes

Worked all day making tiny box forms with Jody Williams. What a fab geek out crafty lady kind of day.

Sample Book

I recently started a sample book if papers that I have made this year. Each signature in this accordion book holds a group of papers and a description page.

geranium petals in day lily paper

geranium petals in day lily paper, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

inclusions include hydrangea petals and geranium. The paper is made of day lily, cooked for 1.5 hours, cooled in pot for almost 3, rinsed and blender beaten. the vat had a mixture of cotton and daylily.

Cotton and Birchbark Paper ROCKS

Paper Parade, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

this amazing paper started with some ratty birchbark peeling off of the river birch in my front yard. Cooked on Saturday morning and plopped in a vat of cotton on Monday. Gorgeous.

look at the amazing illuminated papers we made tonight. I love to look in the window at the studio with these blocks of color and texture "blocking" the view.

I harvested day lily and cooked it this weekend. The result is the brown paper. The green paper on the right has poppy seed and dill to create the color shift and texture. 

Abaca and cotton papers

Abaca and cotton papers, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

wet papers on the window at MCBA. these were made in a class. some are double couched with abaca on cotton.

Fun to be in the paper studio remembering how to beat, clean, pull, clean. dry, and clean up again.

Excited to do some harvesting in my yard and elsewhere. Got some cooking to do this weekend.

Marbled Paper In the Teacher Show

I've decided on my entry for the 2nd Annual MPS Teacher Show. I'm putting in, 3 pieces of my marbled paper "drawings". I had something totally different in mind, brought my three choices to share with my work team and they decided with me that the marbling was the most dynamic. So, there you have it. Here is  one of the three pieces that I'll hang. This will be grouped with a git gel design with splatter and a more psychedelic piece with "leaf" design. It'll be interesting to see what people think about these crazy papers.

Art Classes Teach...

paper pulp painting

paper pulp painting design 1 wet, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

At a recent workshop, I was introduced to the technique of pulp painting on paper. Above, is one design that I captured wet and pressed. It has a very different look than applied collage. Very time consuming process and color palette is limited, not easily mixed. Enjoyable day, again, a Minnesota Center for Book Arts. And spent with Visual Art teacher colleagues who are so wonderfully eager to trade tips and secrets so all will succeed.

Below, is my last design, a bit more freeform, less connected to the stencil process.

Horseback Riding, Mountain Biking and Knitting

Ahh...the art of vacation.

Online Exhibit: Travel Patterns

This exhibit is found on flickr. Click here for the link.

 

two new pieces

these will be in my final exhibit for my Art Education in a Web World class.  both pieces stem from a class challenge to create imagery from nature and expand on what already exists, attracts and inspires.

Walnut dyed paper

These papers are made of abaca and cotton. They were sized and dyed with walnut ink. The paper was folded and dipped once or more for deeper color.

More surface design

Working with slip at the clay center this week.

whisk on calm

whisk on calm, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

this image uses a whisk to create shadow from a strong light from far away. The shadows are more intense and began to meld with the marbled design. I like that the whisk stayed in the image, I had a strong sense that the lines of marbling looked as if they had been whisked into their shapes.

collander shadow on paper

collander on marbled paper, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

One of my attempts at creating shadow or sillhouette on my papers. I'm working in photoshop to adjust levels, searching for more intense lighting to create more intense shadow and waiting for the sun to come around to work on capturing shadow in the garden.

follow the petals

line on a limb, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

this was one of my attempts at re-arranging nature. I created patterns with petals and ran them across limbs and rocks and in holes.

Amazing glazing

7 pots glazed today. None came out of the kiln. So much for peeking at the previous glaze results to inform today's work. A few attempts at surface design. Texture and glaze.

sea of cherries

sea of cherries, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

the cherries are here. we plan our vacation every year at a different time in July and every year the cherries are ripe either the day before we leave or two days prior to our return. my neighbors claimed to have picked some while we were gone, but that can't be true. I think I might have to make a "cherry" creation this summer in honor of the bumper crop and to look at well beyond the life of the tarts and jams.

stripey rock collage

stripey rock collage, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

I love aspens. I love the anthropomorphic qualities that they have from tip to toe. the striping on the rock that I collaged has become like clouds or fabric blowing through the images that I made tonight.

Photo collaging totally sucks me into a void of space and time and now I just need to get up and break myself away from the computer. I'm not sure I stay tuned in as I play with the imagery. Is that good or bad?

Organizing my Gatherings: refined set 1

refined set 1, a set on Flickr.

this is my attempt at organizing images that have influenced the formation of my focus and are continuing to alter that focus. this set is comprised of work that I made, gathered and that I'm rolling around in my head for ideas for making more art work. I left the images in a timeline with the red marbled paper at the earliest point and the yellow lichen on a rock as the latest.

I'm enjoying the opportunity to rearrange images and create these sets. I like the idea of using source images, sketches, final work all together in these image sets to compare and observe. I keep running into comments from classmates and instructors which is fun. I don't know if I am missing the setting for notifications or if one has to search or run across the comments. it is fun to have them jump out to me.

I am excited to get home tomorrow and do some work with my source images that have been gathered here. (in flickr) Not sure why 3 empty boxes appear above...is blogger telling me I needed 12 images?

Also, I'm copying and pasting text in flickr, blogger and blackboard discussion. I'm not sure where to type what?!

cactus and quartz

CO cactus, a photo by bbartteacher on Flickr.

testing my sharing from flickr to blogger. I believe I am now sharing my flickr images on my blog AND able to tweet an image.

I can't believe I'm...tweeting???

I have avoided twitter until this summer. I'm not sure I buy the necessity of it, but I did sign up. I made an account for a previous art ed class this summer. My problem with all of the digital social media is that it does require more time on the computer in front of a screen. As a teacher out of the classroom, I'm in front of a screen ALL day; as a parent of teens, I'm constantly asking for the people in my life to have LESS screen time and more IN PERSON time. So, reluctantly, I now am tweeting.

tweet me at: https://twitter.com/bbartteacher

Take a peek at Brenda's Flickr

I'm making a link here to my flickr account. It contains many of the images I've gathered and some that I've made.

Gathering Greetings from Colorful Colorado

No work and all play this week has made my gathering task over the top enjoyable. I went out for a 2 hour hike above the town of Buena Vista this morning. I climbed above the Arkansas River rapids onto an old railway and then up again to the rocky and steep hillside about BV.

 This is the scenic view from my side of the river over to Mount Yale, covered in heavy clouds this morning. The town of BV down below.

 My focus on environments and terrain has been changing and brewing in my head. I've started to really focus on finding patterns in nature that I'm drawn to. The patterning of lichen on rock has been catching my eye all week. I've taken way too many photos of different patterns and colored lichens. I love the way it resembles marbled paper. It also has a painterly quality that I'd like to mimic. I'm going to town today to find a watercolor set so I can paint in my sketchbook tonight.

My hike provided pine cone varieties a plenty. I found this lovely bush where the cones have an almost berry-like appearance. Once again, patterns in the cone itself, multiple cones and the kelly green needles that are short and growing out of the cones like a pineapple. I'm excited to post some drawings later today.