Pumpernickle Bread-Or Food As Art!

Last Monday, my 17 year old son Matthew came home from school requesting a donation for a brunch that was to occur on Friday the 10th in his German class. He explained that he had signed up to bring in Pumpernickle Bread and he asked that we try to make some together. Well TWIST MY ARM!!!! He went right to the computer and came back with a recipe. Pumpernickle is not an easy bread to create successfully. Since it requires the use of heavy rye flour, it takes a long time to rise and often results in very heavy dense bread. Then there is the issue of the flavor. I love good pumpernickle but I have never found a recipe that would yield loaves with the right sour zippy yet sweet flavor that true pumpernickle should have. The recipe taht matthew had found had reall promise. It had cocoa powder in it that would give both color and good flavor, it had molasses again for color and sweetness, there was plenty of yeast- to get it to rise and, of course, there were caraway seeds- a pure necessity!!
Above you see the results and the texture was perfect and the taste was really authentic. He was so pleased !! We had a wonderful tiem making the bread together- lucky ME!!! His treacher was in awe of the fact that we had actually made the bread and he even brought home a few leftovers for us to nibble on. I will definately be making this recipe again and adding some raisins and walnuts to one of the loaves next time!

New Art

It has been brought to my attention that I have not posted in a bit! All of three days I think!! I ahve a piece to share that has been finished for quite awhile. I could not post it before as I had created it for apublication that had asked for submissions. The theme was Life Is A Beach. Apparently they got pictures of pieces form over 220 artists and they chose 12 pieces for publication. So I am not alone in being passed over! I can't get things chosen if I don't submit pieces and I will not get chosen every time- that is for sure.

So here is my piece, titled "Her Bliss". This is a mixed media collage that tells the story of my daughter's love of the beach. She is quite happy near any running water, even if it is only the hose, but she LOVES the ocean. I based this piece on three photographs that I took during one of our annual Cape Cod road trips. Blogger has insited three times on publishing this picture on it's side (so I said Uncle) sorry that you have to trun your head!! I wanted to share how I had used the photograph of the beach umbrellas to launch the work.
This is all done on an 11x17 canvas.


I took that Rt 6A image from another photograph, printed it out on regular paper and slapped it down.


I also added bits of newspaper articles and parts of images from local Cape Cod newspapers and a piece of a topographicval map of the Orleans Eastham area. If you click on the photos to enlarge you can pick out some of these details.


The two images of Becca were printed out on silk after a bit of editing and enhancing with various filters on Photoshop.

Here are some closeup details:


All of the holes in the shells are found holes- I found the shells that way- work created by various sea critters. I added bits of needlework and stitched the silk images to felt backing to give some depth to the machine stitichings. I wanted to frame the pictures just a bit and used the stitching to do that.


I am really quite happy with the results and I am thrilled to have created this piece even though it was not selected for publication. Now we have some more art for our own collection!






And now for something completely different!

I am continuing to take watercolor painting classes with my good friend Ariel Freeman. She shared a newly finished piece with us during our last class. She had recieved a commission to draw a Buffalo, in pastel, for a woman who had grown up in the midwest with Buffalo on her farm. I asked if I could take a picture of the piece and she allowed me to. Now I will share with you! Ariel is really getting lots of good recognition lately and she sold the piece that she had submitted to the Feast For the Eyes Show, on opening night!!



I just love this piece!! Isn't he just wonderful??? We got to see many buffalo up close and personal, when we lived in Oklahoma. The kids and I were even lucky enought to bottle feed a rejected calf!! I am very lucky to be able to take classes with such a talented and supportive artist!!!

I still have much to do along the organization of studio lines!! No I am not yet ready to show pictures of a stream lined and deduced stash art space- it has gone on far too long. I plan on diving in yet again this weekend. SIGH!!!

"Just Picked" The Rest of the Story!

You may remember my collage piece that I titled Fresh Picked and then submitted for jury for an art show titled Feast For the Eyes. the show opened last night and my piece was indeed hanging with all of the rest of the chosen works! WHOOOOO HOOOOO!! I was so excited!! It ws a beautiful Spring evening in Fredericksburg and so many arts patrons and enthusiasts were out and about visiting all of teh local galleries to take in all of the new shows. each First Friday of the month all of the glaleries in town are open late with their new offerings. It makes afor a truely fun and creative evening walking from place to place with lots of wonderful art to view and lots of like minded folks to view it with!!!! I was also thrilled to see lots of Obama t shirts and hats and several black shirts studded with rhinestones that spelled out Obama!! So cool to see such fabulous enthusiasm for the Arts and For our Firs Family!!!! Fredericksburg was the heart of the Confederacy at one time , don't forget!!!!Back to art!
Here is my piece hanging below a wonderful photographic piece by artist Milvi Gill. Her Easter Egg altered photo took Third Prize.

Just Picked was amidst fine company!!!

I was very pleased with the placement of the piece with the excellent lighting. It wass very easy to see all of the layers involved in the collage aspects of the piece. No one has purchased it yet- the show hangs for a month- if it is not bought I will be just as glad as I would really like to have the piece to start building my body of work and it would look great in our kitchen!!
Another aspect of this fun evening was the Edible Art part of the show. Several artists entered art made with food! It was all on display and the visitors picked the favorite and then all of the entries were eaten!!!

This piece titled the Garden of Eatin' was the crowd favorite. Everything is made form food and veggies and the stream is made by melting Jolly Rancher candy and shaping the melted goo when it was hot!!
I had a very hard time deciding which was my favorite! I had two. This piece was amazing to me as it was created by two boys both under age ten!!


I think taht next time , they might want to consider having age categories and give a specail prize for young artists under ten or twelve!!!
My other favorite definately spoke to my whimsical, irreverant side. I don't remember the name fot he piece and the picture is not that great (sorry) but it was wonderful! I am sure that you will agree!!



So if you are ever in the area of Fredericksburg near the First Friday of the month, be sure to linger longer to take in all of the fun and fabulous art of Art Walk On First Fridays!!! It is definately worth the trip!!

You Must watch this!!

Seeing this video made me so proud to be an American again and so very proud of our new First Lady!!!

Flowers and Fieldtrips

I have just finished these three cashmere posey pins. I will be putting them for sale in the gallery in Fredericksburg. they are made from thrift store found cashmere sweaters, with a touch of hand beading to glitz up the centers of each. I can see several of them pinned to a summer straw hat or a purse. I hope that they sell well for me- time will tell!


Last Friday Dh and I went on a fieldtrip to Richmond, VA. I have been wanting to check out a large Architectural Salvage store located in the industrial district, so off we went. We found the place and had fun poking about but they were very aware of what treasures they had and the prices were set accordingly!! It did not cost me anything to snap a few pictures!!

If we were looking for avintage entry way stained glass window, this was the place to shop!

If we were looking for old iron radiators we knew where to come!

If we were trying to match vintage light fixtures, this was the place!


Paint encrusted corbels and copper pieces were there as well.


Rusted stacks of iron hardware were piled in the yard.


I think that I will be able to make great use of these pictures when I get around to learning how to make transparencies in Photoshop and layer one over another.!!!


Here is the final shot of the finished Book cover collage that is being sent off to a friend as a birthday gift. It just wasn't finished till I added the beaded fringe!!

Everything benefits from a bit of bling!!! Don't you agree??

Brush Strokes, Mono Prints and Book Cover Collage!

I managed to squeeze in some time to play along with Michelle Ward and the Crusaders on the latest Street Team Crusade titled Brush Effects. I always learn so much from Michelle and the crusaders, I highly reccomend the monthly activities as inspiration flows like a continuous fountain and Michelle constantly reminds us to take some time to PLAY!!!

Our challenge was to work with brush strokes to add depth and layering to our artwork, be it Journal pages, paintings ,collage. Michelle demonstrated how to achieve very distinct brush strokes by using an in between step- create a monoprint of the strokes and then apply the monoprint to the art project. BRILLIANT!!!!!

I found that I did not have the recommended sheet of acetate to create the monoprint, so I ended up using a recycled zip lock bag. It was plastic, relatively easy to manipulate and I could see through it. It fit the criteria and it is what I had so .... IT Worked!!!



So I did my brush strokes, bubble wrap printing, whatever on my plastic sheet and then printed that onto my projects. I did have some problems with the paint. It dried way too fast- either I was being too timid with the paint or I needed to add a bit of water. I managed to work it out- but I need to check back with Michelle to see what she uses in terms of amounts and viscocity of paint.

So here are the pieces prior to mono printing with brush strokes.

This is a book cover collage that is meant to become a Birthday collage for a friend. I added the red along the edges using a red stamp pad directly on the edges of the piece.
Here is the piece after I stamped with Metallic purple brush stroke monoprints from my Zip lock bag.

You can seethe very distinct brush markings with no gloopy starting points- LOVE IT!!!
Here is a second piece that I was working on. Before Monoprinted additions:


And After Monoprinted bubble wrap additions.


You can see that I added turquoise bubble wrap stampins- via the zip lock bag and then metallic gold punchinella stampings!! Got to Love the Layers!

I am very happy with this piece and I am so grateful to Michelle and the Crusaders for providing the perfect inspiration at the perfect time!!! HCIT?!?!

Do You Color Outside The Lines????

Well, I certainly do, just in case it was not obvious!!
Here I tried something new with my Crayola's. ( I just happen to have a zip-loc bag full of crayon bits and pieces that I simply could not throw away , left over from the days of little kids.) I must give credit to my art gal pal, the wonderfully talented and generous, Michelle Bonds for putting this idea in my head. She presented the possibilities of working with old crayons, here on her blog.
The task before me was to create 9 ATC's for a Technique swap. I really wanted to use what I had and as I have been generating lots of interesting fabrics during my Gelatin Mono-printing demos, I grabbed a piece of not too terrific cloth, as a starting point. I have decided to call my Technique- Crayons Can Save ANYthing!!

I had printed on white muslin with lime green and then orange paint using a mesh bag for pattern and texture. Needless to say it was yucky!! So as my first step I stamped on the yuckiness with purple Lumiere metallic paint using the top of a deodorant dispenser- a lovely oval shape! Then I stamped some more with turquoise Lumiere paint and let it dry. Here come the Crayola's.!!! Using vibrant colors- red with Turquoise, bright yellow, lime green , bright orange- I filled in the ovals. It was much easier than I would have thought. The wax of the crayon colored and covered the fabric very smoothly with little pressure applied. All that was necessary was to hold the fabric taught and color away. It was very soothing and relaxing- almost took me back to kindergarten- Ok Not that Far!!!!!! Once the ovals were colored in , I placed the fabric between two sheets of newsprint and steamed out the wax with a hot iron. The color remained beautifully and there was very little stiffness.


At this point I was thinking that they looked like Gram Stained Bacterial cultures- but that is my science background. Matthew , my 17 year old, said that they looked like paramecium- guess he got the science from his Mum! :) But I was not finished yet and I was in the mood for some handwork. Out came the seed beads and embroidery floss and I added French Knots and beads in certain strategic spots. Then after choosing a backing and stitching in various methods around the edges, my Crayons Can Save ANYthing ATC's are complete and ready to fly off into the world.

Here is a picture of some of the backs. I used scraps of left over fabric/paper for interest and a bit more color!

I now look forward to getting Technique ATC's from the other swappers, and adding some new techniques for surface design to my repertoire. Always a good thing!!