Indiana Black Walnut dining room table

(Above photo shows my two original directions for the table.)

 A Black Walnut tree grew on my grandparents' farm in Mishawaka, Indiana before I was born. Eventually it needed to come down and it was sawed into planks. My parents moved from Indiana to Georgia a few years later and brought some of the Walnut with them, and soon after I was born. Twenty seven years later, I wanted a prettier, sturdier dining table and I knew exactly what wood to use for the top. I made a few iterations in Google Sketchup (my favorite CAD program for the price!) and figured out how much Walnut I needed. My dad bundled and shipped the Walnut to me. I had a local woodworker glue up, clamp, and plane the table top for me. I ordered the aprons and legs from Tablelegs.com, which will custom make any turned leg imaginable. Then I assembled the base, slapped on some yellow paint, and attached the top.

(The above image shows that my final design turned out to be very accurate compared to the finished table.)

 Some friends of mine were skeptical of the farmhouse look of the table with my (knock-off) Eames wire chairs, since the two styles are so different. But, I designed the table as a compliment for the chairs. I love the chunky, turned leg with the clean eiffel tower base. I painted the legs and aprons the yellow color because I thought it brought the table out of traditional farmhouse territory to somewhere more funky and unexpected. We've been using the table for almost two months now, and I really love it.

Work from Squam Art Camp

In September, I attended Squam Art Camp near Manchester, New Hampshire. I took a "Simple Screenprinting" class, which was sort of a low-tech, kitchen table sort of screenprinting class, and a mixed media painting class. I didn't really go with the intention to learn new skills, since I've screenprinted and painted quite a bit. I mostly went because the idea of just working on art for days at a time sounded excellent, and to find some new inspiration. The first 6 photos are from Simple Screenprinting class, and the first 5 were all taken by my classmate Meegan Zimmerman. These are all designs I worked on in class.

As with any art/design project I work on, I am nothing if not prolific. I produced yards and yards of printed fabric in just a few hours. I'm now working on zippered pouches made from this fabric.

Below are photos from "C'mon, Let's Play", the mixed media painting class I took.

The above painting began with me spending 2 minutes with it, then it got passed around the class and everyone spent 2 minutes adding something to it. When it returned to me, I spent probably 45 minutes editing it. The process was pretty interesting, and the result is drastically different than my original intention.

And lastly, me with the 3 paintings I worked on.

Flash! Love! Roar! First Friday show

Here are some photos (just Iphone photos!) from my First Friday show at Terra Bella, which is up until October.

 

The wall color was great for making the blacks and whites of my prints pop.

Here is a poster that I made for the event that I hung up around town.

Spark!

Another new print! This one is called "Spark!". The above photo is my carved piece of linoleum.

The above print is my "test print" that I made to see how things were looking.

I printed a turquoise circle first, then printed my main print on top.. for some added "spark". I really like the big frame around the image. I will definitely have to do more frame prints in the future.

ROAR!

Roar! This is my newest linocut print. I really like how this turned out.

I've been trying to encorporate more "randomness" into my prints lately. My first few prints were totally random, because I was just figuring out how different carvings would actually print. I guess I was more concerned with testing things out than I was with the composition. Then, all I thought about was the composition/story the print was telling and I left like the prints were missing some "random". Anyway, here is a shot at random, or random animals at least.

I was going to carve a new piece of linoleum for the "roar!" area, but then realized that I could reuse my chevron pattern I had previously carved. I really like how it works with this.

Black and white ink on colored paper... I just can't help myself!

Hello friends, I have a whopping 3 new prints, and here's one of them! I had a printmaking productivity lull there for a while but it appears that I'm back to my prolific self.

I'm calling it "Trek".

According to popular opinion, gray and yellow are the best.

It's for sale on Etsy in yellow!

doe re mi, a paper mache' deer head

After admiring some of the lovely faux ceramic animal heads on the market lately (these are from Williams-Sonoma), I had a'hankerin' to make my own, but in a lighter and easier to assemble material- paper mache'!

My original plan was to paint my dear doe in gloss white to mimic the look of ceramic, but then I had the idea to use sheet music. A trip to the thrift store left me with a book on harmony (which perhaps I should have read before ripping to shreds) to cover my deer with.

And of course I must include a process shot, because what sort of DIYer would I be if I didn't?

She came a long way, huh?