Happy holidays and rigid heddles

Visited my friend this past Sunday. We get together once a month to drink coffee, eat banana bread and knit. She wanted to learn rigid heddle weaving, so I let her borrow my RH loom last month and said if she needed any help, I'd work with her. Well, she did need help. When I got there, she had put the warp on the loom backwards (front of work tied to back apron  and vice versa). She was sort of almost in tears. I said no worries, we'd fix it. We took the warp off the loom and turned the loom around. So... in answer to a question on Facebook, on the rigid heddle page, this is how I tie little bundles to the back beam bar. We took small bundles of the warp, being careful to keep them the same length, tied them together, then lashed them to the back beam. These are thicker bundles than I would do, but that was her preference. Now, you can also tie them directly to the bars themselves, but I don't like the Ashford bars. They are rectangular, flat pieces of wood instead of dowel shape. I don't like this design at all, thus the bundles. Then of course she will sley the warp, and tie the ends to the front apron bar directly. 

This is an odd sort of way to warp I suppose, but I am used to warping an 8 shaft, 10 treadle monster of a Kessenich, so warping a RH is no where near as time consuming and tedious. Therefore, I don't mind taking extra time doing it. 

Another odd thing she did was this... instead of using brown wrapping paper or butcher paper, she used a bunch of cut up little cardboards. See how uneven this can be? You can use flat, narrow, even sticks, but these are totally uneven and cardboard has too much give. So we got rid of that hot mess too and luckily she had some brown paper on hand so we rolled the warp onto the back beam, tucking the brown paper in and around as we went. Hopefully, she will call me if she gets in a bind next time. 

And now... Happy Holidays from the kids of Messy Art! 

My apologies

I'm really sorry folks, but either I'm a dope (and how could that possibly be) or blogger messed up, but I see I've gotten many comments and didn't even know they were there.

So if I didn't respond, I'm sorry... I just didn't know it was there. DUH!! I'm working to see how this can be fixed in future.

Influenza fun!

Oh yeah, we're having some fun now.... groan. I've been sick since Saturday. So this is day 5 and I had to drag my diseased butt into work or I would need to get the dreaded "doctor's note". I was even willing to do that, but upon calling Dr. Ting, I was told he left town and they don't know when he's coming back. Nice. So needless to say, I've gotten nothing done really.

I cut the last warp off the inkle. I had experimented with this piece, using different yarns, and I wasn't happy with the combination or the colors. Yuk!

That was about all the energy I had. But on the bright side, I dug out a bunch of my old weaving magazines and got caught up on my reading.

The Thanksgiving break

...where I didn't do a whole heck of a lot. I was determined however to rest. I really felt I needed it.

Also, a bit of time was taken up with Christmas decorating. I LOVE Christmas and really love decorating my house. Above is my snowman collection...

and the Christmas village over the TV and the constant hum of football (just kidding Jer). The tree is up as well but I didn't take a picture yet.

This week in art class we looked at the works of the British sculptor, Henry Moore. I gave each child a palm size lump of air dry clay and, after showing them pictures of his work, asked them to make their own abstract sculptures. I told them that I didn't want to see any bunnies or kitties or anything like that and if I did I would smash them mercilessly! Bwa ha ha ha ha!!! I told the kids that I didn't want to be able to recognize their pieces at all. ABSTRACT!

Ok, I forgot my camera and had to use my iphone, which only seems to be able to upload pictures sideways. But they're abstract... does it really matter? Kidding. Anyway, I'm well aware of what terracotta looks like, and let me tell you, it's about as messy as it looks, but the store was out of white air dry clay.

Hmmmm.... this one is interesting.

Now I know this is not abstract, but it is gorgeous. The girl that made it is about 13 and a sort of  "at risk" kid .... she's at risk of choosing men poorly the rest of her life because the boys she hangs out with are total turds. Anyway, I praised her for this and told her she should keep up with clay and sculpting. You could tell by her reaction that she doesn't hear praise much and she was very proud of her piece. And it is experiences like this that remind me why I do what I do.

Thanksgiving kids art

In art class this week:

 Hand and foot turkeys
Materials: brown, red, orange, yellow and green construction paper
scissors
google eyes
stick glue
pencil

The kids first trace around their shoe on the brown paper and cut that out... that is the turkey body. Then they trace their hands on the red, yellow, orange and green paper. That will be the feathers. They attach the feather hands to the turkey's butt for his tail with the glue. We saved yellow and red scrap papers and cut out beaks, feet and wattles. Then stick on the google eyes and gobble gobble... Happy Thanksgiving!

And to usher in the holiday season...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OATi34PKNPw

Weddings and kid art

My daughter's wedding went wonderfully well. It was just beautiful and the food, music, company was all great. We had a blast and the mother of the bride had a sore foot for days from all the dancing.
Here they are smashing cake in each other's faces

It was all a lot of fun but it took me a week to recover. Not just me though, ... my mom and my younger daughter, the maid of honor, both said the same.

In Messy Art:
This week we made totem poles for Native American Month. The kids were yapping so much I'm surprised they got anything accomplished.

I didn't mention this, but in our last class I had a little girl; quiet, beautiful child, who was also the most uptight kid I have ever seen. I had to draw an example of a scribble for her and then she proceeded to painstakingly try to copy exactly my example of a scribble. I told her to relax, that she was thinking too much. We were listening to Stella by Starlight or Killer Joe or some other uber mellow jazz tune, and I told her to let the music guide her. So she relaxed a bit and started to draw. Just then "dad" burst in the room and started telling her how to draw... "No, no! Do it this way"... I kid you not. I had to tell dad to leave. Told him she had to do this on her own. So he sort of gave me stink eye and left. By the end of the class, she had drawn her scribble but instead of mixing her primary colors to make secondary colors, she started drawing hearts in her design. I just let her go with it. Sometimes you just have to be left alone to do your own thing...like the Isley Brothers say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nvudxqX_LA

Things back to normal

The wedding is over and the kids are off on their honeymoon to New Orleans. Remember these little guys? They were the cake toppers. The kid's wedding theme was natural Florida and I got this idea from a picture on Pinterest where someone had done this with deers. Very cute. So I thought well, why not white herons?

In art class this week:

We did abstract scribble painting. We took paper and drew a scribble design. Then using tempera paints, we painted in our drawings. Mostly I was trying to show the kids how to make secondary colors from primary colors and how to blend on the paper.

I like the chalkiness that tempera gives.

This is my favorite. We were coming to the end of our lesson and this girl was only half finished so she folded the page over, pressed the painted side against the other and got this result. Beautiful! Happy accidents!

Skulls

In Messy Art:

We did a Dia de los Muertos craft this week. We used Creatology sticky back foam sheets. You draw your picture out in pen. Then you go over it again and press hard with the pen to leave an indent in the foam.  

I then showed the kids how to apply the paint lightly (non-diluted tempera), holding the brush almost parallel to the foam sheet so as not to get too much paint in the groves of the drawing. This is good for teaching kids how to control the paint brush and about brush strokes.

Then we decorated with sequence, glitter, feathers and pompoms.

  

I like the one on the right... not sure what he's supposed to be but he's waving at you. 

straw art

In Messy Art this week we painted with straws

For some reason, this picture just doesn't want to be right side up

I really like the way this one came out. He painted it on top of paper towels and got some of the texture from the towels in there.

We just mixed some water with tempera paint, giving it the consistency of milk. Then you take a straw, dip it in the paint, and put your finger over the other end of the straw. This creates a pipette effect. Then you drop the paint collected in the straw tip onto the paper and blow. I love to watch the kids get so lost in the process. They really did with this one. We listened to Getz and Gilberto while we painted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2xOgQi_H_A

Kids art

We added a story to our Messy Art last night... Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag. Hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats! We made a cat tree

The cat tree consists of an oak branch found on the ground. I decorated it with some gold glitter. It is stuck in a bucket of sand and then decorated with cats.

Last Saturday night was Art Walk and Paint for Fun at Larry Joe Miller Studio One. 

Kathy and I with paint brush and glass of wine

Amy and Livi 

Painted buntings and inkles

On the inkle, I have abandoned the dancing warrior. The floats were horrendous long and I was having a hard time translating the Peruvian warp draft to the Bolivian. So I went back to a known Peruvian draft and modified it to the width that I already had on the loom. 

In the garden:

This morning we saw this colorful little fellow

You are probably saying ... uh what am I supposed to be looking at. Well, it's a painted bunting. See his little blue-green head and salmony-orange chest? No? Well, here...

Now do you see him? I have never in my 40+ years in South Florida ever seen a bird like this. But there he was, chowing down on the sorghum seeds out back. Which gave me the idea to maybe plant some wild bird seed out back. 

And speaking of chowing down... here's one of our baby caterpillars eating his little weight in milk weed. I guess the leaf under him is the Caterpillar Rest Room

Here's the results of all that yummy milkweed

Here's the sweet potato I planted just a short week and a half ago. So it's good to clean out the veggie draw in your fridge once in a while. 

Good weave reads

In the Loom Room:
Finally got the Kessenich threaded and now the tensioning begins. No matter how many times I do this, it's always a little stressful. Maybe that's not really the word... more like very focused. There, that sounds better.

Jerry helped me thread the heddles... him at the back of the loom. I'm one of those people that warp from front to back. You know, what's the diff? Whatever way you feel comfortable, I always say. If there are any new weavers out there, I'd like to recommend this book for warping:

It is marvelous and very easy to understand and follow. The title made me laugh though, the first time I read it. I immediately thought of the old Eric Carmen song, ... All Byyy Youuurself.... don't wanna warp.... Aaaalll By Youuurself, anymore

And speaking of good books, I just got this one through interlibrary loan. I have just started reading it and it's very interesting. Let you know how it turns out.

Check out these neat-o charts in the back of the book. 

Bought this glass frame at a yard sale for $ .50. It's a 12x12 and I'm going to clean it up and paint it and all that good stuff. I go to yard sales almost every Sat. and see so many unwanted little frames. Sad really. This little frame is calling for a mixed media piece. Something unfortunate happened to me a couple of months ago in the painting realm of my life and I sort of lost heart in it for a while. All I'll say is, always get your money up front when you sell a painting. Anyway, I'm feeling better and have an idea of what I want to do. Collage mixed media, I'm thinking.

Oh yeah... sing it Eric 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbn6o5tiPds