Still Life Oil Paintings

These are some oil paintings I did for my painting class. They are a series of large oil painting still lives (except the last one which is a small, close up painting). The still life are a bunch of random items I found or bought (I talked about vintage shopping in my previous entry). I had six paintings altogether so these aren't all of them (some of the photos didn't turn out), but I thought I'd post anyway.









Which one is your favorite? Do you like to paint?

Vintage Shopping

I went vintage shopping about a month ago. I was looking for items to paint for my oil paintings for school. I thought I'd share some of the items I got. I just looked for quirky, interesting items to use as a still life. I tried to find interesting colors and patterns.



I got a bunch of animal themed items. I also got this interesting vintage clock (in the photo, it's broken because I dropped it).



I love this swan. I have it out in my room now.



I thought these birds were really pretty and they made a great subject to paint.

Let me know if you want to see the paintings I did of these. I also got some vintage clothes, but I didn't take photos of them. Do you ever go vintage shopping?

Site Specific Key Sculpture

I made this site specific key sculpture for one of my classes. The idea was to transform some site/environment. I made these wooden keys and spray painted them blue. I ended up hanging them up on trees outside my school.







I was thinking of the idea of privacy when I made it and how we have locks on everything in society. Have you done/seen any site specific artwork?

Treasuries

Here's some treasuries I've been featured in lately:









Do you look at treasures on Etsy?

Survey for Blog Viewers

I thought I'd try to get to know my blog readers/subscribers better. Feel free to fill out this survey. Just copy and paste the survey in to the comment box.

Name:
Age:
Location:
Do you have an Etsy?
Do you have a blog?
Have you bought things off Etsy before?
Favorite type of craft?
Favorite artist? (whatever this means to you - musician, painter, writer, etc.)
Last book you read:
Last movie you watched:
Favorite quote:
Anything else:

You can feel free to use this form on your blog too if you have one.

Asian Print Mini Journal and Gift Wrapping

I made another sale! I sold this journal:

Asian Print Mini Upcycled Journal



I'm really happy I've been making more sales lately. I mentioned I sold the Sunflower Collage Journal. The customer wanted it to be gift wrapped. I used a bright green wrapping paper to wrap it and a gold ribbon. I also wrapped the journal with tissue paper inside. Here's a photo of it:



I offer free gift wrapping with any purchase. I think it's fun to gift wrap items. I also like that my items could be gifts for someone else. Do you have any special techniques for wrapping gifts?

Journal Materials

Yesterday was my last day of this semester in college. I'm taking a summer class, but it's nice to have a break. I thought I'd share another project I did in one of my classes. I made a set of journals for one of sculpture classes which sort of relates to my Etsy shop. I experimented with putting different materials in a journal form.



In this journal, I used different colored papers. I might try this on a few books I sell. I've made books with different types of paper inside, but i haven't done one using different colors like this.



This one uses sand paper as the cover. I wanted to experiment using a rough material as a cover.



This one uses different pieces of fabric as pages/the cover. I used a sewing machine for this one instead of hand sewing which is different for me. It reminds me of a book I had as a kid that was made of all fabric pages.



This one uses tea bags as the material. I thought it'd be fun to use a material that you wouldn't normally think of being used as a journal form. I also love the idea of combining food with art.



This journal uses recycled newspaper for both the cover and pages.

I want to try more new bookbinding techniques in the future like trying new stitches, doing different shapes and using interesting materials or recycled items. Do you have any ideas for interesting journals I could make?

Inspiration

I thought I'd do a post of some updates I've done to my Tumblr. I post photographs of things that inspire me - artwork, paintings, crafts, food, etc.

















Have you seen any interesting photos or crafts lately?

Science of Sleep

For my photography class, I made a short film based on a scene from the movie The Science of Sleep. I did a sort of re-enactment of the last scene. In the scene, the couple in the film rides off on a stuffed animal horse that comes to life in a dream sequence. The scene is neat because there a lot of crafts in the film and they come to life in this scene. My mom made a stuffed horse based on the one in the movie and I used dolls to represent the characters. Here's some screen captures from it (sorry about the bad quality):







Here's a better photo of the horse with the dolls on it. The dolls are stuffed toys of Abraham Lincoln and his wife because that was all I had. I added strings to them to make them in to puppets for my film:



Science of Sleep has a lot of crafty items in their film and it was really interesting to kind of be able to recreate the scene myself. Here's some original items from the film:







If you haven't seen Science of Sleep, I definitely recommend it. The film plays a lot with reality and dreams and it's fun to see how they interpreted dreams in the film using crafts. Do you know any good films with crafts in it?

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is coming up. It is celebrated on Sunday, May 8th this year. A lot of my items in my shop would be great gifts. Here are a couple:

Gold and Green Flocked Photo Frame



Laundry List Sticky Note Pad



Blue and White Flower Greeting Card



Wavy Blueberry Pie Vintage Greeting Card



Tan Heart Ribbon Journal



Roses are Red Box



Do you have any special plans for Mother's Day?

Sunflower Journal and Treasuries

I sold this journal!

Sunflower Collage Journal



I was also featured in these treasuries recently:

Reading and Writing Treasury



Rainy Day Treasury



May Flowers Treasury



I only have two more weeks of school left. I'm excited for it to be summer. Even though I'll still be taking a class, it's a costume design class so it should be fun. Do you have any plans for this summer?