Tuesday, March 29, 2016

The Table



          My husband is a woodworker, a refurbisher, a recycler/upcycler, a refinisher and all around creative guy.  As a result, people are always giving him things that he might be able to "do something with."

           A dear friend recently moved from Colorado to Maryland and took on the immense task of downsizing.  During the process, she gave my husband "The Table."  He planned to refinish it one day and possibly sell it, because we really didn't have room for it.  It was shuffled around the garage/workshop before eventually ending up in our storage unit.  Then came my epiphany.

           I am fortunate enough to have two creative spaces.  My basement is divided right down the middle with one side being the fabric, lace, buttons, ribbons, fiber and needlework space:





and the other being the mixed media (and all that entails) space:




           This space has always felt as if something was missing.  I realized that my favorite spaces that I would come across in magazines, blogs and Pinterest, had one thing in common, a fabulous wood work table.  The warmth of wood has always appealed to me and I could envision myself working at any one of these tables.  That's what my space was missing.  Warmth!  Hence, the epiphany.  MY table was sitting in a lonely storage unit just waiting to be brought back to life and what I loved most were the imperfections; the scars, dents and stains that make you realize that someone else used this table to create and daydream.  It's now in my space, as is, and I'm drawn to it every single day.  I like to believe I am bringing as much life to it as it's bringing to me.

I wish you all a warm, creative space,

Kathleen 

     
         






 

Sunday, February 7, 2016

A Creative Card Swap


A few weeks ago, my sister found a card swap online called "Inspirational Card Swap" hosted by Jessica Brogan.  The theme was "Nature" and we used just a standard card deck and created a piece of art on one side.  My absolute favorite thing to do is to create 'fabric paper' using a method described by Beryl Taylor in her book "Mixed Media Explorations." She is one of my favorite textile artists.





I started with a few basic supplies: muslin, diluted white glue and tissue paper.  I decided to use a patterned paper this time.  I then added paints and inks until I liked the overall design.  My finished piece was probably 18" by 30" give or take an inch or two.  When it was dry I turned it over and used soft gel medium to adhere the 52 cards.  I weighted them down and it does take some time to dry.  When dry I cut out the 52 cards and voila!





Fifty-two cards ready for mailing!

This was really fun to do and we came into it a little bit later than others which actually kept me motivated to finish.  Jessica then does all the sorting and mailing and we, the lucky recipients, receive 52 different pieces of art from the U.S. and abroad.  Hopefully this will encourage you to do something similar.  It's exciting to see how other artists interpret a theme.

Happy creating,

Kathleen