Generally, after our Thanksgiving turkey is picked clean, it’s time for my middle child to get on our roof and string up our Christmas lights.  He gets this job because my husband doesn’t like heights and my son is 14 and fearless.  I intended to avoid Black Friday (don’t like shopping or crowds) but said son determined we needed some replacement bulbs for the lights.  He even counted the required bulbs–mostly green, just a couple red bulbs… (he’s planning to be an engineer, can you tell?).  After 3 stores and only one package of 4 green replacement bulbs, I was well on the way to a Scrooge attitude!  Great.

Our other Thanksgiving weekend tradition is to get our Christmas tree up and decorated.  I’m not one of those people who pick a theme and buy all matching color ornaments and ribbon and lights.  No, our tree has no theme, it’s an on-going record of our family.  And each year, as we decorate the tree, the kids reminisce over the ornaments, remembering who made which, who gave us each one, etc.  My collection includes a couple ornaments I made in kindergarten (I’m not admitting the year), one silver ball covered with a bit of lace from my mother’s wedding dress, crocheted snowflakes from a dear lady in my bible class, and the ceramic nativities the kids made in vacation bible school.  There are ornaments that came as a decoration on a gift, some from teachers, and projects the kids made in preschool or gradeschool.

Many of the ornaments on my tree are, of course, polymer clay.  Some were made by me, some by the kids.  Let me give you a brief tour of some favorites…

This is one of my oldest clay ornaments.  I started in polymer clay in 1990, and several of my very early ornaments are similar to this stocking.  There are cut out shapes of stockings, hats, cows and pigs (hubby and I were both farm kids).

Then I moved on to some figurines and for several years, I wrote names and messages on the figures.  I gave these to family as well as keeping some for our tree.  The skating bear is dated 1995.  He had cut up paperclips inserted on his shoes for the to skate blades.  The lamb is dated 1996.  I have characters with each of our names on them, and “baby’s first christmas” for each of the boys… Jackson was a reindeer in 1994, Nathan’s was a bear for 1996.  My daughter’s design was a baby tucked under a blanket on a star in 1999.

Now, we move on to some of the kids’ ornaments.  I was always annoyed by the wax-dipped cornstarch ornament the teachers at the preschool made.  (I didn’t trust that they wouldn’t rot in storage and I believed the kids could do better than just coloring the shapes the teacher cut out for them.)  So I volunteered to do projects with my kids’ classes.  For the ornament on the left, I first took the kids’ pictures, then had them cut out bells or trees and decorate them with glitter, punches, etc.  I can hardly believe that little boyin the picture is now 6’2″ and will graduate from high school this spring!  The ones on the right are a quilt-inspired cane from a series I did somewhere around the late 1990s.  The bear on the right Jackson made when I let him and a buddy make ornmaments for a play-day.

Here’s a quilt design from 1999.  I don’t recall whether the pattern in the center was supposed to be stars or leaves….?

A red-green icicle with glitter on the right was made by my daughter.

As a jewelry maker of course, I’ve always got lots of beads around.  So one year, I took heavy brass wire and added some wirework for loopy ornaments.  The snowflake design was white clay with colored liquid sculpey drizzled and dragged across the surface.  This was a project design I used with a service club that wanted a project for a group meeting.

Finally, the last image is one made in 2001.  For several years, I did an ornament design for the Dean of one of the colleges at the university here.  This was an order for about 100 matching ornements for gifts to his faculty and staff.  The requirement was that it should say “College of Education” and the year.  After showing him all sorts of design ideas, I was a bit chagrined when he decided it should be in canework.  Figuring out how large the cane had to be to start out was a challenge.  I used ecru and navy for the word canes.  I ended with enough of that cane to use in different designs over 3 years, just changing the date cane!  The mobius bead ornament on the right was sample from one of those years, sans the “college of education” portion.

Each year we put up our tree, I love to review our family history and I look forward with some reticence to the day when my kids leave home and have their own family christmas trees to decorate.  They will each have a good start on their own ornament collections and traditions.  I guess I will definitely continue making and collecting more so that I don’t have a bare tree when they do take their own!

Thanks for allowing me to share some memories!

Blessings of the season!

Patti

I’ve been spending a little time each day lately cleaning in my studio, tackling different counters, drawers, etc. until I get distracted or better, inspired.  There are two types of organization for creative people, I’ve heard… those who have a place for every supply and every tool and everything is put away.  And those who have to have things out in plain sight so they can see what they have.  I definitely lean to the latter.  Although I usually function pretty well in a state of “controlled chaos,” every once in a while, it’s good to put things away.

In my cleaning spree this week, I came across some pewter beads that I purchased at the Bead & Button show this year.  I’d laid them aside and forgot about them after the show.  The beads I’d purchased from a company called North Lake Trading Co, Avon Lake Ohio.

As an aside, alternative materials and less precious metals were big trends at the show this year.  With the price of silver and gold so high and volatile, pewter, copper, steel, and even aluminum findings were popular.  As were fibers, leather, and rubber cording of many types as substitutes for chain.

Anyway, these bead frames are quite delicate and inspired me to sort out some of my flower canes for a project.

To fill these frames, I reduced the canes to just slightly smaller than the space inside.  Cut about 1/8″ thick slices, then pressed from both sides to expand the slice to fill the frame and lock the clay over the inside rim just a bit.  Pierced before baking and then added some beads on the wire.  I think the results are sweet.  I have loads of old flower and geometric canes to use.  Bracelets would be fun as well.  Have fun!

Here’s a pic of the project I describe:

fall leaf pendant project

Blessings,
Patti

These should remind you of the feather beads in On Exhibit, from last year.  A face transfer is cheaper to use, however, than silver in the current market!!  (But I am thankful it has come down some in the past couple weeks.)

Have a great weekend!

Blessings,

Patti

Here’s one of the images you haven’t seen yet:

Whew!  Card sets to come.  But now, I’m gonna go paint something!

Blessings,

Patti

²² The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
²³ the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
²⁴ The LORD has done it this very day;
let us rejoice today and be glad.

Psalm 118:22-24

I did two faces today.  I have to say that the first one didn’t get finished and will never be shown anywhere.  I’m learning that if the sketch to begin isn’t accurate in the features, the painting won’t improve it.

My method in these is kind funny…. I do the face, then the background, then try to come up with a word and then a verse…  Did you know that in the NIV bible, there are over 500 references to “eyes”?  and I went through them all trying to pick a verse…  A lot of them are in Chronicles and Kings and refer to whether king so and so did evil or good in the eyes of the Lord.  LOL!

I’ve just finished reading Scott McElroy’s Finding Divine Inspiration.  It’s about artists partnering with the Holy Spirit.  A good book.  I went on a book binge with several similar titles last week.

I’m excited that I am going to be offering prints of these paintings for sale.  I’ve got a format down for notecards.  I’ve ordered some high quality paper for prints also.  I hope to get these things on etsy by the end of the week.  I’ll let you know!

Blessings,

Patti

I’m moving forward.  I’m starting to think in terms of this work as a product line.  I’m exploring printing options to make prints.  I’m printing some cards.  I’m becoming more willing to show these paintings to art people, not just my close friends and you cyber friends (and strangers, LOL).

My oldest even gave me the reverse of the lecture I gave him about copyright and images on the web… (I was impressing on him not to just use an image from google on his web pages, he was telling me to protect myself from others grabbing mine, thus I added a watermark to today’s painting.)

At the same time, I’ve got a couple actual jewelry ORDERS this week to fill, so I’ve had to clear the paint from the workspace and get out the jewelry tools!  Sheesh!  What’s that about?  Just Kidding!

As the kids say, Its all Good.

Blessings,

Patti

I’m so thrilled with the new art supplies I ordered.  This portrait was done with oil paint sticks.  These are solid sticks of oil color.  They are like the first crayons you give little kids, big and fat, with little control.  But they are creamy and yummy!  I finger painted with them!  (and a little detailing with a q-tip).  I love the ethereal quality of this face.  The rest is mixed media of acrylic, ink, etc.

And the great thing?  The instructions say that the oils dry in 24 hours, but I found that on paper, with no gesso or matte medium under it, the oils can be dried instantly with a heat gun.  So layering is easy and detailing with any other media is great.  When I tried them over canvas, it was not as easy to add other media on top as they retain a thickness and creamy texture that interfered with pens and pencils on top.

Next up:  the water-soluble crayons I also ordered.  If anyone needs a discount art supply site, try MisterArt.com!

Blessings,

Patti

The verse I used on this is James 4:8, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”  I thought I had lightened up the area for the text enough, but it doesn’t read very well.  Otherwise, I like it very much.

For the initial sketch, I worked from a photo of LeeAnn Rimes on her latest album.  see it here.  When I showed him, my son chuckled and said I did good.

Tomorrow is a day off of school, so we will have an extended weekend around here…

Blessings, Patti

I was trained in design, but in most all actual art media outside of fiber and fabric, I am self-taught.  This means I’ve learned on my own how to handle the tools and the media involved.  I have taken a few watercolor classes.  I had drawing in college.  But for the first few years in polymer, I worked on my own, with the help of magazines and the few books that were out there.  I’d been in polymer for seven years before I took a class (Arrowmont 1997!! yikes).  When I got into metal clay, I went off in my own direction almost immediately.  I only took one class for certification.

Anyway, in this new mixed media painting endeavor, I’m trying to be patient and remember that it simply takes repetition for the eye and the hand and the mind to develop a sympathy with a different set of tools and materials.  The youtube watching helps also to synthesize different techniques and painting styles to eliminate a dependence on one approach which can feel too much like copying.

I think today’s painting shows some of that expansion.  The figure is richer and deeper.  This one is still fairly flat compared to some of my practice faces.  But there’s a need for contrast with the busy background…

I’ve also been thinking about the messages I choose.  I’ve dived into the net and found lots of sites for Christian artists.  There seems to be some debate about defining and developing Christian themes in artwork without relying on the inclusion of scripture verses or traditional icons…   If you know my jewelry at all, you know that I rely on scripture verses as part of my purpose.  So, I’m a little offended that that’s considered cheating by some. It’s a debate that I’m continuing to process.  I’ll hope to have something to say about it in time…

Have a great weekend.

Blessings.

Patti