Back in high school I took part in fine art classes which allowed me to dabble in many things. Most of my created items and their photos were lost over the years but I have some of the objects still around me today.
The inspired by M.C. Escher spiral on the left extends from the canvas with the use of foam sheets while the landscape on the right was washed with a warm color before being painted with cool tones to help bring warmth into a cold scene. Both canvases were painted with acrylic paints.
With university, a job, and then kids I had less time, and later less room, to practice art. That said while pregnant with my first I pictured a canvas spread showcasing books we’d read together. With my second I decided to immortalize our favorite song A you’re adorable (originally heard through Sharon, Lois, & Bram) with a more educational canvas.
Both paintings were sketched out before I used acrylic mediums to form the characters, on the left, and main letters, on the right. I then used acrylic paints and, on the right painting, finished by using a black oil-based pen to add the lyrics to go with each letter.
Although I didn’t spend as much time doing art over those subsequent years I have found the odd time to justify using art in others way. Before kids this including crocheting and spending time on personalized special occasion cards. The crocheting continued with kids and then morphed into fabric arts once I bought myself a sewing machine. Art also came up in other simpler ways like when I made our ice packs a bit more special.
I haven’t crocheted in a while but I did make many items over the years including wire earrings for me and many amigurumi toys for the girls. You can check out my Ravelry page here if you want specific pattern or yarn links.I used art to create custom gifts when attending a friend’s wedding (left) or when making family cards one Christmas. When the girls wanted ice packs in bed to cool down I brought out paint pens to make them truly custom.
When I started sewing I found I loved combining art with my fabric creations whether it was for a quilt, quiet book, jewelry, clothing, or later face masks.
That said over the years I did find time to go back to the more traditional canvases so, pre-kids, I could play with mixed media (acrylic medium, shells, quinoa, and tea), highlight family events, customize signs for holidays, or just because.
I loved playing with quinoa and tea to make realistic images (far right) and used real shells I’d collected to justify using acrylic medium to create four matching tidal pool images (bottom right). As signs for the girls’ bedroom door I used tissue paper to decorate wooden letters and hot glued them to a black painted canvas. I also used hand and foot prints to commemorate holidays and remember how small my girls used to be. Some of which I blogged about which can be found here: Covid handprint memory, Easter footprints, Valentines loved hand and footprints, Halloween footprint ghosts, Christmas scene, and sibling memory sign.
I love how art is always there throughout the years waiting for me to pull it out to add to projects big or small. I wanted to put them all in one place and hadn’t realized just how much I had made until it was all here.
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