Manuela and Her New Set of Small Coil/Fabric Baskets

As Manuela and I get ready for the up coming art shows and sales, she is working on a set of smaller coil baskets.  Have a look.

Corking with Beads -by Manuela

Once she has mastered one technique and pushed it where she wants it to go Manuela starts another.  Now she is corking to produce straps for her purses.  but, today, she added beads into the mix.

As you can see, she has one thread strung with many beads and as she corks she manoeuvres the beads to become embedded evenly throughout the cord.

And she can do this while watching tv. Me, I can hardly watch tv.

String the beads loosely onto the thread.

Determine the spacing of the beads as you cork.

Small Purses by Manuela

Once Manuela started she just kept on going with making purses.  Note all her embroidery embellishments  -not unlike all those she puts into her "fabric paintings".  Also note the use of the quilted yo-yos -the new technique and addition for her.  The purses are in the 10" x 8" range.

These would look great on the shoulders of our granddaughters.

A Cottage Cartoon (Marshtoon) for the April Newsletter

The deadline is fast approaching for the next cottage cartoon for the Lake Cecebe Waterways Association newsletter.  https://www.cecebewaterways.ca  

And so to work I went.  Ideas are my biggest issue and so I go through the cottage magazines about the house and websites about cottages.  Something often catches my curiosity and the idea is allowed to percolate awhile. Not too long -I have a deadline.

In the studio, and once I have an idea, I make some rough sketches of the main character.  I use the reference books I have to determine the shape of the animal and then work to create a cartoon character from the sketches.  I will do a number of these.

Then I add another character if necessary to complement the first and reinforce some attitude or look that I want.  Once the drawing is on its way  I use a table light to trace the drawing.  I check the line flow and spacing, keeping in mind the dialogue bubble that comes later.My lines must all connect and enclose the spaces because if I do not the fill option in my draw and paint program will run everywhere.

Now I scan the inked drawing and place it on my mac desktop for further work.

The scanned picture is opened in Seashore, a free, simple drawing program for the mac.  Once open, I fill with greys and adjust until the spaces in the cartoon create the harmony and emphasis I want.  Again I am aware that loose lines that look neat don't enclose the areas that I need to fill.  This creates a particular look to the cartoon.

This "greyed" picture is then saved to the desktop and given the next title in the sequence.  Sequencing an keeping the steps allow me to go back and redo at any step along the way.

I open Comiclife2, create a cartoon box and insert the jpeg marshtoon.  I often have to adjust the size of the cartoon and the box framing.  Finally, I add the text and dialogue bubble to complement the scene.  All is saved to the desktop as a jpeg in order to email it out.  I have exported to iPhoto from Comiclife2 and then put the photo of the cartoon onto the desktop.  Whatever gets my job done.

And, that's the procedure I use.  Works for me.

For the most part my marshtoons are meant to make the viewer muse and go hmmmm!

Manuela puts quilt YO-YOs to use

Now Manuela had a plethora of Yo-Yos and began to look at how to use them in her work. As usual she used some of her hand dyed fabric, beading, embroidery, corked threads, found objects and now yo-yos to embellish some of her works.

Book covers

Purses and bags

Now that she has this cache of yo-yos I am sure they will pop up in a variety of ways.

I still have't figured out how she can make them so quickly -and watch tv.

Mannie has Time on Her Hands and So Makes Quilting Yo-Yos

Mannie makes many of her art/isan items while watching tv.  Quilting Yo-Yos became the latest endeavour.
She started with a square-or a circle -or a hexagon piece of her own dyed material.  Then there is this folding, origami, quilting thing she does. And then, she adds a button, beads or thingamabob to the centre.

voila!!

Then she adds them to her other creations.  More later.

Building a Bench from a Bed

I had picked up an old headboard and footboard at a garage sale for $3.  Maybe I could use it at the cottage; maybe something else.  I had seen beds into  benches on Pinterst and had made plans to do the same  -some time in the future!

I had taken the old bed home, stored it in my workshop and didn't notice it until I was doing a major cleaning recently.  The need to do something with these random project pieces reared its head.

 Sometimes it doesn't pay to clean up because, as in my case, I found those project pieces I had intended do and now am doing -all in one time span it seems.

Here is what it looks like on the work table.  Notice I have not cleaned it as I have a lot of sanding to do.  I put wood filler everywhere as I like things without gaps and in cutting the footboard in half I had left gaps that could not thoroughly be sanded out at the time.

The 3/4 inch oak plywood seat was cut from a piece I had around the workshop.  I cut it and the front panel from the one piece.  Getting the seat panel to fit past the rounded arm rest was a little tricky but I managed.

Cutting the footboard into exact halves is something I need to be more careful about doing.  Where the sides fit onto the back there is a bead of wood that the side is attached to -it is not a flush area to adhere the arms to.  I will need to carve the back of the arm to fit onto the back headboard better.

Just a lot of sanding before painting.  As well as some carving to do.

Here is where everything is held togather.  The under frame was squared and pocket holes where use to adhere all the wood pieces including the seat.The back structure was screwed to the headboard from the back to make it hold fast to the headboard.  Making the seat as square as possible also helped to square off the bench.  It is really solid but not overly heavy.

I am deciding whether or not to use it in the house, up at the cottage or in the garden.
Next will be the sanding and painting.