Basket with shells

Hallo,

   A couple weeks ago I went to New York City for a long weekend hanging out with my son who lives there. I took along a small project to work on at the airport and while flying - I like to keep my hands busy. I finished it off when I got home.

    I don't like how the shell in the side turned out - haven't really figured out a good way to add those in yet but using the shell slice as a starting point for the bottom works pretty good!!!

  It is a small basket about 6 or 7 inches across and about 4 inches high.

   All for today - Take Care.

                                                                                                                  Tera

 

Saturday's Daughter

Hallo,

    The fact of the matter is that some paintings take longer than others. This painting and I have had many 'discussions' over the last couple weeks, and I think we have finally come to an agreement.

I went back and forth many times with this painting and the pics I have are just a few of the stages she went through.

The first pic is about 2 or 3 renditions in and I knew at this point it was going to be a background for the vintage photo you will see in renditions further along. But the background was way too busy. I toned it down a bit using the same silver I was using in the background only thinned out to be more of a glaze. 

The second picture is after 2 or maybe 3 layers of the glaze silver.

  The third pic is after I added  the photo - this is a vintage photo from early 1900's that I scanned and edited and removed the background. I then printed it onto tissue paper and embedded her into the encaustic layers. I then started adding her dress - we have a 'Fabulous Forgeries' themed show  starting today in Pensacola at Artel Gallery and I was inspired a bit by Klimt from his gold period. (ok more than a bit :) And that pearl necklace well that was first of no less than 5 versions.....

  The fourth and fifth pics are  adding gold encaustic paint with a fine tip and my heated pen tool.

At this stage my weekend painting time was done - had to go back to work to support my hobbies. But I wanted to try a couple things to see where I wanted to take this painting next. I made color copies of the 5th photo onto cardstock and in the evening at home after work I tried a couple things - 4 or 5 things actually using colored pencils instead of paint.

   The silver rectangles in the background started out as a darker gold, then brighter gold, then a combinations of both golds but the golds just distracted from the dress and photo. I ended up doing the rectangles in silver - not so distracting but yet tying into the dress well. 

Then I tried a few things with her face - toyed with the idea of painting her in completely but I haven't ever done a portrait and I liked the way the black and white photo looked for the most part.  So I tried just doing hints of color and that looked great - at home, on cardstock, with colored pencils. In the studio - the encaustic was to heavy, so I tried pan pastels and all 3 renditions were too bright, too dark and #3 to bright and too dark.....and guess what, I didnt bring my colored pencils with me to the studio.

 I took off several layers of tissue paper/photo with encaustic and pan pastels and made a trip home to get my colored pencils. Lucky for me I have learned from experience to always print a couple extra of the photo I want to use. SOOOO I did the subtle color job that I did on the cartdstock with colored pencils onto my LAST tissue paper copy and again embedded her into the wax and finally got the look I wanted. I redid her pearl necklaces for the 4th time touched up the background and then did all the finicky clean up of smudges and tiny spots, painted her sides gold and got her ready for the show. 

  I hope she makes it into the show as this theme turned out to be very popular and there were a ton of entries. I also entered the Van Gogh themed painting that I did a couple months ago so we will see how they do.

   All for today - Take Care

        Tera

 

Basket/Wall hanging

Hallo,

   Finished off this latest basket/wall hanging - could be either. This piece measures about 16 inches round. and could set on a table for a flat container or hang on the wall for decoration.

   The white base is a commercially made wall hanging(found at a thrift store) and I used a paper coil and hemp twine to add to it. The beads were from an old necklace and are made of some kinda stone.

   Have a couple more of that white base to mess with and recently made some beads of my own to use so you will see a couple more of these eventually.

     All for now - Take Care

           Tera

 

Octo Condo

Hallo,

   I have been working on this one for awhile now - another big driftwood piece.

  The piece measures 28 inches long at its longest, 13.5 inches tall at its tallest and about 10 inches wide at the base with a couple more inches width in the branch sticking out.

  Everything is painted with encaustic - even the wood itself. I first painted the driftwood for 2 reasons - one it helps to preserve the wood and two it gives an encaustic wax base to help attach all the pieces to it. I painted all the pieces before attaching them to the driftwood using encaustic paint and I also used some pan pastels on the vase and the seaweed (green fronds).

   The vase was made with paper clay over a glass jar. I added green leaf designs with pan pastels and some gold decorations with a stencil, encasutic and then pan pastels.

   The Octopus was formed with paper covered wire and plaster cloth. 

   The red coral is sisal rope, frayed out and painted. 

   The green seaweed fronds are paper covered rope with the paper frayed out and painted.

   I have some more vases started for future pieces made with just plaster cloth and am thinking of trying to do some sea turtles. Now I just need to get to the beach and find me some good pieces of driftwood.

   All for now - Have a great weekend!!!

      Tera

 

 

Big heavy basket

Hallo,

   I finished off this basket last night to give to my daughter as a toy basket for the Grandbaby. It is about 12 inches tall and 25 inches round - not including the handles.

   I used a 3/4-inch cotton rope and used up a bunch of yarn that has been in my stash for quite awhile. 

  The base was done with maroon and then a row of brown and then I did 2 rows each of rainbow colors. ROYGBIV - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

  It is defiantly a sturdy and somewhat heavy basket. If I make any other this big it will be with papercore instead of the cotton rope core. The papercore is so much lighter!!!

    All for today - Have a Happy 4th of July weekend!!! Way too hot here in NW Florida to do anything outside for long and even then only the pool!!! I had a good block of time in my studio yesterday and today - another driftwood project in the works!!!

   Take Care

        Tera

 

Coiled basket with seashell

Hallo,

   Just popping in to show you this little basket I made last weekend. Total time to make was about 8 hours - most of it riding in the car back from visiting my Grandbaby(and Daughter and Son-in-law :)!!

   I used a basket 'start' that I bought from a shop on Etsy - the center part - leather with precut holes and design. 

  I used a paper coil and hemp twine. I got the slice of a seashell at a local shop.   

   I am still playing around with finding the best way to attach these seashell slices. Was kinda thinking of making it a handle of sorts but its more decorative than handle....

   All for today - Take Care

      Tera

 

Octopuses Garden

Hallo,

  A ton of pics today for a new project I just finished - its taken me several months all together and I really LOVE how it turned out.

   I have had this idea in my head for over 2 years, have had the driftwood piece for almost that long. 

  All the color you see is encaustic paint. I also put a thin layer of encaustic medium over the whole piece of driftwood before I started attaching all the coral and ocean plants - seals the wood and helps to attach all the doodads.

   The octopus, and the tube-shaped green coral were both made with paper clay. The red fan coral and the turquoise coral on the back were all made using a frayed-out sisal rope. All the others were made with rice paper.

   This was my second project of this type but definatly a whole lot bigger than the last one!!! I screwed the driftwood to the oval wood piece with 2 big screws. the bottle I attached with a bit of super glue and some wire. All the other pieces were 'glued' on with HD encaustic (high damar resin formula - a 1 to 1 ratio - which works great as a glue).

   Plans for this piece include 2 shows back to back - one out my local Arts and Design Society and then next month at Artel in Pensacola.

    I can really see this piece in a big entryway on a tall display table and a mirror behind it so you can see both sides at once - that would look really nice!!! Too bad I dont have the room in my house!!!

    All for today - Take Care

           Tera