Lace Picture Frames

Next week is the opening of the Senior Art Exhibition at my college.  Every student majoring in Art or Art Education prepares a body of work to display in a large gallery show at the end of their senior year.  For my pieces in the senior show I chose five digital photographs and a large necklace created specifically for the show.  To spice up the presentation of my photography, I spray painted the frames using lace as a stencil.  I got the idea from Lee Meredith's do stuff! blog and the photo frames she painted for her wedding.

I started with a colorful base coat to coordinate with the photo going into the frame.  For example, my photos with blue sky belong in the frames painted with a blue base coat.  After the colored base coat dried, I sprayed some thrift store lace with spray adhesive.  Then I pressed the lace onto the frames and painted them black.  After peeling off the lace, a colorful lace pattern was left on a mostly black frame.

 These are a few preview shots of my portion of the gallery show.  Myself and the rest of the seniors have been in and out of the gallery this week hanging paintings and photographs.  More photos to come next week after the opening reception!

Painting Alla Prima

For the first week of my Intermediate Painting class, we worked from a still life to create an "alla prima" painting. Alla Prima is an Italian term meaning an initial painting, or painting done all at once. Essentially, the painting is worked all in one sitting, or in multiple sittings while the paint is still wet. The method of painting encourages a looser, more expressive style with an emphasis on interesting brushwork. The alternative method of painting includes multiple layers of paint and thin glazes to enhance colors and add details.The still life I chose to work from included a piece of red cloth, an animal skull, and purple foliage. The painting was completed in roughly 2-3 hours and not reworked. I consider this painting to be more of a "sketch" using paint as opposed to a piece I would hang on the wall. It had also been nearly a year since my last painting class, so this exercise was great for reaquainting myself with the materials.
Stay tuned for more posts about painting. Photos of my first painted self portrait are coming soon!

Making Valentines

Last week my college closed down for a rare snowday. Instead of braving the ice and snow, I stayed inside all day and made valentines! I bought a small pad of Martha Stewart valentine's themed paper, and a heart border punch at Pat Catan's a couple weeks ago and decided to put them to good use.
The border punch is neat because it lets you punch a section of border, line up the already punched section, and continue the border along an entire sheet of paper. I also decided to make some envelopes using brown craft paper that had been stuffed in boxes as packing material.