Wine and Art going together

Dress up your Wine Bottles

What can you do with Wine bottles.  I love to create new wicked labels for my old wine bottles, Make weird and fun bottle holders and wine toppers for them.  Here is a look as to what I love doing with wine bottles. 



 I have 20 Wine bottle holders ready to be painted.  Often I don't take pictures of my work pre-painted but I am going to try and do better.  I have designed and sewn up 20 holders and hand sewn applying different eerie eyes, human, reptile and cat eyes to the holders. 



The Zippers are Heavy duty zippers designed for Jeans.  As you can see the holders are sewn by machine and all the seams have been fortified with a top stitch (zig-zag)
After all the machine work is done the selected eyes are incapsiled in fabric forming the upper and lower lid.  Then the partial frame of the face is sculpted and applied to the holder.

     The final work begins.  I turn all the bottles inside out and gesso the inside of the holders allow them to dry, then sand them.  Turning them right side out the outside is gessoed, sanded painted with a base coat, sanded and dry brushed with about 3 to 4 different colors in paint.  In this sample you see the colors chosen are rust green, sand and gold.

Now every holder comes with a bottle sporting a nifty label.

The gesso and many layers of paint make it water resistant.  The holders look and feel like leather.

I also make cool bottle toppers sculpted with epoxy sculpt.  This is a hard drying epoxy which can withstand just about anything you can throw at it. Including throwing it.  It is a 2 part epoxy that must be mixed.  The epoxy gives you about 3 hours sculpting time before it is so hard you can no longer work the clay.  







This bottle sits in a candle holder with the corks slipped into the tapered candle holders that surrounds the wine bottle.

The shrunken heads are only one of many heads I make along with trolls, Krampus, and other things that go bump in the knight.  


I am thinking of doing some that are a bit more merry and a little less scary but I have to have the inspiration hit me first.  

Dr. Louis Crusius and Paper Arts

I didn't think I could do it but I won 

Best of Show at the Ohio State Fair -  Arts and Crafts - Paper Arts

 Okay Paper Arts are not my forte.  But with good teachers, proper instruction and a theme you can do pretty good.  I have long admired the Art work of Dr. Louis Crusius.  When I was told that Peggy and Patti were to teach a Paper Art project in my art group....well I was skeptical how I would do.  I decided right off I would do something Halloween!  With a theme now I had to gather the paper to go with it.  I immediately thought of Dr. Crusius and began gathering pictures of his work. 

 
Collecting items and paper that would go with the theme proved to be time consuming but fun. 

This is a Cardboard book that closes.Different size boxes were glued on both sides of the inter book box and the top and bottom boxes had to match up exactly when closed.  It was challenging to say the least.

As you can see that there is flat space filled with pictures and other spaces that fill the small boxes. 

I enjoyed the challenge and was able to make the box work.  I included a Skeleton bride, pictures of eerie children dressed in early 1900's costumes.






 

I made a accordion card file of his work.  Of course I would never sell this reproduction of someone elses work dead or alive, it is for my pleasure only

There is also a fold out  on the back of the box book that explains who Dr Louis Crusius was for those that have a curiosity for such knowledge

Creating Art from Muslin and Paint

Fabric Sculpting and Art Go Together

Alien KIng.  This was created around an antler

People ask me things like, “What are your dreams like?”  “How do you come up with this stuff?” Honestly, I don’t know.  Sometimes I make things from my sketches, but more times than not I just start.  I have taken many clay sculpting classes over the years. It helps me to think like a clay sculptress when I am working with fabric.  It also has taught me to love sculpting in clay as well. I hope you enjoy this display of work in fabric here today. 

Alien Queen - also created around a deer antler

When making a creature or person it takes a course of several weeks, sometimes months.  I make a body or head and just follow where it takes me.  Building on the base of the head or body on the fabric as you would with clay.  Instead of shaping the clay and applying it  I make my fabric shape and then apply it to the head or body.  I love working this way.  It is a technique I have used as a self taught method I call "Face and Body Building" .  Half way through I’m pretty sure what it is to become.  It is just more satisfying to me as an artist to allow the piece to inspire me and not for me to inspire the art.

Back side of the Alien Queen

Beyond the Stars

     I love to hand sewing which has allowed me to construct more complex figures.  Combine with machine sewing, sculpting, adding sculpted cloth shapes, needle art techniques and different skills to create my figures I’m able to create unique and interesting art. When I am finished the sculpting process I gesso the artwork, sand it and a base coat of paint, sand it again, paint it then detail the figure.  It is a lot of work but it looks like clay and feels like leather.  

    "Beyond the Stars" Was a evolving creation.  each prickly spine spike is wired, made and sewed on individually.  The head is as large as my hand and the entire piece is 4 foot tall.  even the telescope is made of fabric. 

    I like it when admires look at my work and ask if it is ceramic or clay? Neither, I say it is cloth and it will never break!

"Beyond the Stars"  close up of fabric sculpting work

 Weird is not the only thing I create.  I also like to have fun with my work. 

Play on words, like the Smoking Dragon or  Fun Figures with crazy creatures.

Smoking Dragon Muslin prior to painting

Smoking Dragon - after it was painted.

   I don't have many pictures if art work in the raw state, prior to the gesso, sanding and painting process.  I did find this picture of a Smoking Dragon that I took right before I painted it. 

  I almost didn't take a picture of it after it was painted,  I had just finished painting it before a art show, I thought I had priced it too high and it would never sell that weekend.  I was surprised it was going out the door a hour after the show opened. I ended up asking the patron if I could take a picture of it before she took it away.

The Traveler.

I hope you enjoy the items you see here today.  

"Very Merry" verses "Weird & Scary"

Poppet Ornaments

      Starting in 2003 through 2019 have promoted and ran Artistic Figures in Cloth and Clay art convention. The convention and working a full time job, family time and creating art work for several shows a year was a challenge.  I finally decided to give somethings up.  I wanted to start a new chapter in my life.  2020 it is about family, friends and creating art, in that order!  I am leaving my job in July and am no longer running the convention. Giving the accounting job up is not as hard as giving up running an artist convention was difficult..  I made so many friends. The diversity in arts and teachers was inspiring.

      Ending 2019 I did the ChristmasFair in Columbus, Ohio.   I have two favorite artistic mind stations. "Very Merry" verses "Weird & Scary".  Right in the middle of trying to get ready for ChristmasFair " my creative mind dove right into "Weird & Scary"  The worst time right, It was not time for Weird but I could not get it off my mind.  I was making these fun Poppet ornaments for the Christmas tree when the devilish side just got into me.

      I was compelled to stop and created some new designs.  Justifying the switch to being okay as I had to present a class to my Art club. This would give the members a choice, an adorable elf or a cute devil.  I did finish the Christmas Poppets - Angels, Cats and Elves.  I am now working on a theme for Halloween ornaments.  I will bring more of them to life as I get them done.

The Poppet ornaments are designed to resemble the  European Poppets (puppets) child toys.