Monday, March 31, 2008

March - Heralding Spring

I created this encaustic in January but today the sun is almost out so I will post this now hoping that spring is finally here. It's sure been a dreary month in Portland.

Herald Spring, then Summer



Herald Spring? It has snowed each of the last three days! But the sun is out today and I have a bit of spring fever. Tomorrow is April already. Love seeing all of your artworks, dear Project Eight ladies!

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Mad as a March Hare!

I went with the first title and I got kind of carried away and made two. I love the idea of the whole mad thing and trying to evoke it in a piece of art. So here are two hares and each one has a mad streak.



They are both made of ceramic and then glazed with iron oxide on the bodies and a little black, pink and clear where needed and fired in my ceramic kiln. I used small brass pins to tack some quilted red satin to a piece of wood, a "padded room" for my characters.



I made the conventional one first and then I made the second one using a knife to cut small slabs off my block of clay and attached them as is to give it a particularly crazy look. You all can vote and help me decide which one to send in when the time comes.

I feel kind of mad myself right now as I contemplate packing for Artfest. I know it will get done. I just have to start.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Hi all, I have been immersed in travel, recovering from travel and prepping for classes and building up stock and alas, the project- eight pieces have had a hard time being born. However, I am getting in gear, sort of. Well, first gear anyway. The red piece is, well, my red offering. The other is my mandala which is a piece of my handmade paper mounted on an Ampersand cradled board. Happy Spring, Albie

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Spring has Sprung!


Hi Gang of Eight, This is my March piece, "Herald Spring". I thought about doing a March Hare collage but I am currently so hung up on illuminated manuscripts, esp. after a recent trip to London where we visited the British Library. The British Library was one of the highlights of the trip. It has the most amazing collection of original source documents like the Magna Carta, The Guttenburg Bible, the original Alice in Wonderland, Beatles songs written on napkins, Wagner operas, Da Vinci's drawings and of course, the Lindisfarne Gospels and many other fantastic Illuminated Manuscripts and documents. The other incredible thing were the computers that were scattered around the library that gave you access into the inside of any of the books which were behind glass. If you clicked on a book, you could go through it page by page and they had both a text translator and a magnifying glass to look at all of the details of these books. Just amazing! So that is more than you probably wanted to know...but if you are planning a trip to London, it is not to be missed.