1920s Sealing Wax Art Jewelry

Over the weekend we went antiquing and I found this really pretty booklet on sealing wax art. Sealing wax art involves melting sealing wax, originally used to seal letters, and shaping the softened wax into different beads and pendant shapes. I had seen wax flowers and pearls before but this was new and I never thought to try and make some myself.

DIY Your Own Vintage Style Jewelry with the whole book here: Sealing Wax Art

Some of my friends and I have been mailing each other letters with wax seals so I already had the materials and thought I might as well try and get some practice in before all those Roaring '20s parties start happening. I still need a lot of practice but it was fun to do. The book shows some very pretty, intricate examples. 

My attempt. I still need more practice!

The only advice I can give so far is that the harder, wax pellets that are melted in a spoon were giving me better results than the sticks with the wicks in them.

Advertisement from 1924

You can read the whole book here: Sealing Wax Art

If you try it out, I'd love to see photos of what you come up with!

How to Make a Travel Watercolor Kit out of an Altoids Tin

Back in August I made a tiny watercolor sketchbook out of a sketchbook I had lying around. I wasn't fond of the size of the book. It was larger than I like to work with. I was contemplating buying a new one when I decided that buying a new one would be a bit wasteful as I still had this one I never used. I planned to take the smaller one out to do field sketches and wanted it small enough to fit in my purse. 

Well I finally got around to making the tiny field watercolor kit to go with it.

 

There is a whole art of tiny paint boxes. There are some people who make them out of Altoids containers and people who make them out of the tiny, Altoids mini containers. But the extremists make them out of all sorts of tiny containers like this make-up compact or this vintage pill box. I have to admit I'm probably going to be hooked on making watercolor kits from decorative tins after seeing such cute examples.

Most people use some sort of clay to make the pans for the paint, another good idea I have seen is using old soda bottle lids. I opted to be very resourceful (lazy) and use empty gum containers. The whole process is very easy. You just pour tube watercolor out, mix it with a drop or two of glycerine or honey, stir with a tooth pick and let it dry. 

I'm still on the fence of what I want to use for paintbrushes. A lot of people just chop the ends off of their brushes so that they fit in the tin. I'm not sure I want to go that route as I like being able to use the whole brush. I've also been seeing more and more "waterbrushes" which are brushes filled with water that slowly seeps out while you paint, eliminating the need for a separate water container. 

I'm anxious to try it out but today's temperatures of 3 degrees that feels like -18 means that I probably won't be doing any field panting any time soon. Hope everyone is keeping warm and fighting winter boredom.

December Sketchbook Challenge

This was my least favorite Sketchbook Challenge to date. Not because it was a bad challenge or I didn't like what I sketched but because the topic, "Holiday Colors" pretty much dictated that the challenge had to be in a pigmented medium.  I wanted to sketch in pencil, so this month, my holiday color is white.

I liked the sketch. I'm in the process of making a customized sketchbook and made this little sketchbook out of the scraps.

Overall I enjoyed drawing in it. I just hope next month's challenge is pencil sketcher friendly. If you are looking to get into or back into drawing, the Sketchbook Challenge has been very fun. People interested can post their photos in their flickr group.  

November Sketchbook Challenge

For the November Sketchbook Challenge, I decided to do a little night camping watercolor sketch. The theme this month is "Moon and Stars." I love how the canvass tents light up orange at night when the inhabitants have candles lit inside.

I might try to make another sketch for this theme. Hopefully, I can take a bit longer next time. I've only had time for tiny sketches recently, but it's a start!

October Sketchbook Challenge

As per my original intentions, I promised I would share things from my sketchbook in order to make me use my sketchbook for drawing more rather than just writing in it.

This is my drawing for October's Sketchbook Challenge. The theme this month was "animal companions."



It isn't anything fancy but it is a sketch. I've been so busy this month. I'm still trying to get back in the habit of sketching things just for the fun of it. 

How to Make Faux Leather Book Covers

In an earlier post, I mentioned how I'm trying to get along artistically using up my stash and not buying anything new if I can help it. Just like most artistically inclined people my stash can get overwhelming as we keep acquiring materials with a lot of potential but never get to as many projects as we wish we could. It's my goal to use up my stash.

This was a project I did with other people so not all of the photos are of the same book but they should do good enough for illustrative purposes.  The original instructions can be found here: Creepy Books.








We were making books for Halloween so I chose to make a new cover for the first Harry Potter book and a second smaller book, intending to serve as "Tom Riddle's Diary," which I plan to make into a sketchbook. I decided to make a dust cover instead of working directly on the cover.

Supplies:

-Cardboard or bristol board. 
-Paint: I used a cheap glossy acrylic.
-Paper Towels or Tissue Paper. I used paper towels with a lot of texture to give it a snakeskin look.
-Craft Glue that dries clear.
-Water

1. Open your book, making sure there are an even number of pages on each side to ensure the spine lays flat. Trace around your book leaving a 1/4 inch border around it at the top and bottom and 2-3 inches extra on the sides to make the flaps.  

2. Cut out cardboard shapes and  glue them to your cover. I used a tacky glue designed for use on t-shirts so the glue/water mixture in the next step wouldn't dissolve it.

3. Mix your glue with an equal amount of water. Tear up your paper towel into 3 to 4 inch pieces. Make sure you overlap your pieces and paint over them with the glue mixture.

4. Place a piece of paper towel on your cover and use a large paintbrush to brush your glue mixture over the paper towel piece. Overlap paper towel pieces and work until the cover is filled, making sure to leave 1/2 inch around the outside to overlap to the inside of the cover. If you want wrinkles in you book make sure to scrunch the paper towel pieces a little. Dry with a hairdryer or leave to dry overnight.

5. Turn your cover over and use the glue/water mixture to wrap the extra paper towel over the top and secure it to the inside. Let dry again.

6. Apply your paint. The original instructions stated to paint while the paper towel was still wet. I had much better luck letting it dry and applying a glossy paint to mimic a leather shine. Let your paint dry. If you want to include gold or silver elements, spray paint can be sprayed on plastic plate and applied with a cotton swab.

7. When dry, you can use something pointy to trace gently around your cutouts to make them stand out more against the background. 

I'll do a separate post when I finish the Harry Potter book. This is an incredibly easy project and looks great. This also might have reenacting uses an alternative to the covers I normally use while reenacting.
 

September Sketchbook Challenge: Homes and Hideaways

The theme of September's Sketchbook Challenge is Homes and Hideaways. I had been meaning to finish a sketch I had started of McPherson's barn in Gettysburg.  On July 1st, the barn was used to shelter Union soldiers from artillery fire and wounded men after the battle. The farm was destroyed during the battle.

 The painting is tiny, about 4 1/2 inches square and was painted on scrap watercolor paper. 

The Sea Plays by the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective

The night is late, the hold is hot and stuffy. WWI is raging and your ship, carrying munitions is just approaching the war zone. All of the windows are darkened and you and your shipmates are on tenterhooks as the boat rocks back and forth.  No one can sleep with enemy torpedoes on their mind. The S.S. Glencairn is an open target, when one of your mates feels a draft. Someone's been signaling to the Germans, and you all think you know who. The story comes to life as the Philadelphia Artists’ Collective turns Philly's Gazela into their stage for "The Sea Plays" until September 23, 2013.  

 Andy and I were lucky enough to get to help out on opening night. The actors were phenomenal and the sights and the smells of scenery draw you right into the stories. Opening night was ominous as a storm approached.

The weather channel said it was going to miss us. But the wind was blowing hard and the storm dropped a ferocious amount of water. Luckily, the storm stopped just short of the guests arriving and, although the crew was soaked, we were able to successfully get everyone on to enjoy the show. 

 

If you get a chance to see the show, it really is fantastic! I'll be helping out at a few more shows this week. Look forward to seeing some of you!

Do You Use The Things You Own?

Unread books and new planner.

I'm trying to go minimalist. Every once in a while I just want to get rid of everything. My goal is not to live with as little as I possibly can. My goal is to pare down what I have and actually make use of the things I own.

Most people have natural chances to minimize: they go to college and have to pick only the possessions they use most often, or they move and only have so much room to pack. I've pruned a ton in the last few years, but I have never moved so I've never really been forced to evaluate and prune everything. 

I have read about people whose choose to only have as many possessions that will fit in a tiny suitcase or others that keep their number of possessions under 100. Some even fight to get their number as small as possible. I find it admirable a beneficial to make do with less but I am not going to whittle my possessions down to an arbitrary number. As long as I am actually making use of an item, not just keeping it around, I see no reason to part with it.   

I am using criteria that I haven't really used before. I ask the simple question of "Do I use it?" Before, I was content with answering "Is it useful?" But have come to understand that just because it is useful doesn't mean that I make use of it.

This exercise has been very beneficial. There were things I hadn't touched or used in forever. It was easy to get rid of these things. But there was this group of things that I kept because I wanted to use them but never did. This was the group of items that hurt the most. I would look at this stuff all of the time and think of all of the reasons that I didn't use them: "Not enough time," "Don't know what to do with it," "It's not perfect for what I was thinking."

I have a large stockpile of books I want to read and art and craft supplies. I knew the "to read" books were a problem so put all of the "to read" books on their own shelf and put a sticky note on them with the date they were placed there with the intention of giving them away if I didn't get to them in a year. I've read plenty of books since, but I've revisited the shelf and I couldn't believe that most of the books had been on there for 2 years.

So I've reevaluated the books for if I still want to read them, re-tagged them, if so, and added an extra 30 minutes of reading a day specifically for these books. I've also decided to date any other items that I am not sure I use enough, and in a year, I will see how many times I actually use those items. 

But what I am most excited about is the art stuff. I've decided that I'm not going to buy any new supplies until I go through my stockpile and evaluate whether something i already own could work, even if it's not the perfect thing. I have found for me, the less I have, the more creative I have to be. Having too many art choices stop me from getting anything done as I wait around for the perfect thing or can't choose between so many options.

Recently, I had wanted to get a new planner and a smaller sketchbook for on location watercolor. I found a tiny notebook I hadn't used and an old watercolor pad that only had a few pages left on it and made some impromptu, crude solutions. They aren't perfect but they were fun to make and I'm actually using stuff I already own and creating more. I'm so excited. :) 

New sketchbook.

I'm strangely appreciate running out of things, lately. It means I'm using things. :)   So, do you really use the things you own?

August Sketchbook Challenge

Paint Doodle

I never thought much about the social nature of sketchbooks until I stopped having sketchbook people to chat with. One by one as all of my sketch buddies scattered, I picked up the pencil less and less. I was busy. I didn't feel like drawing. And I wasn't being challenged or inspired. But, I'd like to change that.

I'm taking part in The Sketchbook Challenge, a challenge created by artists to encourage other artists to keep doodling away. Each month they give a prompt and everyone sketches and posts their work on flickr.

For the challenges, it seems that a lot of people submit finished pieces. They are very beautiful, but as I am just trying to get back in the habit of sketching, I'll just be posting my sketchbook doodles. The theme this month is "Journeys." I decided to paint a scene from my last big journey.

I'm looking forward to finally drawing on a regular basis again. If you are an artist, I highly encourage you to check out the Sketchbook Challenge site and post your progress.

Colonial Quakers and Silhouettes

In colonial times it was fashionable for wealthy Americans to have paintings or small miniatures made of loved ones. For many this was prohibitively expensive but middle class families, especially those in the country, could have silhouettes made of their family members relatively inexpensively.

A silhouette, known then as "profiles" or "shades", were line portraits with no internal detail. Many of these were cut from paper and glued to contrasting paper but some were painted. They typically were 3 to 5 inches in length. Varying methods were used to produce the profile, some used light to trace the shadow of a portrait sitter, others were drawn quickly by artists.

One popular method of creating silhouettes involved folding the paper into four so that the cutter could make four copies of the same silhouette at once. These could then be given away or exchanged. Silhouettes could also be easily traced and copied if more were needed.     

Along with country folk and the middling class, silhouettes appealed to Quakers, even wealthy ones, due to the simplistic nature of the art and the cost. Quakers felt that silhouettes did not emphasize class or vanity as many paintings did.

Silhouettes were also of interest at the time as theories of physiognomy at the time claimed that a person's character could be read through the face.  Silhouettes were popular until the invention and spread of the Daguerreotype in the 1840s.

In modern times, silhouettes are made easily using photography and computers. There are many tutorials showing how to do it. But if you wanted to do it the old fashioned way, profiles tend to be relatively easy for people to draw.  

Resources:

Clark, Joanna. "Quaker Silhouettes." The Friend: The Quaker Magazine. http://www.thefriend.org/article/quaker-silhouettes (accessed April 11, 2013).

Verplank, Anne. "The Silhouette and Quaker Identity in Early National Philadelphia." Winterthur Portfolio 43, No. 1 (2009): 41-79.

The Civil War in American Art: Book Review

I’m so excited. I get to review Eleanor Jones Harvey’s The Civil War in American Art by Yale University Press.  If you like history and art, it is well worth looking into. 

As a Civil War aficionado, one tends to find much of the same information in many books.  The Civil War and American Art deals with many popular Civil War topics but does so from so refreshing an angle that even the most devoted Civil War reader will learn something new. Art is a reflection of society and this book reflects an honesty from a society so deeply ingrained in modern imagination that many people ignore what the society, itself created.    

Harvey seamlessly melds the art into the context of the day using excerpts from literature and first person accounts. The book does not only cover the war years but also includes the years leading to war as well as the decade after to place Civil War era art into its proper context. 

Harvey discusses well-known symbolism in pre-Civil War and Civil War literature and art such as the use of comets and meteors at the start of the war.  Shortly before the war, a meteor was seen by many from New York to Delaware. Many took it as an omen that John Brown, the radical abolitionist known as the “Meteor of War’s” prediction was coming true. On the gallows for his organization of a slave uprising, he wrote a note stating, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” It was striking symbolism used by artists and writers at the time who felt that their lives were about to change.      

Not excluding photography, Harvey introduces the rather unprecedented work of famous wartime photographers such as Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Timothy O’Sullivan and George S. Cook giving an in-depth look into the medium of photography as it was. In a time when almost everyone has a camera in their pocket, it is difficult to imagine just how shocking the images of war were to the people of the 1860s. From only ever seeing paintings and etchings of gallant soldiers fighting artistic battles to the sudden shift of seeing lifeless, mangled bodies piled like meat really brought the true cost of war home to people. 

This book is a very interesting read with stunning photographs. It gives a very in-depth look into the art and literature of the time, allowing the reader a better-rounded view on the culture of the people that created it. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for reviewing purposes but that in no way affected the content of my review.

Blarney Castle Painting and Irish Potato Candy Recipe

I've been working on this watercolor of Blarney Castle for a really long time. I finally vowed to finish it before St. Patrick's Day.

I don't really know anyone who really likes to use watercolor as their favorite medium. My favorite medium is pencil, so watercolor is as different as you can get in terms of control. Pencil does exactly what you want it to, watercolor does what it wants.

I'm not sure that the painting is 100% finished right now, but it's finished enough that I would only have to put 15 or 20 minutes of finishing touches on. I am considering slightly more detail on the bush and maybe some clouds in the sky.

I always paint and draw on the floor, I don't know why, I do have as easel, I've just never used it. Fortunately, my easel doesn't go to waste  as my sister uses it a lot. You can see some of her drawings here.


I only use a few supplies which is great if you like to paint "in the field." I have never painted on location, although I would like to try sometime. I dislike when people watch me paint or draw.
 

I use cheap paints (the $5.00 for the whole set kind) because I have found that the expensive paints have added ingredients which helps the paint dry faster on the paper. I am told that you can buy "stuff" to make the expensive paint not dry so fast but it seems like a waste of money when the really cheap paint works well.

I once had to take a watercolor class for college and I hated every minute of it. The teacher made us buy expensive paint ($5.00 a tube and we needed about 7 tubes.) Then he made us "experiment" constantly. If I was going to experiment, as a student, I wish I wasn't using $35.00 worth of paint and $60.00 worth of paper.

I do still have a lot of expensive paints left over and I keep telling myself that when I get really good at using watercolor, then I'll use those paints. I am told that they will not fade as much as cheap paints. I'll have to do a "fade check" to see.

Below I have a St. Patrick's Day Recipe for Irish Potatoes. These are American coconut candies. The candies are rolled into balls to imitate little potatoes and then rolled in cinnamon to look like dirt on the potatoes. If you like coconut, you will probably love them.

Irish Potatoes

Ingredients:

- 4 Cups Powdered Sugar

-2 1/2 Cups Flaked Coconut

- 4 ounces Cream Cheese (1/2 an 8 ounce package)

- 1/4 Cup Butter

- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

- Cinnamon or Cocoa Powder

Instructions:

Cream the Butter and Cream Cheese together in a medium sized bowl. Once smooth, add the Powdered Sugar and Vanilla Extract. Add Coconut, you may have to use your hands to blend it together. Pour the Cocoa or Cinnamon onto a small plate. Make 1 inch balls of the "dough" and roll them in the Cocoa or Cinnamon.

You can eat these right away but they are best slightly cold and keep for a few weeks refrigerated. If you are going to refrigerate them, put each individual candy into a tiny fluted liner, available at craft stores.  

Andy and I always make Irish potatoes (covered in cinnamon) and Chocolate Blarney Stones (rolled in cocoa powder.) We make the Blarney Stones more rectangular in shape, similar to the actual Blarney Stone. Making two batches uses up one whole package of cream cheese and adds variety. Many people like the cocoa covered ones much better than the cinnamon, but the cinnamon is traditional.

From the Archives

I really like art. I haven't done much lately, I guess I haven't been much inspired. Which I guess can be a good thing because when you are inspired you have to work on a piece or your brain will explode. Yes, you have to work on it until it is done, ignoring your family, friends and even food. I hate sharing my artwork because while I am working on a piece, it is my favorite piece, but once it's finished, I think it's crap. Everything is this post is so old, I KNOW it's not good and I know I've improved.

It's hard to share art, you just want to fix it every time you look at it. I found a bunch of old drawings on my computer, I decided to share. This stuff is at least 5 years old or so. I don't even know where most of it is anymore. The drawing at the top is a truly "lost work." Someone stole it years ago (there's a huge back story where it was "lost track of,") who knows where it is now or if it even is in existence still. 

I repeatedly failed art and never started drawing seriously until I dropped art. There's something about time limits and rules that just make it impossible to draw something you like or care about in the least. 

Who can draw or paint on a schedule and then get graded on it? It's horrible! I could never do it. My younger sister is an art major, and very good, I don't know how she does it. I'd go crazy, producing art like a trained monkey. 

 

The model in the picture at the top, requested that I draw him this for his room. I oblidged since it was nice of him to model for the drawing, he was just some random kid in my math class at the time...I guess I should have been doing math? The next day after I gave it to him, he told me his mother complained that I hadn't signed it. I didn't really realize it until then, that I don't sign anything. I still don't. My signature is atrosious and would only make things worse.  





I have a lot of doodles in my sketchbooks. Doodling is just so relaxing. I am not a good doodler, some people can doodle and it just turns out amazing. My doodles are just squiggles and shapes. It mortifies me when people look in my sketchbook. It looks like a third grader drew in it. Sometimes I even doodle with crayons. It's fun and makes you feel like a kid again. 

I used to draw a lot of anime and manga. I had a couple manga stories going which a lot of people liked it was just way to much work to draw it all. I am much more of a story person. I have passed the baton to my little sister. She draws anime very very well. I help her make complete stories out of her ideas, she draws the comic, I ink it and then she colors it. We can both make comics alone but it's much more productive and fun together. She is currently working on one that sounds fun. 

I'm sorry I was lazy and didn't feel like writing an interesting post today. It's just so hot! I've been aching to draw something but haven't started. I cleaned off my ink pens and have just been doodling. Looking over these drawings is horrific for me. It's like looking at your baby pictures.  

Waniyetu Wowapi: Lakota Winter Count

 Tonight we had our first snow. For the Lakota Native American tribe in the Northwestern United States, this would mark a new year, and a picture representing the past year would be painted on a communal calender.

The Lakota had no written language. Waniyetu wowapi or "Winter Counts," were pictoral records used in conjunction with extensive oral histories to create a community record. For the Lakota, one year was from the first snowfall to the next first snowfall after a spring, summer and fall. Each year one event, not necessarily the most important event which occurred, but the one that most people of their society would remember and identify with, was chosen to be painted to represent the year. This picture would represent the entire year and any other events which occurred that year would be identified by the event in the picture.

The Lakota are best known for their participation in the winning of the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. 

I think that the first-snow-starts-a-new-year concept is purely magical. It is neat that the new year is unpredictable, it can happen at any time. When it started yesterday, I was knitting with my friends in a cozy atmosphere. What a good way to start off a new year?

I have decided to start my own collection of Winter Counts, in the Lakota tradition. I had hoped to have finished my Winter Count in time for the new year, but I am not done yet. The event I chose is personal and would not represent the best identifiable event to all American people. I concluded that my Winter Counts would only represent my family unit. I have included my unfinished Winter Count and will hopefully finish it soon: it represents the trip to Ireland that Andy and I  took and the new instrument we acquired there. Enjoy the new year!   

The Smithsonian has a lovely online exhibit about Lakota Winter Counts.

What is a Winter Count is a good site that describes Winter Counts much better than I do.

Native American Radio This site offers a station filled with Native American musicans and music (traditional and modern.) It is worth a listen if you like Native American music.


*Note: Turning Bear's death (by train) is being added to a Winter Count in the first picture. The second picture is of Rain-In-The-Face, a Lakota warrior who participated in the Battle at Little Big Horn. Sorry my drawing is blurry, I had to photograph it.