2010 June Archive at Inspiration Junkie robayre.com

Archive for June, 2010

My first official Encaustic piece

Published

on June 26, 2010

. 4 Comments

Encaustic means “to burn in”: An art form where you use hot wax to paint and/or encase layers.

For years I’ve been wanting to explore more into encaustic. I remember being jealous of my friend Bethany who took an encaustic class, or maybe it was a painting class, but they got to work in encaustic for part of it. I’ve always loved the dreamy quality encaustic pieces have from the layers and opacity of the beeswax. I played around with beeswax on my own before and used it over a few of my collage/mixed media mailart pieces, but I really didn’t know what I was doing and worried that it would just crack off the piece eventually.

Today I finally got the opportunity to officially learn more and experiment with encaustic at a workshop. I had such a good time. The finished piece is basically 2D, but you work in a 3D manner to get the results. You layer flat as well as dimensional items, and play with texture and surface in layer after layer of encaustic medium. It was so exciting and freeing to have to think in entirely different ways than I’m used to working.

Here are pictures of the pieces I created today. The top one was my first piece and the second one was more a last minute piece and I think I might work on it some more. At the workshop someone mentioned the idea of creating a series and displaying them all together, so that was the idea of the second piece. I’d like to make a third or fourth to go with these.

Here are a few good references for working in encaustic:
Book: The Encaustic Workshop by Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch

Video: Getting Started in Encaustic with Kathryn Bevier

Supplies: Apparently if you live in the Northern Illinois area the Blick store in Schaumberg has a variety of supplies, but they also seem to carry a bit online as well.

Summer of Love

Published

robayre

on June 23, 2010

in General Update, life and My Artwork

. 3 Comments

Cover, originally uploaded by robayre.

I signed up for Kara Haupt‘s online class “Summer of Love” and then promptly missed the first several days. I swear the class didn’t start until next week, but I decided to sign into the group blog to see if there was any early action. Imagine my shock and sadness when the first post that pops up says “Prompt Day Three”. Argh.
Oh well. So goes my life.

Any way, one of the main projects to make an altered book and all of a sudden I remembered this book I made back in 2007. It was for a huge group swap, where tons of artists were involved. Each person was to make a book and then pass it to the next person on the list, do a page in the next book, then pass it down the line. By the time your book would come back to you it would be filled with other people’s artwork. Cool huh? Yeah, well, it turned out to be not so cool. I made this totally kick ass book, above. I still think it’s awesome and still represents my style, check the grass. Anyway, I sent it to the next person in line, got the next two or three artists books, worked on them and sent them down the line. Turns out the girl after me in line, I think her name was natalie, was a total flake and scammed all of those books and never sent any out. It wasn’t until that point where the person that was behind Natalie was getting worried that she hadn’t received ANY books, when the group realized what was going. Needless to say I lost my own book, but then I felt even worse because I also sent other artist’s books to her as well. Man, that really hurt.

Moral of the story. Don’t be lame and flake out on others.
Also, pay attention to the calendar. I feel sort of like I’m living one of those dreams where it’s finals week and I just realized I forgot to go to class the whole semester.

Cool Link Round-up

Published

robayre

on June 21, 2010

in Cool Links

. 4 Comments

I’m back to share some links I’ve collected.

This music video via Booooooom will help you kick of a new work week.

Design is Mine shared this beautiful thumbnail of the artwork of Michelle Armas and I’m transported.

How about these envelopes? I love mail art. By artist Anja Mulder

Here is a collection of autobiographical comic artists next to drawings of themselves.

Have you heard about the site flattr? Check out this post by Leethal all about it. I’ve already signed up!

I’d really love a coffee table like this one featured on Design Sponge. Actually I think every flat surface in my house could really use a paper cutter crank in it.

Tiny Paper Bunting Tutorial

Published

robayre

on June 19, 2010

in General Update

. 3 Comments

It seems that bunting and banner flags have become very trendy. I think it’s because you can’t help but be happy when you see them.

Check out these amazing necklaces on Etsy

by seller Scoutholiday by seller stripeymonkey

Happy now, right?

Earlier this year you might recall my mini flag tutorial from here. Now I’m back with another quick bunting tutorial. If you thought that other one was quick and simple, don’t blink. The results are so sweet that I don’t want you to miss out. These flag garlands are even smaller yet, and we all know things get even cuter when miniaturized.

Materials:
diamond paper punch
paper (scratch paper, junk mail, magazines, patterned or colored papers, etc.)
glue stick
string

Step one: punch

Step two: fold them in half

Step three: glue

Voila! Mini bunting that can go anywhere. Hang it with magnets on your fridge or with thumbtacks on your bulletin board. Hang it across the top of your imac, or just above your monitor at work to make you happy. Hang it across a picture frame like I did here. If I had a car I’d be tempted to drape one across the length of the rear view mirror ;)

Have fun getting your bunting on!

garden update

Published

robayre

on June 18, 2010

in General Update and life

. 0 Comments

Last I updated about my garden I was just watering dirt, waiting for any signs of action below the soil. It seems like forever ago, and while I now have plants, they appear to be quite delayed from what other gardens seem to have going on. A coworker told me about how his tomatoes are taller than he is, and already producing fruit. My tomatoes, in contrast (above in top right corner), are not even one foot tall yet. Given, I did plant from seeds and it was pretty late in the spring. I was at a nursery the other day and see they had potted tomatoes ready to buy that that were way bigger than mine.

This year I have tomatoes, zucchini, cilantro, and mixed greens growing, and I JUST started some pumpkins as well. One thing I learned from last year was fewer was better and to thin out the plants, since I’m doing container gardening. As soon as I did that my plants starting taking off. The zucchini have tons of blossoms AND I was very happy to share my started plants with many people so far.

We’ve been harvesting and using the greens and cilantro for quite a while. Last year I grew all sorts of salad greens and I really couldn’t stand to eat any of it because it was all too bitter. This year I bought greens that said they were heat resistant. Cutting some from the pot and taking a bite I was sad to taste that it still seemed bitter, but I brought it in and thoroughly rinsed it. I don’t know if it is because they are a heat resistant or because of the thorough rinsing, but added to salads they don’t taste bitter at all.

And thanks to the garden we’ve had some delicious salads so far. I’m looking forward to zucchini bread and yummy tomatoes later this summer.

♥ Black & Whites Stipes ♥

Published

robayre

on June 15, 2010

in Cool Links, etsy and General Update

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Come visit the black and white themed Etsy Treasury I made recently.

I have a long lasting, never ending crush on black and white stripes. One time in college I did an intaglio print that was entirely thick black and white stripes. The black was entirely scratched in line-by-line, by hand, on the metal plate, until it was solid. I thought of the piece being more of a tribute to my love for stripes as well as a process piece, where the action of creating is more important than the piece itself. I think my teacher was less than inspired by the piece. Oh well, you can’t win them all, especially if you go to NIU art school and don’t try to suck up by recreating your teacher’s exact same style for every piece. Bitter still? Does it show?

To me black and white stripes are classic, vintage, timeless, Picasso, Tim Burton, Edward Gorey, & little boys from the 50s like Dennis the Menace and my dad when he was little. I can never get enough of black and white stripes.

Earlier today Bri showed me this awesome striped Pavillion. AND if that wasn’t awesome enough, we both recently purchased the exact same black and white upholstery fabric from IKEA. She actually has some super awesome plans for hers and I can’t wait to see pictures of it.

Kool-aid dyed yarn

Published

robayre

on June 14, 2010

in Cool Links, Coverage, fiber and General Update

. 4 Comments

Speaking of Tumbler (my lil post the other day)…

Yesterday I posted this old picture of some yarn I spun from wool I dyed with kool-aid. Today I found that picture was posted on tumblr by robot heart. Currently that image has been “noted” and “reblogged” 47 times. How cool is that?

I love tumblr, but usually I just “heart” images that I like, and only share my own images, as I kind of feel weird reblogging another person’s work. BUT, in the case where my image is the one being reblogged, I’ll jump in on the fun and add it to my own tumblr.

Cool link round-up

Published

robayre

on June 13, 2010

in Cool Links

. 0 Comments

There are many things I really enjoy about Google Reader and one of them is being able to bookmark posts by “liking” and “sharing” them. I’m posting today to share a few things I’ve collected over time in my google reader. I’d love to turn this into a weekly post, but I’m not going to promise, since regular posts on my blog never end up being very regular. Pre-twitter these are things I would have shared here, but now I post them on twitter and forget about posting them here as well, and I miss that.

This cartoon is sweet and a pretty common theme to my life since becoming an adult.

I discovered this project (Ring A Day 2010) earlier this year when I was participating in 2010 Thing A Day. I love rings, but only creative and artistic pieces, meaning I basically loathe your typical jewelry store jewelry, ugh. It’s been a long time since I’ve been serious about metalwork, but a project like this makes me miss that time when I had more focus on just one area of art at a time.

Speaking of awesome rings, here is one that looks like a tree stump (scroll down below ads to see it).

I love this post on art zines at Doodlers Anonymous.

Here is an awesome project, as I’m obsessed with all types of vending machines. It’s a Doodle vending machine, also from Doodlers Anonymous. It reminds me of the postcard machine from Renegade that I wrote about years back.

And wait, while we are talking about my obsession with vending machines I might as well mention how I’ve long wanted to buy my very own coin machine. I think it stems from my obsession as a child to get things from gumball machines. Heck, it was the only reason I’d go with my mom to the store, so that I could beg for a quarter. For years I’ve had a machine bookmarked to buy. I promise myself it’s one of the items I’ll buy when I have my credit card paid off, which will be very soon, wooot! Anyway, earlier this year I discovered the Itty Bitty Art Committee (which just about blew my mind because I am also obsessed with little art). I read how they bought a little coin slot machine to vend tiny lucky origami paper cranes. This reminded me of a vending machine I saw at the Renegade one year where an artist was vending mini silk screen (or were they relief) prints from a gumball machine. And naturally, there is Artomat, which I occasionally contribute to, which vends original artwork through old revamped cigarette machines.

okay, one last link:

Crustless Quiche in a Cup! Yum, I love quiche.

Okay, that’s all for now, but I have tons more to share, so hopefully I’ll be back next week with more.

marshmallows

Published

robayre

on June 12, 2010

in General Update and Projects

. 3 Comments

My best friend Erica and I have been making homemade marshmallows for years. Sometimes we like to talk about starting up a company selling them. The creativity for this actually comes entirely from her side, as cooking is her passion. My passion just lies in eating marshmallows :D

Over the years we’ve made so many different flavors, such as my personal favorite Chai and the one pictured above which is spearmint, using only real spearmint flakes. We’ve dipped marshmallow in chocolate, carmel and coconut flakes. Hmmm, I just had an idea for licorice flavored marshmallows. I know it’s not for everyone, but I kind of like it.