Tag Archive for 'found art tuesday'

post-it note Found Art Tuesday

Published
by
robayre
on July 13, 2010
in Found Art, General Update and My Artwork
. 1 Comment

I was inspired by this post and video shared by Summer Pierre about creativity in the office space.  The video touches on the book she published and promotes leaving positive notes, spontaneous and anonymously in the office. I thought “why not art?”

So today, for Found Art Tuesday, I drew this fish on a post-it note and stuck it on the vending machine at work. Hopefully someone craving something was delighted, for at least a moment, to find more than they had planned on at the snack machines.

And, here’s a joke that a friend told me, and it really has to be said allowed to be appreciated because it deals with the oddities of our language.

Q:What do you call a fish without an eye (i)?

 A: Fsshhh

It’s Tuesday and that means…

Published
by
robayre
on May 25, 2010
in Found Art, General Update and My Artwork
. 2 Comments

FOUND ART TUESDAY! As usual, I wait until last moment and then frantically try to think of a place to leave my artwork. A place where it will be safe from the elements, not too populous so that I’m watched, and not too vacant so that the piece goes un-found.

Last week I was in Chicago, but could I be prepared enough to create a piece beforehand AND bring it along? Of course not. So, where did I leave today’s piece? Well, I had to run to the post office and drop off a package, so I figured I’d make it a two for one and leave my artwork in the lobby. As I left it I started worrying I could get in trouble for leaving my artwork. Hope not.

I hope the person who finds and keeps the painting enjoys it. As usual.

Join the Found Art Tuesday fun at facebook and flickr

Found Art Tuesday

Published
by
robayre
on May 11, 2010
in Found Art, General Update and My Artwork
. 3 Comments

Today I did a last minute Found Art Tuesday piece and I’m so proud of myself for starting and completing it all in one evening. It seems every Tuesday I always have these last minute ideas and then I get off of work and reality hits. The concept and estimated time are always much quicker than the actual execution. But tonight? Tonight I finally succeeded.

Last night I made this page spread in my little book. The cut pieces in the above page spread were originally part of another project that is still in the works. I finished using them for the other project and couldn’t just waste them, so I created the above Radiohead inspired piece. You can even see that I used the same idea with the shapes here as well.

Today I had the idea to use the same technique of pierced paper geometric shapes to make original wearable art pieces. Tada! I really liked how they came out. There are three buttons and each button is a layered piece with watercolors painted on the background paper, then a hand-cut geometric shape collaged on top, all sealed together and protected by clear plastic.

 

I made up a card on watercolor paper, decorated a frame to go around the “art pieces” and stuck it up on a local community bulletin board. My only regret was that I didn’t take better pictures. You can’t see from my quick snap shot of the bulletin board, but the “frame” on the watercolor card is glittery gold paint. It was supposed to be like a gilded frame, and would hopefully attract attention. I love-love-love how these buttons came out, and I thought I took suitable enough pictures, but they just don’t show how beautiful they really are. I think I’ll make some more.

FAT Fun Fact: Did you know that Found Art Tuesday, created by Rosa Murillo, has been around since 2006?

As usual, please take a look at the flickr and facebook groups for Found Art Tuesday. Join in on the fun by leaving artwork out in the world, and adding to the joy, excitement and unpredictability of life, or just stop by and enjoy the other participating artists.

Found Art Tuesday

Published
by
robayre
on May 4, 2010
in Found Art, General Update, My Artwork and Projects
. 0 Comments

I’m very excited to announce that the project, “Found Art Tuesday” is now on Facebook. Don’t forget Rosa’s font of Found Art Tuesday information, as well as the flickr group, but please, please, please join and support us in Found Art Tuesday on Facebook. You aren’t required to participate, but really, who doesn’t “like” finding free art? Give it a thumbs up, will ya?

It’s been a long time since I participated in Found Art Tuesday, but here I am with Blades of Grass No. 1. It’s a 6×6 inch acrylic on canvas piece. This is the first piece in the series. See this earlier post for the second piece. This series is still so new and very much close to my heart, perhaps that will explain my anxieties below.

I wanted to leave it at the lagoon in town and I asked Matt to join me in this covert operation. Once we got there and saw all the families with little kids throwing bread for the ducks I immediately had hesitations. This was my same fear when I left the painting at the riverwalk in Naperville. Sadly, I never found what came of that piece. I’m afraid that a child will see it first and the parent will see the bright colors and think it’s geared toward children, and let them keep it as a “toy”, and while most of my art is suitable for children, they are not toys. I guess I ask myself, “can a child really respect and appreciate a piece of artwork as I think it deserves to be treated?” I had this vision enter my head where a kid finds it and thinks it would be hilarious to just toss into the water. We continued to walk until I remembered a geocache at the kissing bench. The kissing bench is a perfect location, a little bit hidden, yet still pretty central to campus.

I left it protected in plastic, visible and hopefully secure, but still I worried about its outcome. Would it get blown down into the branches? Would it be rained on overnight? I don’t know why I get so worried and protective. It’s similar to my mail art pieces. I send a little piece of myself out into the world, hoping-hoping-hoping that it brings a little bit of happiness to someone out there and when it never gets registered I worry that it got lost, stolen or destroyed in the post. Should I mourn for a piece that never fulfilled its only purpose?

For this piece I wouldn’t need to wonder long. I just visited the Found Art Tuesday Facebook page to get the links and I’m ECSTATIC! The recipient already posted on the Found Art Tuesday page stating the title and saying “it’s lovely”. Thank you, Addison, for stopping by facebook! I’m so glad you liked the piece :D

Now, I implore you all, spread the love and beauty. Make something and leave it out to brighten someone else’s day. Join the facebook group in support of the project. It’s a beautiful world.

ahem, facebook, cough. My work here is done!

Day Two - I LOSTed

Published
by
robayre
on February 2, 2010
in Found Art and Projects
. 4 Comments

No Spoilers!

So, today is election day in Illinois. Also, it is LOST DAY (season premiere of the last season of LOST). I got the idea today for my thing-a-day when I was thinking about those little oval stickers they give out at the polls that say “I voted”. We were going to a Lost party and so I thought it would be fun to make some “I LOSTed” stickers to give out to everyone in attendance.

I designed them in photoshop, inkjet printed them out on regular copy paper, covered them in packing tape for a glossy finish, ran them through the xyron machine and voila! I LOSTed.

Then for fun when I went to vote I made up this post-it to leave in the voting booth. I chickened out though, so before I left I stuck it in a stack of papers that were left in each booth informing voters about how to vote.

The note says “You’ve voted, Now don’t forget to watch LOST. Take this sticker to let others know you voted then you LOSTed.”

Yeah, I’m a nerd. A nerd for LOST. And by the way, the episode was AWESOME!

Polaroid Week / Found Art Tuesday

Published
by
robayre
on November 3, 2009
in Found Art, General Update, My Artwork and Projects
. 2 Comments

Today I had the brilliant (patting myself on back) idea to kill two birds with one stone. Day two of Polaroid Week would also be a great day for a Found Art Tuesday piece.

I remembered the other Found Art Tuesday Polaroid piece I did around this time last year at Carhenge. That piece was a failed picture that I drew on, so I was inspired to look through my bag of old Polaroid pictures and find an old one I’ve never posted before and then leave it somewhere for another person to pick up and keep.

The picture is from 2003, as it was written on the back. I like all of the white/neutral colors and textures.

Shhhh, don’t tell anyone but….tonight I had my ceramics class at the community college and I decided beforehand I’d leave the Polaroid in the Art wing somewhere. When we got to class I remembered how many bulletin boards are covered with all sorts of artwork and decided to sneak my picture in on one of them. As it turns out one of the boards was filled with art cards with different subject matters, portraits being one of them. Perfect. My piece fit in wonderfully.

Found Art Tuesday

Published
by
robayre
on May 27, 2009
in Found Art, General Update and My Artwork
. 6 Comments

Doh, I thought I was going to actually post a Found Art Tuesday piece on Tuesday. The holiday on Monday threw me off, so here it is on Wednesday :) It’s been ages since I’ve participated in Found Art Tuesday.

I made another miniature painting, based on a collage, on a handbuilt canvas. I made this piece specifically to use in participating in Found Art Tuesday. This weekend my sister, Matt and I went geocaching, 7 in one day. It was all great until there was a tick found on one of the microcahes :( For those who don’t know, I am absolutely terrified of ticks (I have an irrational fear of getting lymes disease), so it kind of killed a bit of the joy. I had this painting I wanted to leave behind for someone, but just about every cache was a microcache (meaning, a film roll can, a magnetic key box, or pill box).


Since we were in the Aurora area, out by my sister, we got the idea of going to the Naperville Riverwalk. It was hard to be stealthy because the place was packed. The walk next to the river, as well as the regular paths were a steady stream of families, couples and friends all out enjoying the lovely weather on the holiday weekend. Finally I found a group of trees that was situated between the two paths, waited for a gap of people and ran up to place it facing oncoming traffic.

I realized that this is actually my fourth mini painting that I’ve left for Found Art and right now I’m batting 1 for 4. The first painting was my very first Found Art piece which I let go of on a group of balloons, never heard back, the second was in a lockbox geocache on campus, no one mentioned taking the painting from the cache log online, and then a month later the river flooded and the box disappeared :( Then the third was last year, when I left a painting on a geographical marker in Door County. I received the nicest email ever, from the man who found that painting. I couldn’t have hoped for a better person, he was an artist as well, and said that it gave him more hope for people, to find my piece. Now I’ve left this piece, in a high traffic location, so fingers crossed that it made it’s way to just the right person who needs it :)

Please check out my flickr set of all the other Found Art Tuesday pieces I’ve done, and here is the flickr group pool for other people’s Found Art as well :)

One last thing, I’m participating in the May Giveaway Day, where I am giving away not one, but TWO of my Recycled Envelope and Stationery Sets. Leave a comment on this post from yesterday and be entered to win, and then please feel free to browse around the rest of my blog, I like to meet new people :)

Drawings and Found Art, Luck

Published
by
robayre
on May 14, 2008
in General Update
. 2 Comments

Last weekend I was downstairs looking for something in storage when I found these empty frames I had bought a couple years ago. They are small, cheap, IKEA frames, and I had bought a bunch of them, not knowing how I would use them. Well, all these years later, I see them down there and that was all it took. I think to myself - pencil drawings of posed arms, watercolored and framed with striping ribbon. A lot of my ideas come to me like this “aha! moment” but frequently I’m at a time or place where I can’t immediately drop everything and start working on my idea. Usually I will write and sketch out my idea, but often, by the time I can get to it, the magic is gone and I’ve already moved on to another “aha! moment”. Well, this weekend I was able to drop everything and work on my idea and these were the resulting pieces, the last of which will be used for Found Art Tuesday.

I could really see these pieces being something I would have done intaglio prints of, but I also like the idea of them being individual handmade illustrations. It makes them more precious.

Tomorrow I’ll post more about where I leave the found art piece. Matt thought of the idea, and I’m excited about it.

time to grow

Published
by
robayre
on April 30, 2008
in General Update
. 7 Comments

time to grow close up, originally uploaded by robayre.

Years ago when my mom was moving classrooms I found this really big bin of pin backed letters for a cork board. She gave them to me because she never used them. I’ve had them for about 4 years, not knowing what to do with, or how to use them. Well, a couple weeks ago the Found Art Tuesday theme was Grow, and I came up with this idea to pin a phrase onto a tree. With it being spring and the theme being grow, it just seemed appropriate. This piece is not like my standard Found Art, in that it isn’t a piece that someone could take with them. The piece still goes along with the idea of guerilla art and while people are taking this path, I hope it catches their eye and makes them stop and think a bit.


Please click on the photos to see them better over at flickr.

Treasure Hunt

Published
by
robayre
on April 23, 2008
in General Update
. 0 Comments

Today I released my Found Art Tuesday piece into the world. You can see the painting in yesterday’s post here. This is actually a big step for me because I actually left it in my own city, which has always been a fear of mine. I was able to do this by doing it in a more secretive manner. I put it in a geocache that was near the art building at NIU. For this painting I was combining a couple projects in one, Found Art Tuesday and Geocaching. Have you heard of Geocaching? It is a world wide treasure hunt and so much fun. You visit the website and then use a GPS to find coordinates to caches that are hidden around all of us all the time. My hopes are to set up my own cache sometime soon that will be themed for artwork. Sometimes geocaches have booty inside, and if you take something you must leave something behind. Most of the time these treasures are just kid junk like happy meal toys, etc. I want to create a geocache that is filled with original pieces of artwork, for artists to trade.

I know I mentioned it yesterday, but I would like to mention it again. Found Art Tuesday has a new flickr group and I’d love for everyone to join in. It is so much fun. The thing that really appeals to me about found art is the idea of shaking things up. People don’t expect to find artwork for free out in the world. Imagine how most people are just living their lives on autopilot and coming across a piece of artwork makes you snap out of it a bit. Sometimes people are so caught up in this way of life that they don’t even notice it or if they do they pass it up anyway, or that they are too afraid to step out of their bounds of comfort and take a bit of risk and take it. Read Rosa’s experience of this weeks found art piece here.

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