It’s a new life!

For about a year and a half beforehand, I dedicated most of my weekends to experimenting and exploring materials, ideas and techniques. Collage is a great way to start doing that, since you can change your mind before you commit to a composition.

Most of my adult life has been focused on art, design and teaching, but in the past, my work was very different than it is now. I’m still feeling my way through the challenges of a new direction (not that you ever stop feeling your way through).

Years ago I was an airbrush illustrator. I worked with acrylic paint, as I do now, but the content was pretty surreal. To pull off surrealism, you need to be able make what you’re painting realistic. What draws me now is abstraction, which takes a very different (and I feel, more complex) way of approaching my work.

It’s taken awhile to get back to the website, since a gallery isn’t much of one without anything to look at. I’ve been trying to build a body of work and get more clarity about where I want to take it, but at least there are some images now. Feel free to check them out.

I also have a list of video tutorials planned… either for approaches I discover as I go along, something that makes life easier or answers questions I’ve had. Anything that might be useful in the your art practice is on the table. Hopefully, they can save you some time, confusion or aggravation.

I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

Return of the Cereal Box Liners

kale stored in cereal box liner

Since it’s gardening season, it’s time to get back to my favorite use for cereal box liners. This free resource comes in handy in so many ways around the house.

Once that exciting first day of harvest rolls around, these bags come out of the cabinet and get put to work for the rest of the summer.

Wrapping the Mold and Spreading the Papier Maché Clay

Here are the last steps for (finally!) making a papier maché clay bowl. You’ll see how to wrap the mold, so the bowl will remove easily when it dries and get some helpful hints about working with the clay.

Making Papier Maché Clay and Choosing a Mold — Mixing the Papier Maché Clay

Making the Clay and Choosing a Mold

Don’t Change Out of Your Grubby Clothes Yet!

Now that you have some paper pulp, it’s time to turn it into papier maché clay. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s squishy. What’s not to love?

Tools, Ingredients and Preparing the Paper Pulp

We have the technology!

Rather than reading through all of the steps in the posts about making the new papier maché clay recipe and using it, you can now see it on video.

Black papier maché patch with mold — Black papier maché patch material after sitting covered for about a month

Surprise!

What a lovely image to sit at the top of this post! Hope you haven’t just eaten.

The other day, I needed a tiny bit of the black papier maché clay smooth finish material for the bottom of a bowl I’d covered with it. There was a white speck on the bottom that needed to disappear.

When I opened the container, this is what greeted me. This was made about 2 months ago, and was tightly covered. I really didn’t expect it to happen.

Three bottles to be recycled into cutters

More Fun With Trash

If you’ve ever tried to cut a shape out of polymer clay, or any other soft medium that’s similar, you’ll know it’s not easy to make it symmetrical by hand.

There are all kinds of cutters for sale at craft stores, but why not combine helping to save your little corner of the planet with saving some dollars in your pocket?

Travel size, sample size, and even regular size bottles can be used to create free, easy-to-make and easily replaceable craft cutters. There are always more where they came from.

balloons for papier maché clay balloon bowls — Balloons for papier maché clay balloon bowls

Balloons can be used as a wonderful mold for making papier maché clay bowls. Their full, rounded contours, variety of sizes and shapes and their elasticity offer a wide range of possibilities for some gorgeous finished pieces.

While they do present a couple of challenges that need to be worked around, they let you make forms that you can’t otherwise get with a solid, inflexible object… especially one you’d rather not destroy trying to get the finished bowl off of it.

Test sheet for black papier maché smooth finish with pastels, colored pencil, oil pastel and chalk

After making and putting a smooth finish on bowls from the black papier maché clay recipe, the next thoughts turned to “How will I decorate these?”.

One of the ideas involved making a series of black and white bowls, with chalk or chalk-like designs on the outside. That (such a surprise) begged other questions…

Smooth finish for black papier maché clay with clear, matte acrylic spray

After experimenting with the recipe for a smooth, thick finish for the black papier maché clay, it was clear that the dry surface needed to be protected.

It scratched easily and left a fine black residue when it was wiped. I love the charcoal-like feel of the finish and wanted to keep that, as well as the matte look.

It’s a new life!

Return of the Cereal Box Liners

Papier Maché Clay – The Video, Part 3

Wrapping the Mold and Spreading the Papier Maché Clay

Papier Maché Clay – The Video, Part 2

Making the Clay and Choosing a Mold

Don’t Change Out of Your Grubby Clothes Yet!

Papier Maché Clay – The Video, Part 1

Tools, Ingredients and Preparing the Paper Pulp

We have the technology!

Use It Or Lose It – Black Papier Maché Clay Finish Coat Update

Surprise!

Make Polymer Clay Shape Cutters From Recycled Plastic Bottles

More Fun With Trash

Making Balloon Bowls with the New Papier Maché Clay Recipe

Some Decorative Drawing Materials For Black Papier Maché Clay

Protective Spray for the Black Papier Maché Clay Smooth Finish