Pencil shavings art

A while back I got a bunch of Prismacolor colored pencils and sharpened them all, resulting in a large pile of very colorful pencil shavings. It was so pretty I took a picture of it (several pictures, actually with the shavings in different configurations). After seeing this art, I wish I had kept some of it in one of the cute little glass jars I have. Guess I can always sharpen more pencils...

This reminds me of the little game that I had when I was little - Wooly Willy where you had a board with a printed face and a magnetic 'pencil' which would pick up small black metal shavings that you arrange on the printed face to make eyebrows, beards, mustaches, etc.

Speaking of Wooly Willy, here are some instructions on how to make your own Wooly Willy table using an Ikea Lack table and Ribba frame (both pretty inexpensive). You could obviously change the image from the bald-headed man to anything else that would be fitting - how about a fashion doll and you use the magnetic shavings to design clothing on her?

See more of the pencil shaving portraits on Design Boom.

Yay! I got my first mail art!

Getting good mail when you go to your mailbox is the best thing! Today was a good mail day for me - I received my first mail art! It came from Pamela in SF, whom I sent mailart to about a week or so ago. She made a cool envelope that was Japanese themed - it had cute sushi tape on it and some washi tape. Inside was a collection of various Chinese red money envelopes, some joss paper, a vintage envelope and a couple of handwritten letters, one of which was written on the cutest stationery. I love it! I can't wait to get more mail art! Thank you, Pamela!

Send mail art to get mail art. Make Every Day a Good Mail Day is where I found out about mail art and found some mail artists to write to. Make sure to take a peek at Pamela's blog - she sends and receives a lot of mail art and you'll love looking at it all on her blog.
 

More street painting pics

 

 

 

 Here are a few more pictures of us out at the Temecula Street Painting festival doing the art thing. More details later...

Street painting festival

The Temecula Street Painting Festival is held in Old Town Temecula every June. We have been going for the past four years as spectators, enjoying watching the artists at work. This year I participated in the event and painted one of my "dolls" with a quote that I love: the eARTh without "ART" is just "eh".

It was a great day. Lots of fun and I especially loved that many friends came by to say hi, and a few even stayed to help!

I will post more about the actual process in a followup post when I am not on my iPad.

Have you ever been to a street painting festival or participated in any kind of art event?

Mail art time!

So, for a while I've been interested in the concept of mail art. A while back I purchased Good Mail Day and  Mail Me Art and have looked through and read both several times, enjoying the pictures of the cool mail art. I have amassed a nice bit of ephemera and scraps and yesterday made some of my very first official mail art which I promptly put in the post today. If you aren't familiar with mail art, one of the most important rules is that if you receive mail art you should send something back in return. So, I am looking forward to getting some cool mail art back in my mailbox. Hopefully soon!

The top photo shows two pieces that I am sending off to a couple of mailartists. Sometimes mail art is just that - mail art on envelopes with nothing inside. Sometimes you write a letter and include some ephemera. Both of these envelopes are filled with stuff from my stash. I hope the recipients like it. The top envelope was just a folded up map from our day trip to the San Diego zoo with an address label that I designed and stuff collaged on it. The bottom one is a security envelope from some junk mail that I undid and re-glued inside out. I put in a map of the San Diego zoo (yes, I grabbed a few sheets of those maps - perfect for collaging!) and some of the labels that I made, among other stuff. Below shows another envelope made from paper I designed with stuff collaged on it. The 'letters lift spirits' is from a vintage stamp (I think from the 70s or 80s) that I found in my postage stamp stash. I might make a sticker with those words on it to use in future mailings.

Paper is some that I designed and printed out, made into an envelope and then collaged on some images I had from a notepad and a magazine.

 I've already made several other envelopes that I am going to send to more mail art friends. If you are interested in learning more, check out Every day should be a Red Letter Day  - Jennie Hinchcliff's blog (author of Good Mail Day). She has links to more sites on her blog. Good stuff!

My daughter now wants me to send her some mail art. I told her she has to send me or someone else some first. :)

When was the last time you sent someone a letter?

Good Bot, Bad Bot

I'm a fan of Sharpies, especially nice pointy new juicy ones! I'm saving this idea for a rainy day - this artist named Gary Hirsch makes bots using oil-based paint Sharpie markers. They are cute! And I'm a fan of robots too - simply because they are easy to draw or doodle and you can use your imagination and create them any way you want - just like Gary has done! Read all about Gary and his art on the Sharpie blog:
Good Bot, Bad Bot

Mehndi decorated cookies

A canvas can be made out of anything - how about a cookie? This recipe shows you how to make a spice cookie in the shape of a hand and you decorate it with Mehndi designs! I haven't tried the recipe yet, but it looks pretty good. Maybe we'll do these next time there's a rainy day! See the recipe and instructions at Sprinkle Bakes