Mask Submission: Ft. Collins Museum Gallery

At long last the show has opened and the masks are on display! Now I can finally reveal my submission...

I collaborated on this project with graphic designer Steven Held. We were inspired by a poem I wrote last spring.

The sky weeps while flowers unfold below.

Who would have thought

such sorrow could sustain –

could bring the weary grass

back to her feet again

in glorious, green, exuberance.

To create the pond we used clear casting resin and for the trees we used wool to echo the crochet work in the clouds. We made the grass out of several types of moss.

From Fountain to Fruition: More Fairy Gardening

This past summer, I designed a small fountain for Fairy Gardening. Recently, I received the first prototype from their manufacturer. It works well and it looks great in my garden. However there are still a few kinks to work out. The owners would like it to make more of a bubbling or trickling sound (right now it's silent). For functionality's sake, they also decided that it would be better to have a separate battery pack which would make the fountain easier to turn on and off when it's in the garden. And last but not least, we decided that the stones would look more natural if they were different colors. To see how it would look, I painted the prototype.  

The photos below were taken after I painted the stones. 

Originally they were all the same color. 

Pastels On 5th Fundraiser

This past Saturday I created a sidewalk painting on behalf of Fairy Gardening for Loveland's Pastels On 5th Fundraiser. This was only the event's second year running but it went off without a hitch and it was well attended. Lots of locals came to watch us work. There was a silent auction, art/crafts vendors and a variety of live performers.

For my first attempt at sidewalk art, I thought it went really well. Fortunately, I was able to find some great advice online about technique and supplies.

First I started out by making a grid, so that it would be easier to transfer my drawing. Then I drew outlines and blocked in all the large areas with base colors (thank goodness Steven was there to help me -- it took forever to make everything look solid).

To get the pastel pigment to sit down in the grit of the pavement, we smudged it and wet it down with a paint brush and squirt bottle. 

Once all the base colors were in, I added highlights, shadows and the details. 

To finish it off we outlined everything in black to make the drawing look more clean and distinct.

For more information about the event, visit the website: http://wp.pastelson5th.org/

Here are a few other squares that I particularly liked:

A nod to Georgia O'Keeffe - it must have taken several layers of pastel to get this color so crisp and solid:

The pop-out perspective style:

My favorite - SO beautiful:

Ice - SCREAM!

There was even a place for kids to participate:

Fairy Gardening

For those of you confused or curious about the "fairy garden" concept, here are a few photos of the plants, products and of course the tags that I've drawn for Rabbit Shadow Greenhouse and Fairy Gardening.

These are some of the miniature "Fairy Flower" plants. For each, I drew a unique fairy based on poetry written by the owner (Emily Sorenson). When coming up with ideas for a fairy, I try to take into account the plant's distinct attributes and native origin (though, that is not always possible because many are hybrids). Also most of the wings are based on actual butterflies from this great site: World Butterfly Index.

This is one of the box kits that can be purchased for the mini garden. The kit comes with a basic set of accessories (furniture, pebbles and path stones) but there are a variety of other pieces that can be purchased separately. 

Of course the plants and accessories also can be arranged in any nook or container... 

I think the purse is especially creative.

The plants are purchased separately from the kits, so the overall design of each is completely up to the buyer. 

As of right now, I have drawn 40 different fairies. Hopefully the business will continue to grow and I will be commissioned to draw a line of herb and succulent fairies as well. In the more immediate future, the owners are looking into using my drawings to create figurines for the gardens.

Basil

African Violet

Sensitive Plant (this one reacts to touch)

Sample Tags:

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