1. Paint

You get what you pay for in this department. I use a mid-level brand (Grumbacher) that I’ve been pretty happy with, but I do find that I need to add more medium to get them to flow properly. With a 40% coupon at Michael’s I got a set of 10 for $35 in the basic colors. Then I purchased a few Winton color tubes separately for about $8 each.

2. Brushes

It’s nice to have a broad range of brushes for oils, and great to have a few with a longer handle for painting with your whole arm, which is very important. Synthetic or natural fiber brushes will do just fine.

I use mostly round and filbert brushes, and I like to have two of the same size of my favorites – one for painting and another to keep clean for blending or picking up paint.

Bright and flat brushes are also good to have – I’ve never used a fan brush so you might be able to skip that one. I also have one or two really tiny brushes for detailing.

3. Oil Medium

This is your replacement for turps and thinners. I use Refined Linseed Oil, but you could use Walnut oil, or really any type of oil medium. You will use this to thin your paint, prep your canvas, and clean your brushes.

4. Palette

A glass palette is my favorite because it’s clear and flat and super easy to mix colors on and even easier to clean – just use some pages from a phone book to wipe it clean! You could also use a disposable palette for convenience.

5. Rag

You will need a rag to wipe your brushes while painting, and you can also use it to clean your brushes of excess paint. An old cotton t-shirt works well for this.

6. Bar of Soap

A bar of soap with olive oil in it works best, which can be found at health food stores. This will be used to clean your brushes. Works like a charm and it’s completely safe!

7. Easel (Optional)

You don’t have to have this, but it does make painting so much easier than having to hunch over a desk. Not to mention dealing with glare from painting on a flat plane.

That’s it! Next week I’ll go into the basics of toning/priming your canvas and sketching out your subject. I hope if you’ve been intimidated by oils in the past, you will give it a try. Oils have become my absolute favorite medium. Until then! Have a great weekend.

Also, make sure you don’t miss the giveaway at the end of the post to win a risograph printed notebook specially made for our winner with one of Nancy’s designs. Enjoy!

1. What does art mean to you? Art means a few things to me but I think the most important is that art should stir something up inside you. I think good art and design should make you think, feel, ask questions, or solve problems. I’m a big fan of the aesthetic movement and in my slightly vain outlook art means the most to me when I consider it beautiful, I find beautiful art very peaceful. I remember seeing the Monet exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland when I was still in school. I was blown away at how beautiful his paintings were, that was enough for me!

2. What is one challenge you’ve overcome as an artist? I suppose being the sort of person that I am means I come across daily challenges. I try to have a good work ethic, and set my self lots of tasks. I do think however most of the time I end up giving my self too much work, but those manic moments make the little successes feel so much better! If I have to pin point the biggest challenge I have had to face, it would be the moment after I graduated art school, realising that you have to face the world with just you and your skills is a very scary concept. However there is something magical about being a creative, the fact that I am a textile designer is a wonderful thing and doing what I do feels very natural for me.

3. Describe one thing or person that has influenced your art the most. This is an easy one! Without a moments doubt I have to say its my Father. He was a wonderfully talented artist, photographer, designer, in fact everything. Not only was he incredibly creative but he was also a wonderful person. I doubt I’ll ever meet anyone else like him. I think he has influenced pretty much every thing I do, the good and the bad! Him and my Mother made the greatest power couple ever, and I think my brother and I owe them a lot for how they brought us up.

4. Name three artists that inspire you. This is a really tough one and I think I may have to cheat a little! The two main influences with regard to textiles would be Lotta Jansdotter and Lena Corwin. Both of these ladies are very talented textile designers, their books have been invaluable to my textile education. My talented creative friends are also very important to me, somehow I have managed to surround myself over the years with a great collection of extremely hard working and talented designers and I am very lucky to have them as my friends.

—-

Thank you Nancy! Now it’s giveaway time. To win this beautiful notebook, perfect for storing your thoughts for the new year, just leave a comment below on what kinds of amazing things you might record in these blank pages. A comment will be randomly selected one week from now. Good luck!

UPDATE: A winner has been randomly chosen…congratulations ESTHER comment #23! You will be a proud owner of a NS notebook. Thanks everyone for entering!

I first discovered my love for drawing in the 5th grade. I always just assumed I wasn’t good at it before then, and had other interests, so I hadn’t even tried. To my surprise, I wasn’t too bad. But after those classes – for some reason or another – I abandoned drawing, only to take it up sporadically in the years following.

So fast forward to last year, and I’ve been having the most unshakeable urge to paint and draw. After my drawing challenge last fall, I rediscovered my passion for it and have been shaking the dust off my rusty skills to see where it goes.

There is a local painter here in Oklahoma City, whose work captured me immediately when I saw it on display in a local art gallery. I recently met with her, and she told me the 5 words that gave me the push I needed – “you need to work hard.”

Understanding that I have to be willing to fail and create bad art while I learn, I’ve been painting with abandon. So I got out my oils the other day while the husband took the boys to the zoo. I created a decent painting, but I could not get her second eye right. So right now the painting looks like this:

And of course my dear husband (ever the comic) had to completely deface it by cutting an eye patch for her out of paper. Haha, honey. :)

I’m not sure where my art will take me in 2012, and I think I will always have a love for the craft arts and DIY projects I’ve done through the years, but be prepared to see more art related posts, as I pursue this passion that I just can’t ignore.

When Janet asked me a couple weeks ago to do some project illustrations for the December box of For the Makers, I jumped with excitement at the chance. I absolutely love the concept that her and Katie have come up with – a box of goodies shipped right to your door to get all crafty with. The projects and tutorials they provide are cute and stylish. Getting the box each month has been so fun – it’s like opening a little box of treasures.

Creating the illustrations was great. I can’t wait to do it next month! If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do that here. They make a great gift for the creative person in your life.

Photo courtesy of For the Makers

You probably already have the materials for it right in your backyard. If you are like me, you want to bring in the colors and textures of fall into your home, so I created these garlands with colorful dried fall leaves. The beauty of this idea is that you can use all the assorted shapes and colors that nature provides and combine them to create the look you want. The photo above gives you an idea of just some of the looks that you can achieve.

All you need is:
thread (I used metallic gold, which I would highly recommend)
dried leaves (you can dry and press leaves in between the pages of a heavy book – just make sure you leave them in there for at least a week)
needle
circle punch (optional for the circle garland)

The how-to is simple: just gather and arrange your dried leaves and begin “sewing” them onto your thread, leaving a long tail on both ends for hanging. After you thread each leaf, make a knot so it will stay put and not slide along the thread.

For the circle garland, just use a circle punch to punch the shapes out of the leaf. Then thread like above.

As for the fragility of the leaves, they held up very well with all my handling, windy photo conditions, and dropping them multiple times. You will want to handle them with care though if you want them to last longer than just one season.

Note: Our trees are just now beginning to turn, so I wasn’t able to find a whole lot of vivid colors – so I did some Photoshopping to make the colors more lively. :)

I’m a full-time mom of two boys, who are now 3 and 1.5. Needless to say, they keep me busy! Yet, I think about art every day. I think about painting every day. I yearn to bust out of bed every morning not to crying kiddos who want to be fed, but to an art easel with a blank canvas just waiting to be filled with the ideas that occupied my dreams.

I know this is just a season. Art is something I’ve learned to incorporate into my very demanding life as a mother – even if it’s just admiring and soaking in the beauty around me. But recently, I’ve just been unable to shake the need to draw. To not just hurriedly doodle an idea or image, but to really sit down and take some time to sketch. So I recently challenged myself after being inspired by a friend to a 30-day drawing challenge. It was just that, a challenge. My house got really messy – chores were neglected – but in those rare moments when a baby was napping or playing peacefully I would get out my sketch book and draw. Some drawings were short and hurried, some I was able to labor over the details. I didn’t make it 30 days straight. I skipped a day or two (or five) in between, but I managed to squeeze out about 20 drawings over a period of a couple months.

I wanted to share some of them with you. One in particular I’m making available as a free download, in case you like it. :) My oldest son does love to paint, and he will sit down with me for a good 20-30 minutes to create art. The colored background in this piece in particular was done with my son’s watercolors, then later that night when the boys were in bed, I quickly sketched the peafowl over it with ink. I like the pop of color. I hope you like it too!

Even more, I hope it inspires you to make time for what’s burning deep inside you – even if it means letting your house go to pot.

I remember seeing these amazing book sculptures by Lisa Occhipinti a while back – they were everywhere in the blogosphere, and I loved them. So I was delighted she emailed me recently to let me know about a new book she authored called, “The Repurposed Library.” In it are 33 projects to transform books into works of art. She is generously offering a project as a free PDF download from her book (located at the end of this post) and she even agreed to answer a few of my questions. I hope you enjoy!

1. What is your background and how did you get started doing book sculpture? I have a degree in fine art and taught college art for many years, while always maintaining studio practices. I am painter first and foremost and have always loved books since I was a child.  My book work began with studying traditional handmade binding techniques at the School of the Musuem of Fine Arts, Boston. I started to merge the processes in my painting with the structure of books by making artists books. This in turn led me to where I am now: transforming books. It is essential to me to maintain the integrity of their forms while venerating their attributes. Where others may see a stain on a cover, I see a story.

2. What is one challenge you’ve overcome as an artist? I have learned not to take criticism too seriously. It is a large task, putting your work, which is highly personal, out into the world and accessible to opinion.  But if you’re going to commit to art professionally you have to detach and continue to believe in what you do.

3. What does art mean to you? Art is a means of communication. The forms and processes are a physical platform which allow me to convey to the outer world what I think and feel is beautiful and important. As I am working art is the inner dialogue I have with myself, where I explore the things I think about. Whatever I make is a bridge between outer and inner. And when someone sees my work and is moved by it that is success.

Thank you Lisa! It was wonderful hearing from you. Readers, you can Download the free PDF here to make your own sewing box out of a book!

Photo credit – Carla Ten Eyck

1. Tell us about yourself and your background.
I am an artist/ designer/entrepreneur, born and raised in Mystic, Connecticut, now living in Austin, Texas. I began Paloma’s Nest in late 2007, and over the years it has blossomed into a family business that my husband (Jose, from Buenos Aires, Argentina) and I run together. We started as an online Etsy shop, and now sell our wares there as well as through palomasnest.com and our new brick & mortar locations in Austin and Chattanooga. I focus mainly on our ceramic and textile designs, while my husband is the woodworker. Paloma’s Nest is named after our daughter Paloma, who is almost 5 years old. “Paloma” means “dove” in Spanish.

Photo credit – Craig Paulson Photography

2. As an artist and entrepreneur, what gets you up every morning – what drives you?
The absolute privilege of living my dream everyday is what keeps me going. I see running a business and making a living from my art, with my husband by my side doing the same, as a great joy.

3. What are you most passionate achieving with your art form?
Creating pieces that will be passed on to future generations is what I am most passionate about. Just imagining a piece that we craft today being in the hands of someones great-great grandchild, years from now, is what drives me to create timeless designs that will look as elegant and pure in 100 years as they do today.

4. You create beautiful handmade “modern heirlooms” – how did you find your niche or have you always worked with ceramics?
I discovered ceramics while studying art and design in college, and was immediately drawn to the medium as a way to create tangible pieces that one could interact with in daily life. I have always been fascinated with the concept of heirlooms, and I have always collected antiques and vintage pieces. I am fascinated with pieces that hold their history, things that seem to have a story to tell. By working text into my designs, I am able to add an instant element of story telling- whether it is a clients’ love poem, or a piece commemorating a special day.

5. What are some obstacles you’ve overcome along the way?
Fear. I think anyone who has made the commitment to make a living from their art, or to be an entrepreneur of any kind, has to overcome an amount of emotional concern or self-doubt. Can we really do this? Will it work? Can we raise a family this way? Fear can be paralyzing, and a real hurdle in the creative process. For me, I try to balance this natural fear by keeping busy- always having a new project, developing new ideas. Action breeds action. This lifestyle is a leap of faith, but once you take that leap you never look back. We have no regrets!

6. Lastly, what does art mean to you?
“My art is my life. My life is my art.” – Henri Matisse

—-

Thank you so much Caroline for taking part in this series. I absolutely loved hearing from you. The best to you and all your endeavors…and your new little one on the way!

Here is all you need: Vitamin D milk, food coloring and dish soap.

What to do: Pour in a little milk into the bottom of a shallow dish

With food coloring, put in drops of different colors in the milk

Then take dish soap and put a small drop in the middle of the food coloring.

You should immediately see the milk react and begin to disperse the food coloring in a colorful display. It’s like a tiny living ocean of color.

Originally I came across the idea via Household Hacker. Here is their explanation of how it works:

Food coloring is less dense than the milk itself – so it remains suspended within the fat molecules of the milk the soap breaks up the fat and lets it spread across the surface of the milk. As they break and expand, they create movement in the milk, and pull the coloring along for the ride.

I don’t know who had more fun, me or my toddler!

So beautiful and intriguing how it all works. I hope you go try it for yourself!

Download the PDF print here. It’s in 8.5 x 11 size and you can either print it at home, or take it somewhere to get it professionally done.

If you have free art downloads, let me know about them – I’d love to share them here! Also if you end up using this, I’d love to see photos of it hanging in your space.