Another Year Over.

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Glittery Snowflake hanging ornaments

Oversized gift tag

In my last post, I was bemoaning the speed with which Thanksgiving was approaching. Well, now Hanukkah and Christmas have come and gone and New Year's Eve is upon us. Am I the only one who thinks this year went by with blinding speed? At the Dorchester Senior Citizens Center, they have a party at the drop of a hat so the holidays were just another reason to turn on the music and dance. In between the music and the revelry, we managed to find time to craft a thing or two.

Oversized gift tag

The group displays their reindeer cards.

We began the winter crafting with glittery snowflake hanging ornaments. These were hung around the center when completed. The snowflakes were followed by oversized gift tags the featured a three dimensional Christmas tree complete with rhinestone baubles and a glittery star on top. Christmas crafting wouldn't be complete without a Christmas card so we made one with a reindeer sporting beautiful curlicue antlers that were glittered to make them really stand out.

JoAnne Biswakarma, DSCC director,
livens up the party with confetti.

Curlicue Reindeer Christmas Cards

Once Christmas crafting was over, we focused on the new year, creating a hand held sign a festive Happy New Year on one side and glittery stars adorning the back. A New Years party, complete with music, dance and confetti, was held at the center during our craft class and the joyous soca rhythms were a happy distraction. Everyone danced a bit, sat down and made a hand sign, then got up and danced some more. Many thanks to JoAnne Biswakarma and the wacky sense of humor she brings to every Dorchester Senior event. She really livens up the party.

Happy New Year hand held signs

It's time to party!

Here's to another year over and a new one just begun. Happy 2018, everyone! See you again next year.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Full Circle: Lovely as a Tree

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The card featured here was the prototype for a birthday card for my daughter's friend, someone whom she describes as a "tree lover" so she wanted the focal image of the card to be that of a tree. She had seen and liked several tree sketches I had done with oil pastels on the paper I use to protect my worktable. I had been testing several different packs of pastels to determine their viability so I just used the paper that was in front of me. They were only "throw-away" sketches to me (see below) but she liked them enough to "commission" me to draw a tree for her friend's card.

I created the tree on white vellum using Prismacolor fine line markers for the trunk and branches and Sakura Cray-Pas for the leaves, blending the leaf colors with a small wad of paper toweling barely dampened with mineral spirits. I was going to leave it at that but the tree seemed to beg for more surroundings. I started by simply filling in the foreground with regular Prismacolor markers to create the grass, adding details with the fine point markers. Before I knew it, I had created this entire country scene complete with barbed wire fencing and tiny little wildflowers. I added background details with colored pencils and used oil pastels on the back side of the vellum to create a soft sky and clouds. Drawing on the back side softens the effect of the color and also prevents smearing of or blending with the leaves of the tree. (Click on the pictures to see a larger image.)

When I was done I realized that I had combined many of the traditional materials and techniques I had been taught as an art student years ago with the materials and techniques I have recently learned as a papercrafter. It was a very gratifying experience and I was quite pleased with the outcome. Not so, apparently, for my daughter. She loved the scene but said it was not what she wanted for her friend. She wanted the rough draft tree she had seen on my workshop table. So be it. I recreated the rough tree on another card. She put the finishing touches on it and gave it to her friend at school. She reported that he loved his tree card. Although I was initially disappointed that my scene was not to my daughter's liking, it actually turned out to be to my advantage. Now I get to keep the card that was so gratifying to make and draw further inspiration from it.

My present avocation is bringing me right back around to my past training. This grounds me, makes me feel more secure. Life, when it works, truly is a circle.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Asian Influence

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I have always had an affinity for Asian cultures, especially Asian decorative motifs. I recently joined the Oriental Stamp Arts Yahoo group (OSA) and have been inspired by the beautiful artwork created by its members. This week I have begun working on Mother's Day cards with a decidedly Asian flavor.

The first card began with a self-imposed challenge to use a Cuttlebug® die to create something other than for what it was intended . Using the 4-pointed blossom from Cuttlebug's 2x6 Flower die #37-1508 (indicated with a red arrow in the illustration at left), I cut several flowers from a green-gold iridescent vellum, then used the inner cut-outs as leaves for the stylized tree. (I'll save the flower petals for another project.) I also punched small blossoms from the CB 2-step Paisley die in gold foil, then drew in a slender trunk and branches for the tree. An elegant Asian woman was stamped under the tree and colored with water color pencils. The card appeared to lack something so I began to draw in some details by hand and didn't stop until I had created an entire background scene. Two hand fans were stamped on the inside front of the card, also colored with water color pencils. The edge was colored with a marker, deliberately dragging it to give a ragged appearance. This card is a departure from my usual style in that it has very few layers (only two -- leaves and blossoms) and is predominantly hand drawn.

The second card is a variation of a prize winning ATC design I created for a vendor challenge some time ago. I'll give the details of its construction in the next posting.

Thanks for stopping by. I'd love to hear what you think of this post. Please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

(Cuttlebug is a registered trademark of Provo Craft and Novelty, Inc. All rights reserved.)