Crystal Bridges, Revisited

It's been a year since Crystal Bridges opened.  Since we had no schedule conflicts we decided to take a day to revisit the museum.

The aluminum tree in front of the museum gives a wintery feeling. I don't have any information about the artist or the piece itself.  I need to do some research.

 

The exterior of the facility has changed.  The water feature has been installed. 

 

 

 

 

The entrance is an example of conflicting directions: 

 

 

 

 

 

There were less people in the museum on this visit,  but it wasn't empty by any means.  There was a class field trip and  some families and a number of individuals.  Each room had one or more volunteers to help answer any questions visitors had.

Claes Oldenburg's Alphabet/Good Humor is in the coffee shop-restaurant.

Thomas Moran painted  scenery from the American West. I saw an exhibit of his work at the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa  years ago when I attended an exhibit of Turner watercolors.

Kindred Spirits by Asher Brown Durand

Ecorche Relief of The Horse Josephine. 

Thomas Eakins. Eakins' bronze horse is very different compared to the more contemporary Redstick (see below).

Redstick. Bronze.  2007. Deborah Butterfield

Red Flower by Joseph Stella.  The image seemed much brighter then it appears in the photo.

Dale Chilhuly. Neon Sculpture. This was part of an exhibit featuring works of light.

Old Barn of Sheephead Bay Oscar Bluemener.  For some reason, this work reminds me of Van Gogh.

 

The Modern Art room had  works by Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein.

Another exhibit featured works by  Crystal Bridges architect Moshe Safdie. This is a model of the National Gallery of Canada.

New Projects

New Projects

I've been busy with several online classes. I just finished Cindy Moyer's Violet Shadows .  It was a three week class and gave me an opportunity to experiment with Glimmer Mist and Creative Paperclay.  I had most of the basic materials on hand (a benefit of doing a lot of  projects.  

More recently I've been involved in a 5 week class with Susan Barmore,  Steampunk Wenzel.  It's been a lot of fun.  I am still working on the truck, a task involving foam core, poster paper,  a soda can, wooden wheels, acrylic paint, alcohol based inks,  metallic tape, and spray paint.  Here's the project about two weeks into the class:

I enrolled for Noel, Lillian and Max, and Making Animal Pull Toys. Each class teaches me something new and I've enjoyed them all.

I'm Finished Horsing Around

My Equestrienne 2  is finally finished (almost)!  I am still uncertain about the white base.  However I did promise an update  and here it is: 

I think it turned out well, but then I've always liked horses.

The Elusive Butterfly is almost finished.  But I haven't  worked on it in a while.  

My Yvette project is still where I can look at it and think about what I need to do.  I won't say I'll never finish it, but I have other things that have a higher priority.

Quilt Festival Pet Project Postcard

International Quilt Festival/Houston, launched the first of three Festival Pet Projects, so last week I stopped working on dolls and took some time to do a fabric postcard:

 

The project was fairly simple. I copied a sketch of Fluffy,  one of our rescue cats and reduced the image so it would fit in a 4" x 6" fabric rectangle.  Next I traced the image on freezer paper,  heat set it on the light blue fabric,  and fused the trimmed image to background with Pellon Wonder Under.  

I created a "quilt sandwich": muslin backing, thin quilt batting and the cat image. The embellishment was a combination of free-motion qulting, hand quilting and an embroidered outline.  The finished quilt was backed with another piece of dark blue fabric.

I mailed the postcard to Houston on Friday. Here's hoping it arrives in time and someone likes it enough to buy it.

Update on Projects

I've been working on my three art projects for a while now and felt it was time for an update.

Equestrienne 2:  The doll is finished, except for a touch-up on her Lumiere shoes.  The muslin face I made worked well, just as well as the Dolskin I should have used.
 
                       

The horse is still in construction.  I've been covering small areas of the armature with Claycrete, then letting it dry, so I only work on it every couple of days. There is still several more days of work.



Elusive Butterfly: Almost done.  I made the sunflowers with cheesecloth dyed with Sun Yellow  DyeNaFlow,  then glued jute circles in the center. The flowers were glued to florist stems.  The finished flowers were set in the base.  The hat was decorated with ribbon. The doll was glued to the base.


I still need to finish the shawl and add the butterfly.


Yvette: No pictures for now.   I haven't done much with Yvette... just a quick glance when I pick up one of the other projects.  Each time I look, I realize I am not happy with the face; so I plan on redoing the head.  After some searching, I did find some fabric I think will make nice clothing, but I'm still a long way from finishing her.

Demon Cat, one of a group of feral cats living in the neighborhood sit atop of a dilapidated garage, watching the activites and waiting for someone to feed him.

Horsing Around

      

    Here's the horse armature, the wires filled out with 

   aluminum foil, secured with masking tape, and glued to 

   base I bought at Hobby Lobby, after deciding none of

   my scrap lumber was suitable.

     It's ready to paper mache!

 

Horse of a different color--eventually.

To go with my Equestrienne 2 doll, I have to sculpt a horse from wire, aluminum foil, masking tape and Celluclay.

 

Here's my early steps. I'm interested in how the finished horse turns out.

This reminds me of Dan Reeder's  Paper and Cloth Mache projects.  His works are quirky,  fun and good for all ages. (Oops, the teacher in me is trying to sneak out.)

Joggles has listed Fall Online Classes!  Now I can pick the classes I want to take and whittle down the list to one or two. Looks like a lot of fun!
  

Mistake or a Different Path?

I don't seem to be able to keep working on one class project lately, so a the moment, I'm working on three:  Cindee Moyee's Equestrienne II and Elusive Butterfly and Edwina Sutherland's Yvette, A Costumed Lady.  Each one is different and uses different techniques.   I'm enjoying myself despite the occasional guilty feeling I experience because I'm behind in three online classes simultaneously.

Equestrienne II is almost done

I've done several of Cindee Moyer's online classes; enough to be ready to try variations of the instructions she gives.  Rather than dupioni silk, for the doll's bodice, I used a scrap of  Pink Gold Purple Hologram Stretch Lycra Fabric. Since the fabric did stretch, I backed it with muslin to prevent an overstuffed  Equestrienne.  The resulting body looks good.

My mistake happened when I made the head. Rather than using doll skin, which is what Cindee Moyer usually uses, I used a scrap of muslin.  I've used both muslin and doll skin on various projects, so I'm familiar with both.  My only concern about using muslin on this project is that the fabric will not stretch enough when it is stuffed.  However, since the head is sewn and ready to stuff and I'm already behind in my class,  I may as well see how a muslin head turns out.

Elusive Butterfly is coming along nicely.

Once I finish the Equestrenne doll, I'll need to sculpt a horse.

At the moment, Yvette is a naked, bald doll.

Elusive Butterfly, continued

 I have my lesson loaded on my Ipad, my sewing machine, a pair of sissors, a box of pins, and the Runt (my cat). Ready to sew!




Arms, Legs, and Dress


I chose some fabric for her stockings and her dress making sure the fabric harmonizes with the base. I was a little concerned that the print was too large on the dress, but it seemed to work.




Rather than tracing around the pattern pieces, I again used freezer paper. I feel it works better than tracing on darker fabric.




The legs were easy to assemble, despite having to stuff around the dowels.  






I referred to my notes from Handling Hands with Judy Skeel .  It includes tips and techniques that help me with making hands right the first time, rather than remaking hands from scratch (scraps?), when I run into a problem.  Of course, I ran into a problem....turning tiny fingers are a problem. With patience and persistence the fingers were turned.



I attached arms and legs to the body.

 I drilled 2 holes in the base to pose the doll. After auditioning the first pose, I drilled another to adjust the stance...the dress will cover the extra hole.


Once I got the dress finished, I realized the print was not too large and looks great with the sleeves and legs. 




I still haven't glued the doll to the base.  It's easier to work this way. 








It's time to start working on extras!

The Elusive Butterfly

Week 1 continued: Constructing the head and body

I did not photograph a number of the steps.

 Step 1:  I traced the head and body on freezer paper, using my black fine-line Pilot pen, then pressed the freezer paper patterns to pieces of Dolskin knit and muslin.

Step 2.  I sewed the head and body following the lines on the freezer paper, then trimmed 1/16 inch from the seam line, and removed the freezer paper. Time to turn the head and body right side out and stuff firmly.

Step 3.  I drew facial features lightly with a mechanical pencil. Taking quilting thread and a 4 inch needle, I sculptured the face. I attached the sculptured head to the muslin body,  then I applied Aleen's  Fabric Stiffener to the sculptured head.

Step 4.  After tea-dying a quarter yard of cotton crinkle gauze, I cut a 6 inch square of fabric.  After applying Sobo Premium Craft and Fabric Glue in a thin layer over the face and under the chin, and covered the face with the crinkle gauze, stretching and molding the gauze to the face.  The covered face was  allowed to dry.

Step 5.  Using pencils, pens, colored chalks,  and acrylic paint, I added the features.  The face was too dark compared to the muslin neck and body, so I took a remnant of tea-dyed crinkle gauze and stretched it over the neck and upper body.

Ready for Week 2!