more printmaking
October 10th, 2009 kellyschnellStill loving my printmaking class – these are the latest monotypes, made with bits of lace, hand-cut stencils, and baking powder.
buds:
ghost tree:
checkers:
hexagons:
lace:
Next up: relief prints.
a record of what i am learning|thinking|creating
printmaking 101
September 26th, 2009 kellyschnellI had my first printmaking class at a local art school on Thursday and loooooved it. We will be learning several different printmaking methods over the next 8 weeks, and we started this week with monotype printing. Paint is rolled onto a plate of plexiglass and overlaid with any stencils, and the image is then rolled onto a sheet of paper using the printing press. I love the little imperfections that result from the process – it’s good for me to have to relinquish some control with my art. And the fact that I showed up to class without the faintest idea of what we’d be doing and walked out of there with several prints four hours later made me quite happy – below are my faves.
faux bois:
branches and lace:
drippy silhouette:
I’m on the lookout now for fabrics/objects/textures that I can bring to class with me next week. Feels good to be back in the creative saddle!
completed: chunky gray cowl and seed stitch scarf
August 8th, 2009 kellyschnellI had been on a bit of a knitting hiatus lately, but with the onset of the slightly cooler weather, I was motivated to finally finish these two project which have been sitting in my knitting basket for months.
The scarf was knitted with a thick wool yarn, stranded with a sparkly thread-like ribbon. Seed stitch, 13 stitches across, size 15 needles.
The cowl was knitted with a chunky silver-gray acrylic yarn. Stockinette stitch, size 13 circular needles, cast on 60 stitches and knit round and round…
summer pie
July 11th, 2009 kellyschnellSince I want to wait until apple season to recreate the pie that we loved last fall, I’ve been looking for some good in-season desserts to share with friends and guests. This recipe from Everyday Food caught my eye, and since we had a couple of pounds of strawberries in the fridge, so I decided to give it a try:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, blend graham crackers with 2 tablespoons sugar until finely ground; add butter and pulse until crumbs are moistened. Press mixture into the bottom and up the side of a 9-inch pie plate. Bake until crust is lightly browned, 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine 3/4 cup sugar, cranberry juice, 2 cups strawberries, cornstarch, and salt. Using a potato masher, gently mash strawberries. Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring frequently, until very thick, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Stir in remaining strawberries. Pour into cooled pie crust. Refrigerate until set, at least 4 hours (or up to 1 day).
In a large bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over cream and continue to beat until soft peaks return (do not overbeat). Spread whipped cream over pie, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border around edge. Garnish with whole berries.
Looking forward to slicing into this one with friends tonight! Have I mentioned how much I adore summer and all its goodness?
backyard kitchen
June 14th, 2009 kellyschnellI’ve often wished that Shane had more of an interest in meal preparation, and yesterday I discovered the secret to stimulating his enthusiasm for cooking. We’ve been talking about buying a grill for a couple of years, and yesterday we took the plunge and picked up a great four-burner gas grill to call our own. The fact that Shane was up until midnight last night assembling all 4000 of the grill’s pieces told me that he was excited about the prospect of playing the role of backyard chef.
We decided to take the easy route for our first grilled meal and threw some bratwursts on the grill for lunch. I wrapped a couple of ears of corn in foil and put them on as well. Grilled meal #1 was a success. For dinner, we stepped up our game a bit and put a nice thick filet of beef on the grill, along with some potato wedges brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with rosemary, and wrapped in foil. This was trickier – a steak is so easily under or over-cooked. We decided to err on the side of rare, but after we’d brought the meat in, let it rest for a few minutes, and then sliced into it, we found we’d erred too far – the steak was far too rare in the middle (“still mooing”, as some would say). But the edges were perfect, so we at least got to enjoy a few tender, juicy bites. Lesson learned. Tomorrow we try pork, then fish later in the week. Looks like this is going to be one heck of a meat-filled summer – I better start Googling those recipes for grilled vegetable skewers…
still playing with my food
March 21st, 2009 kellyschnellBelow are a few more food paintings, done for my art class which ended on Thursday. It’s fun being “outside the box”. My mind is still brimming with all kinds of new possibilities.
This one was done on rice paper, with curry powder sprinkled over tea and a small seaweed accent (can you tell I went a little crazy at the Asian food store?).
Pod outlined in tea on soy paper (I totally scored when I found these brightly colored wrappers) and sprinkled with cinnamon.
Flower shape cut with an X-acto knife out of dried seaweed. Smells fishy, but looks pretty.
Seed shape painted with red wine and dashed with cinnamon, for good measure.
Seed outlined in pencil (I cheated a little), filled in with olive oil, and dotted with soy sauce. Simple, but the color of oil-soaked paper is beautiful.
Rice paper soaked in water, dribbled with soy sauce, and laid out to dry. I love the translucency of the paper and the way it wrinkled and cracked.
Lemon slices soaked in wine and used as a stamp.
I’m ready to switch back to regular paints for awhile now, but I expect I’ll revisit edible art-ing again someday. It’s good when art-making feels like playing.
(do) play with your food
February 22nd, 2009 kellyschnellI’m taking a class on abstract drawing and painting at a local art school on Thursday nights and have recently been introduced to some really fun, new ways of making art. Case in point: My assignment for the next 4 weeks is to make at least 10 drawings out of edible materials. I am using patterns found in nature as my source of inspiration, and these two pieces are the start of my tasty little collection.
The first drawing is a blow-up of the shell of a foxglove seed (I found a fantastic book that has beautiful microscopic photos of plant matter). I used a paintbrush dipped in Diet Coke to fill in the solid areas, then sprinkled the drawing with salt. This has faded a lot as it has dried, but I kind of like the mix of subtle color and gritty texture.
The second is a cross-section of a pomegranate. For this one, I painted the core with tea, then sprinkled with paper with cinnamon, which stuck to any of the wet areas. The texture and color remind me of rust. Cool.
I never knew there were so many art supplies to be found in our kitchen cupboards! Olive oil, molasses, corn meal, the possibilities are endless… Stay tuned for more savory drawings.
completed: soft alpaca blend neckwarmer
February 1st, 2009 kellyschnellI haven’t been much into knitting lately – seems my focus is more on reading and studying these days, but still, I wanted to post a quick update on the projects I finished up last month.
This neckwarmer was a quick project, fun because it was a stitch pattern I’d never seen before. I got the pattern from Ravelry and used a double strand of really soft alpaca blend yarn. In retrospect, I wish I’d used a chunkier yarn so that the neckwarmer would stand up and hold its shape more (same problem I had with the cowl I made a few months ago), but then again, it does drape nicely this way. I’ve been keeping my eyes out for cool big buttons so that I can crank out a couple more of these when I have more time – they’d make great gifts. Or, if they happen to end up on my own scarf rack, so be it, because a girl can never have too many neckwarmers, right?
d-i-y calendar
January 18th, 2009 kellyschnellI didn’t make it out to buy our 2009 calendar before we began our January shopping fast, and so I was faced with creating my own solution. A little Excel magic, a frustrating bout with our printer, some doodling with ink and paint, and voila! It’s nice to have something that is completely personalized – I did the month names in French as a little vocab lesson for Shane, and the graphics for each month are tied to an anticipated event or a mood (hence the simplicity of the graphic for frugal January and the Eiffel Tower doodle for the month of March). It’s no Nikki McClure calendar (which served us well in 2008), but I’m pretty happy with the results. Another tribute to “making do” with the resources we have at hand.
completed: little hat for a little girl
January 4th, 2009 kellyschnellThis knitted hat for Elise was the last of my handmade Christmas gifts. This project took a couple of tries. My first attempt at a baby hat ended up looking more like a baby yamika – it was much smaller than anticipated and would never had stayed on a busy, moving baby like Elise. I erred in the other direction with try number two and the hat actually ended up being quite a bit bigger than planned, but she’ll grow into it.
For now, if nothing else, she has plenty of fun trying it on and pulling it off and tugging on it every which way. Pretty adorable.
Made with a really soft, washable acrylic-wool blend; pattern found in Knitting for Baby by Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas.