Power-Saw to the People

So I was thinking of what craft item is on the docket for tonight, and nothing came to mind. My brains are feeling a little mushy. It's been a long week of testing at school, and the Winter Carnival decorating crew met today after school (yes, we are getting a early jump on our gym decorations).

That said,  I did finish a sample project today  for art appreciation that I think came out pretty cool. One student was begging for it when I was done with the project ( a good indication of coolness.) Recently in class We've been discussing the Pop Art movement and silk screening and not surprisingly the artist Shepard Fairey was brought up. I find it very interesting how many students love this artist and respond to his art. I usually make a point of showing some of Shepard Fairey's work at the end of my Pop Art Power point and we typically just talk about his process and methods of working. This year I decided to add a project to the Pop Art unit and have students make a Fairey inspired piece.

Shepard Fairey- War by Numbers

Three years ago I had the pleasure of seeing this gentleman's work at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (a big thanks to N. Liss for the suggestion) and initially hadn't realized how involved the original pieces were. Each piece has multiple layers of collage and printing before the final stenciled images are printed on. For example on the portrait of  President Obama has many layers of news print, classing wall paper pattern, and other images embeded into the back ground. Fariey's collages are carefully assembled, and the visiable words reinforce the message he is trying to communicate.All of the prints that resemble wall paper are actually pieces of hand made paper made also made by Fairey.



Below is an interview of the Artist in his studio.

Shepard Fairey- Hope

Shepard Fairey- Big Brother College on Paper

My students are now following this process of creating a collage on a canvas, painting over the canvas with a paint wash, and then either painting a graphically inspired image, or silk screening a final image on top. As of right now most students have finished the collage and the paint wash and will start stenciling tomorrow. Based on the work done so far I am hopeful to have some very nice results. I'll try to get an image of the sample piece I completed up tomorrow, and maybe some finished student pieces up next week.

Stay tuned for more art work!

If you'd like to see more of Shepard Fairey's work
his website can be found here,

As for the rest of my night, I'm planning on playing some FB scrabble, and working on the scarf I posted about a couple days ago while watching Season 5 of Dexter. Murders and knitting what a night!

Digital Pics. on Parade

So tonight segment's will be about digital photography. First, a few things about my love/hate relationship with photography: I love capturing moments in time, but I hate uploading images to the web, I love editing photos in Photoshop, but I get easily daunted when I have too many images to get though (ahem..my wedding photos- still working on them) .

I'm still learning all the time, and I think I have drastically improved now that I've actually started really looking through the view finder before I click away.

Like allot of my crafting skills I picked up Photography as a hobby, and until recently, I was happily snapping photos for albums oblivious to what generally makes a decent photo. I though people who have the "eye" for photography were gifted (like my little sister) and I would spend the rest of my days taking nice but mediocre images.

I first started taking my Photography a little more seriously when I moved to Woodsville, NH and as the high school art teacher had to teach Photography as a course. To be honest I was terrified. I hadn't thought of Photography seriously since high school, and now I was required to teach Photography to teenagers, Ug. The summer before my first year at WHS I spent many hours reading books on photography, looking at images on the web, and reading lot of online tutorials, and these are a few of the tips that I have been able to use to create more dynamic and interesting images.

1. Focus on the subject- close in on what you want to be the main topic of the image, and cut out the rest
2. The rule of thirds (Google it) If you cut your image in thirds in both directions and place your subject matter on a cross section it'll automatically add interest to your image
3. Contrast & Value- make sure you have a wide range of values from black to white.
4. Change your angle look at something in a new way.
5. Notice the small things.  There is beauty all around it's just right under our noses.

Below is a small selection of some of my favorite images from this summer! Enjoy!

Butterflies in my Mom's butterfly bush.

The new hydranga just turning blue.

Apple stand from and out last fall.

Portrait of Mel, from a day at the coast.

Sail boat caught with the zoom lens.

Inside of a hot air balloon from the festival in Pittsburg this year.

Just a bump.

Center Sky looking up.

Early morning walk at Hampton Beach.

Sand texture

More sand.

Rainbow in Warren, NH

Mr. Harry

Poke Cake Experiment

Tonight's activity: Cherry poke cake.
In case you have never experienced poke cake, it is a vanilla cake with holes poked in and Jello drizzled over the top. I have never had poke cake myself, but this is my husband's special request for his birthday.
Wish me luck.


Check out the recipe here
 ________________________________________
Ok, results of the Poke cake. Big learning curve here.Once upon a time I was a cake decorator at Hannaford's grocery store and typically you would flip a cake so that the flat side is on top creating a flatter cake. As I discovered last night if you do this and then pour Jello on  the cake there is no seal on the bottom of the cake to keep the Jello from absorbing into the whole thing. I don't quite know why this didn't dawn on me from the start, or why I didn't read the directions carefully, but I didn't so now we don't have a Poke Cake in our fridge but a completely Jello soaked cake(reminiscent of a sponge). I threw it in the fridge after I had realized what I had done just to see what it's like, and I'll report later after a taste test.

So when I get home tonight I will attempt Poke Cake again, this time  not flipping the flippin' cake.

One of the Concurrent Knitting Projects

I am an obsessive knitter. One of my problems is starting multiple projects at the same time. The main knitting project I have been working on is a scarf for a cousin. I know it's not going to be a surprise if I blog about it (Warning Amanda Spoiler Alert), but I don't think she'll be completely be disappointed since she informed me in August that she would be receiving a scarf  made by yours truly for Christmas and then proceeded to pick the pattern she wanted from one of my books. I was thoroughly amused by this and decided to go along. Soon after I went to one of my favorite knitting spots, Inspire 2 Knit and Tea in Plymouth, NH. And picked up a skein of Cascade Yarns 100% Baby Alpaca (one of the other scarf requirements dictated was "very soft") in a raspberry color. I settled on this particular type of yarn after spending about 30 min wandering around the store rubbing various balls of yarn on my face and the face of my mother. This is the proper way to determine the softness of yarn.This yarn's softness was very close in softness with another type of yarn that was made from silk. I went with the wool, because I just love wool, and after lots of face testing my mother and I determined this indeed was the softest yarn in the store.















The pattern book Amanda had been using to choose the scarf's intended pattern is Vogue's Stitchionary which is listed under my favorite knitting book list. This is actually the first book in a series of Stitionaries which I have yet to buy in complete. Amanda had left me some cute notes rating each of her prefered patterns in the book (she was concerned that I would not be able to knit her first choice.) Her first choice was a faux cable stitch where you slip a stitch (for the twist) for two rows and then knitting the slipped stitch in a cable-esque twist.The pattern is from the first stitionary and is #62 Alternating Twists. I am not completely certain if I am allowed to post the pattern out of the book because of copy right laws (my gut is saying no).

I started the scarf with 3 rows of garter stitch and started and end each row of the pattern with 3 knits.
So far the project has been going well. I think if I was to start again I would add one extra twist set and make the scarf a little wider. When I first started the scarf I was concerned that if I knit it wider I would not have enough yarn to get my desired length. Now that I am more then 3/4 through the skein I know I would have had more then enough. The following images are shots of the pattern, and the work in progress. Enjoy!

When I Make I Sometimes Bake

Today is a baking day. As a teacher sometimes you are compelled to participate in a various pot-luck meals. On Monday we are having a pot luck lunch and I am bringing cookies. I love to bake. So this morning around 8am I woke up grabbed my usual morning diet soda and sat down with my copy of Hershey's Recipe Collection and started to plot my baking afternoon. Did I want to go a more traditional route of chocolate chip and snickerdoodle or go wild with dried apricot/white chocolate oatmeal. I finally settled on chocolate chip cookies with hazelnuts, snickedoodles, and white chocolate brownie cookie.The baking thus far has been going well. I've got two out the 3 types finished. I added hazel nuts to the chocolate chip for interest, and the snickerdoodles are slightly over done (but are still very good.) It's almost dinner time, the cookie making is done for now, but still I have to muster the energy to clean the kitchen of cookie mess, and start dinner. Frozen pizza? Yes, Most likely.

I always chuckle at the sheer amount of ready made dinners paired with home made desserts we have on a regular basis here at the Marston household. Oh well, I guess we all can't be Martha.

Today is the first day of a new blog.

Confession alludes to a sense of guilt. Guilt can be defined as a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined. Guilt over crafting. I am not alone. I am a crafter with bins of yarn, paper scraps, paint, ink, color pencils, and buttons hidden in the depths of closets, under beds, and in any open corner I can find in my small abode. I am obsessively drawn to the yarn isle in any store weather it be a high end craft supplier or my local discount store. The first question I ask myself before I buy something is can I make this? I love anything that glitters (except glitter, glitter is the devil). 

I have been a crafter for as long as I can remember. I can't remember the first time my mother took me to a craft supply store, but I remember thinking that is was the most amazing place I'd had ever been. Michaels, Benjamin Franklin, and AC Moore are my candy stores. I love small art stores, frame shops, and book stores. I frequent local yarn shops, and when I go on vacation I don't buy souvenirs I buy beads.

I hope to use this blog, the internet and the eyes of who ever will read it as my confessional.I am not an eloquent writer, but I hope that by posting projects, patterns and answering questions this blog can serve as a  place for sharing thoughts and ideas about crafting. By documenting my obsessive crafting habits I hope to spread the love of the hand made object and share my day to day crafting escapades.