Collabor'actions Art Show

Barkinado Bocoum and Manel Ndoye, "Sans Titre"

This Thursday past, Loman Art House hosted the art opening for their show Collabor'actions.

The show included paintings, a fashion show, several lamps and mosaics.  Many of the works shown were co-efforts with locally well known artists, however also on display were works that were collaborations between students and teachers.  The Loman Art House mission includes teaching art skills and using recycled materials and this was evident in the work displayed.  It will be interesting how the collaborations effect the artists in their future work.

Alexis Peskine in collaboration with students, "Sans Titre", painted nails, paint, wood

Geoff Cressman and Sophie Markl, "Opposites Attract", Mosaic in glass, metal and resin

Loman Pawlitschek, metal and paint

Crowd at the Loman Art House opening, just before the fashion show

Collabor'actions is on display September 26 through October 26.

Mosaic in Pretoria

Mosaic is a very popular art form in Pretoria and as far as I can tell throughout South Africa.  Even tiny gift and craft stores carry Mosaic supplies and there are several studios where you can go to Mosaic much like the stores to paint pottery in the United States.  A South African craft magazine, Craftwise, seems to have a mosaic article every month.  Due to the prevalence of mosaic the boys and I decided to make mosaic picture frames for dad at the i Create Studio.  It is really amazing how their artwork reflects their personality.

Here are some photos of mosaic in the community.  Badec Bros has a cool mosaic along a busy street out side their showroom. House numbers are often done in an artistic way in Pretoria. Even the side of a building may be done in mosaic.

There are several examples of mosaic in restaurants, the most obvious is Restaurant Mosaic, with it's beautiful mosaics of Mucha's designs.  La Pentola has a large tree mosaic on one of the back walls. Notice the mosaic pillars at Cafe 41 or the beautiful giant garden pots at Braza. (As an aside, take time to look at the interesting menus of these restaurants as well.)  Most mosaic is in interior spaces that I don't have access to but at the bottom of the page are some photos from the web that show the kind of designs popular with crafters.    The photos are from http://www.craftycorner.co.za/ which has some free step by step classes online.

Foil Experiment & Recycled ATCs

A few posts ago I used an Easter Egg kit to put foil on a mermaid's tail. In the spirit of recycling, I decided I wanted to experiment with foil from chocolate wrappers to see if I could get the same effect. I knew I needed a really tacky, sticky glue so I tried Rubber Cement and Craft Bond.

First, I applied the glue to some pretty junk mail I collected.

Then I waited until the surface was partially dry and used a spoon to press the foil onto the paper.

Rubber Cement did not do very well. It was not tacky enough for the foil to stay attached. The Craft Bond was the definite winner of the two. The only problem with it is it did not create the texture I was looking for, see the mermaid paper doll entry for the weathered look I was going for. Instead it applied the foil on pretty evenly with just minor veining. I had to work at scratching it up to get some of the paper underneath to show through.

I completed the experiment by creating a recycled ATC with my foil and junk mail. I was inspired my son's experience in Art Ho's Mosaic Summer Camp. There are still two weeks left of this camp if you are in the DC area and want to check it out. It is very cool.

Mosiac with the Kids

I have mentioned in an earlier post the Takoma Park Mosiac project. I did not find that I could work on this project during the times available due to conflicting family schedules, however it did inspire me to do a mosaic project with my children. I have wanted to create a permanent piece of art for the house with my children for some time. My youngest son is very good with color and I thought a mosaic would be a great way for him to use this skill. My oldest son is very interested in birds and when I asked the children what the theme for the mosiac should be, they said bluebirds.
As a first step we went to Color Me Mine and each painted bluebird on a 4 x 4 in tile. We then ordered virteous glass seconds and colorfusion crystal glass tiles from Maryland Mosaics. In the first picture, the children and I have each placed our 4 x4 tile and then selected the colors of tiles to place around that tile on the wedi board backing. My four year old did the area on the left and 6 year old the area on the right. I did the midle area and the adheasive and spacing. Placing the tiles down was a pretty long process and so I did not include the children. My youngest did help with the grouting once the adheasive was cured.
The second photo is the completed mosaic project mounted as the backsplash behind our kitchen stove and shows my children and a neighbor. Great Job kids!

Happy Fall Mosaic

This weekend I went to the Takoma Park Art and Humanities festival. I had a great time making this little mosaic card. An acquaintance of mine, Arturo Ho, is the lead artist of the Takoma Mosaic Project. This is going to be a great project involving the whole community to make community space more attractive. I hope to join them and am inspired to do some mosiac in my own house. Supplies can be found at Maryland Mosaics. Check out thier gallery for ideas.