Art and Weight Watchers

So what on earth do those two things have to do with each other you ask? Well, I've gained weight and I seriously need to lose it again!  I have all my Weight Watchers books and things so I'm going to do it by myself without paying to attend meetings. I am determined!! The art? You know I love art right? I NEED to have things look pretty. I'm obsessed with things looking pretty. So I decided to make my tracker (food log) look pretty while functioning better too. I liked the old style tracker better but needed some information from the new plan, so I combined the two, using tables in a word processing document. I also don't want to do any unnecessary math to keep track of bonus points, so I put some check boxes on a weekly page to mark off as I use the points. I printed information four to a page, front and back, then I used my spiral binding machine and decorated the cover. To me, my format is much more functional.

My artistic theory is, it will look pretty sitting out on the kitchen counter or table, which will keep me from shoving it in a drawer, and thus entice me to actually write down every single morsel I put into my mouth.

I cut up a card from my stash to decorate the cover. I love this image from Impression Obsession and it just happens to go beautifully in my blue kitchen. I am somewhat analytically challenged, so it took me all afternoon to get all the information evenly spaced in four quadrants and determine how to place the paper in the printer so it would print front to back. That took a couple trials; printed twice on the same side, upside down... but I finally got all together:)

Please wish me luck on this weight loss journey. I want to lose 45 pounds.

For you, I have a treat! Trust me when I tell you these are very good, and NOT like most low calorie food. They taste great and are very moist. I got the recipe from my friend, AnnMarie.

Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients

1 (18 ounce) box spice cake mix

15 ounces pumpkin

1 cup water

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients in mixer.
2. Makes 24 muffins.
3. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350°F.

Charleston, South Carolina

After visiting the tea plantation, the rest of the day was spent in Charleston, walking along the battery, at the end of the peninsula. The sea air was wonderfully refreshing and the park is lovely even though hurricane Hugo did quite a number on the beautiful live oak trees a few years back. Of course you can not visit Charleston without visiting the old Market, it's always fun to see all the unique things people make. If you ever get a chance to visit, you will love it I promise! Oh, and be sure to pick up a sweetgrass basket. They are gorgeous, last forever and I can tell you from experience, the skill involved is amazing. I took a class once from Ms. Mary and it is NOT easy. I never did finish my basket. I got the bottom done and decided it would make a great refrigerator magnet!

We also went to Hymans Seafood for dinner. It's a favorite of ours, the food is fantabulous. Our son was thrilled to again have seafood that was swimming that morning:) The owner, Eli, came by our table, chatted and a few minutes later a plate of fried green tomatoes arrived with his compliments. These are not just plain old fried green tomatoes, they were served on creamy grits with cheese and bacon. OMG It was totally orgasmic I tell you.

One of the locals who produce sweetgrass baskets.

Sweetgrass baskets are only made here and the habitat that supplies the grass is becoming more scarce. These baskets are even on display at the Smithsonian.

Inside the market.

The mural on the market is a recent addition, and so lovely.

Charleston Tea Plantation

We had an amazing day yesterday! We went to the Charleston Tea Plantation, on Wadmalaw Island, one of the sea islands just south of Charleston. We took a tour in a trolley that was converted into a bus. There they were, acres and acres of bushes that we learned were Camellia Sinensis tea plants. So this tea is a cousin of the beautiful flowering camellias found all over the southeast!!

Every other tea growing country has a very cheap labor source. Other countries pay the workers $3.00 a week to harvest the tea. That won't quite work here in the States, so this tea plantation invented their own mechanized system to harvest the tea. They used parts of a cotton picker among other things to make this machine that appears to roll over the bushes while picking the top layer of leaves and blowing them into the collection, or hopper area. The tour included the greenhouse where propagation takes place, the fields, irrigation ponds etc. We also had a tour of the factory where the tea leaves are processed into tea. It really was fascinating, and.... we got to sample lots of tea, iced and hot! The gift shop is new, and very nice. Of course we bought some tea, I chose Plantation Peach and Green Mint while our son selected the Charleston Breakfast tea , Green Mint and the First Flush. Tea plants' "first flush" of new growth for the season, is harvested to produce what is said to be the most unique, fresh, and amazing tea. It's only available once a growing season of course and was traditionally reserved only for royalty back in the day.

I've GOT to tell y'all about the hand lotion I got there. It is amazing!! My hands are always dry and a mess it seems. I've tried every kind of hand creme on this planet, but this is hands down the BEST STUFF. It's called

American Classic Glycerine Hand Therapy, and the scent is intoxicating and lasts hours and hours. This stuff is much better than anything in Bed Bath and Beyond.

one of the ponds used for irrigation

rows of tea and the irrigation ditches

harvester in action

the resident gator, named Wally

greenhouse where cuttings are tended until they can be planted

the factory, where the leaves gathered at harvest are taken to be processed into tea.

the bar area is where you can sample all the tea

the map shows where tea is grown across the world and this is the only tea grown in North America!

The gift shop offers an amazing assortment of tea items as well as all the tea grown and produced here. Teapots, mugs, tea sets all gorgeous- and I brought one home:)

Painting With Embossing Powers Tutorial

Fred Mullet calls his class Dancing Rubber Fish. The technique is not difficult and can be used with other images, but of course the nature print stamps that Fred sells offer amazing results. I'm anxious to try it with real plant leaves.

I didn't know that some embossing inks are translucent and others are opaque. That does make a difference as the translucent powders allow the color of cardstock and ink to show through, while the color of an opaque powder is that color no mater what. I have many different colors of embossing powders, but I bought a pack of Fred's powders because I knew they were translucent. Many stores sell Fred Mullet stamps, but they are also available online: Fred Mullet

I had the smaller fish print stamps and bought the larger one after taking Fred's class. I think I can make an underwater scene with these making a larger, frameable piece of art.

Materials
rubber stamps
black and white pigment inkpads
a range of embossing powders
watercolor paints
brushes
cocktail straw with the end cut on an angle
tee tiny spoon (like the type used to taste ice cream)
2 cups of water, one clean and one for washing out brushes
cardstock
 embossing gun
box to catch embossing powders in
paper towel or TP, which Fred calls '"technique paper"
porous sponge car washing sponge or a sea sponge

Before you begin stamping, decide which colors of embossing powders you want to use.  You need a smooth matte cardstock, not glossy. This can be white, tan, or other pale colors. Later you may want to experiment with darker colors and bleach.

Begin by inking your stamp. For a fish, use black ink beginning just above the fish's lateral line on the stamp. Then stamp the bottom portion of the fish with wihite ink. For a plant/flower you can yoose black towards the middle and white towards the edges.

Now  in the section where white and black meet, take your sponge and pounce with a zigzaging motion - on the white then on the black, then back on white etc. This blends or eases the transition from black to white.

Next, the spot application of embossing powers which Fred says is sort of like painting with plastic.Use your fancy applicator to deliver a small amount of embossing powder in specific ares of your stamped image. Use one color possibly 2-3 but don't get carried away, because you have lovely watercolors to provide additional soft colors. Hold the straw close to the paper and very gently shake out powder.

 

See where the darker yellow/orange is towards the top of the fish? Its lateral line is just below that and appears as a gap in the stamped image. Above that you want more interesting colors and below that lighter or less interesting. That way it mimics real fish. They are lighter on the undersides so that they blend with sunlight coming through the water. This makes them less visible to predators swimming below. To predators swimming above them, the darker color blends with the ocean floor which is darker.

 Use a translucent/very light color of embossing powder over the white ink and some of the black as well. Use your tee tiny spoon and hold it up away from the paper, gently shake so that the powder floats to the paper.

This the part that is called the 'dance.' Hold your cardstock in one hand over the box and with the other hand, gently tap the underside so that the powders dance on the surface and mingle into other areas a bit.  Tap off the excess, then emboss. If you hold your paper up even with your line of sight, you can more easily see just when the powder melts, then move on to another area. That way you don't overheat/burn your powder or miss areas causing them not to be embossed at all.

The last step involves water colors! We used paint in class, as did I in the samples in this tutorial. However, you could use watercolor markers and a blending pen if you like. Don't over-wet your paper or it will buckle, but at the same time do add water to your paint before adding to the cardstock so that it will have that watercolor look.

For these flowers, I chose to place my darker areas towards the center and the lighter areas towards the edges.

On these samples, I used green embossing powder on the stem, but you could use watercolor there as well.

Be sure to leave or add a touch of white in the eye for more realism.

There you have it. I hope you will try this technique on stamps you have, or pick up some of Fred Mullet's nature stamps. He sells them in small sizes and in very large sizes. All the examples above are large, so I'm going to mat and frame some of them. I also plan to do an underwater fishy scene on an even larger sheet of paper to mat and frame. I think a school of fish some done with multiple stampings off the same ink application to give ghost images. That would provide some nice depth for a school of fish don't you think?

Rainbow Row

I really do love Beaufort, but Charleston, South Carolina is my favorite city. While at Carolina Stamper, an amazing store, I was thrilled to find many South Carolina stamp images. There was the ubiquitous palmetto, our state tree in many forms. Lighthouses, our state flag and St. Michaels steeple. Then I saw it. Rainbow Row. I have a beautiful painting of it hanging in my studio that my Mom left me. It was the last one left on the shelf, so I quickly snatched it up, determined to give it a loving new home:) This is the first card I made with it. I used Stampin' up cardstock, and patterned paper. The brass charm is from Fancifuls and the image was colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Does anyone remember reading a blog tutorial on how to make an envelope? It was in the last month, and I can't find it. Great directions, much easier than others I've seen. I even commented to her on what a great tutorial it was, but for the life of me, I can't remember who it was. I know what you're thinking, but old age doesn't make me forgetful; having way too many stupid things to remember does! lol

Dancing Rubber Fish

Bet that title got your attention didn't it? That was the title of the class my friend Pam and I took from Fred Mullet at Carolina Stamper. What an amazing store! If you are in the area, stop by and I promise you will not be sorry. Janet, the owner, has an amazing inventory of the coolest toys for rubber stamp art and scrapbooking. She's knowledgeable and friendly making a visit to her store a real treat. I can't wait to go back:)

I've wanted to take a class from Fred ever since he wrote an article on Gyotaku in Somerset Studio magazine.  A follow up article on his rubber stamp company appeared in that same issue, titled "Nature Prints" May/June 1997. Over the years I have continued to see his stamps and cards made with them in stores, and in magazines. I never dreamed he would come to my little corner of the world.The class was everything I'd hoped it would be and more. We learned about "the spot application of color," or painting with little pieces of plastic. This technique involves using transparent as well as opaque embossing powders and watercolor paints. Fred came armed with an arsenal of specialized tools like technical paper, otherwise known as TP or toilet paper. We learned the proper use of precision thermography powder application devices, also known as cocktail straws, and we were instructed in the art of using tactilely interactive vulcanized tools for the replication of graphic imagery. Now these technologically advanced tools are in the studios of most paper artists.  You surely have them as well. Have you guessed yet? That's right rubber stamps! Fred is a terrific teacher and extremely entertaining as well.

We also received a lesson in color theory, learned how to make our own custom colors of transparent embossing powders. I learned how to use this technique to produce amazing works of art. Now, I'm not saying I have mastered the technique, yet. I've got some practicing to do.  I can look at all the examples I created below and tell how I could have made them better, or what I would do next time. I plan on getting a little practice in tomorrow. Yeah, it will be such hard work lol! Seriously, this technique is loads of fun. I wish you could see the examples in person. Photographs can't adequately show the depth that is produced using this method. Nor can you see the pearlescent sheen or the iridescence that makes these images dance. Oh the title of the class? We made the fish 'dance' as we tapped the paper in order to disperse the various thermographic powders across the surface of our papers.

If you ever get a chance to take one of Fred's classes, I can promise an experience you won't soon forget.  Check out the Fred Mullet website. Below are scans of what I produced in class and a few photos from Pam's phone. Would you believe I forgot my camera!!

Fred delivering some fishy instruction.

Beautiful Beaufort, South Carolina

Hello Everyone!
This weekend my friend Pam and I going to Carolina Stamper to take a class from Fred Mullet. Fred is an immensely talented artist who excels at nature printing. I've been a fan of his for years, and never dreamed I'd be able to take one of his classes.

Carolina Stamper is in Beaufort, a truly lovely city. I've been there many times. We often go crabbing on Hunting Island, and I've been there just to take pictures as well. One of the best things about this charming city is the growing art scene. Last summer while taking pictures and browsing galleries I came across artist Hank Herring. This soft-spoken former marine and I  struck up a wonderful conversation and he shared a lot of his work with me. I loved hearing the stories that put various pieces of his art in context.The fact that he works with rescued materials may explain the versatile quality of his work. I have one of his hand carved wood stamps. It's a Celtic image and I dearly love it. Hank has been to Ireland and so it has naturally influenced his work.

Horse drawn tours are such fun, but there's another type of tour you can take in Beaufort.... a ghost tour! Complete with a guide dressed in period costume who tells the most marvelous stories... AFTER DARK of course.

Old Sheldon Church is one of my favorites haunts, literally. Amidst the eerie serenity of the church yard there are graves dating all the way back to the 1700's, where one can just feel the presence of the souls who used to walk here.  Guns and ammunition were actually hidden in the Bull family vault during the Revolutionary war. Surrounded by iron gates, the ruins are always open to the public.  There's even an old hand-operated water pump near the gate that still works. Oh, I didn't get a picture of that! There's another reason to go back.

I'll take more pictures this weekend and post them on Monday:)