Night Owl

This month's project brought me inspiration to upcycle some DVD-Rs and to put my sculpting brain to work. The theme for the PCAGOE September challenge is "Owls". I can remember when I was a kid, when owls were very popular, and they've made a popularity come-back once again over the last handful of years.

I'm not quite sure when the inspiration struck to use the DVD-Rs, but perhaps it hit me when I was in the studio looking at the massive stack of them. You see, my husband makes a lot of recorded DVDs from our over-the-air broadcast movie channels (we don't have cable or satellite, just a big old-fashioned antenna). He records movies so that we'll have a catalog of interesting things to watch for the future, since we don't really watch television programs but we do love movies. Many times, he gets a "bad" DVD-R that just doesn't record the information, or in some cases the online television guide that he uses messed up the broadcast schedule. When these mishaps occur, he tosses those DVDs into the trash. Since I am the one who empties the bins every week, I find them and keep a stack of them for "someday I'll turn these into something" projects. Well, I got to make a small dent into my stack of dvd-rs that have been piling up for the last 5 years or so.   

The sheen on the recorded side of most of my dvds is a lovely hue of purple, then I have some that are a lighter hue of purple and others that are a silver with iridescent purple sheen. Because of that color variation, I decided that these would make a perfect night sky, if I were to add a thin layer of liquid polymer painted with alcohol inks. I didn't quite like the holes in the centers of the dvds, so I decided to add some clay centers, which I think also add some interest. I made them graduating colors of purple (darkest at the bottom going to lightest at top), with one pearly white center at the top right, to be the moon. I also made sure to paint the liquid polymer in gradation from lighter surrounding the moon dvd to darker for those further away from the moon dvd. After these were cured, I drilled holes in them and strung them together with wire. 

Next came the owl sculpt. I had decided on a barn owl. Although I love all owls, I have a particular fondness for the look of the barn owls. Because I didn't want him to be too heavy, I first made a rough form out of aluminum foil. I draped a large sheet of raw polymer over the foil and cut it to the shape I needed. This first layer was cured, then I started to add the details. I added the black eyes and the beak, and then cured that layer too. Then began the sculpting of the feathers and his legs. The larger wing feathers are where the most of the work was done, handcutting each individual feather. The talons were made by bending a heavy gauge copper wire and cutting it at an angle to make the ends look sharp, these were thrust into the sculpted feet. The beak and eyes were treated to a coating of clear liquid Kato, to give them a glassy shine. 

After he was fully sculpted I used a cotton swab with varying alcohol inks to give coloring to his wing feathers and to accents of his face and chest. He then went in for a final cure. After he was fully cured, I used some burnt umber water soluble oil paint antiquing to add definition to the wing feathers and to the dimensionality of his body. I didn't notice till after the photos were taken that I need to add a little more of this antiquing to the area between his legs. The sculpting of this area is dimensional, with the back leg is slightly behind the front leg, but because of the white coloring, that is hard to see. I will be adding more shading in that area, to define it better. 

I had planned to sculpt a branch for him to perch upon, but I ran out of time... so I ran outside and grabbed this small branch from a storage of tinder that we keep on our property. I actually quite like the way it looks, but I may still sculpt a branch for him (undecided).  

This is probably the largest sized project I've ever completed, the entire wall-hanging is about 20" by 15"! The owl is about 11" tall...  I'm really pleased with this piece, overall.  Though, I haven't decided what I'm going to do with him yet. He may become a permanent resident of my studio space, but then again, he might fly somewhere else.... ;) What do you think of my night owl wall-hanging? Do you have any good ideas for how I might use the other multitude of trashed dvd-rs that I have remaining (which are bound to accumulate further)? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Please do take a moment and leave me a comment below!

Season of Giving and Making

I hope that everyone reading this blog has had a wonderful holiday season! And my best wishes to everyone for happiness, health and prosperity in 2016!

Because it was such a busy month preparing for the Christmas holiday in my home, and making gifts, I didn't get time to create a new piece for the PCAGOE January challenge. Luckily, I had an older piece that suited the theme, which is 50 Shades of Gray... no, not associated with the infamous book, but a study in value! I chose an older necklace that I had created with my silk fabric dye transfer. Here are a few shots of that piece:

 So, what was I so busy doing that I couldn't create a new piece for the challenge? Making gifts for family and friends. First on the list was a stocking that my hubby had asked me to make for him... which, at the moment, I do not have a photo. Basically it's a red stocking edged with candy striped trim, super simple.

The second project was a pair of slippers that I made for my mother-in-law. She loves these slippers that I make, and she will wear them until they have holes in the soles all the way through to her toes!  So I decided it was time she get another brand new pair. This pair is triple reinforced on the soles and upper is made of neoprene, so hopefully they will last a lot longer than her previous pairs have! Here's what they look like:

 About a week before Christmas I decided that I would make and send out origami stars, which I made out of our Land's End holiday catalogs, to my family and some friends. I generally skip sending Christmas cards because of the thousands of trees that are destroyed to make all of the paper for them. But my traditionalist hubby grumbles every year that I send out a Christmas email in lieu of Christmas cards. So this year I decided to compromise with the origami stars, getting the last minute idea to upcycle my holiday catalogs, which was an added bonus! I made about 70 (give or take a few) stars. And here's a sampling of what those looked like:

Last, but not least came the polymer gifts. I needed a little gift to give to my personal trainer, who gives me the gift of her creativity twice a week, to create challenging and always varied workouts that keep me wanting to return and wishing I could work out with her daily(which is a miracle in and of itself!). And I wanted another special gift for my friend and soul sister, with whom I knew I'd be spending New Year's Eve. In addition, I wanted to create a special gift for my parents. A month beforehand, I had the foresight to start a homemade lavender essential oil, by steeping a jar full of lavender buds in carrier oils for a month long, this was the idea behind the 2 gifts that followed, for my trainer and my friend. I created for Angel, my trainer, this polymer covered bottle which I then filled with my homemade lavender oil:

I created an inro necklace for my dear friend, Susan. Inros are small vessels, this one was created from a perfume sampler bottle, complete with the wand attached to the lid. After the polymer for this piece was cured, I then filled it with my homemade lavender oil:

And finally, I upcycled a chandelier light bulb into a cardinal tree ornament for my parents. My mom has always loved birds, but especially birds on her Christmas tree. As a matter of fact, her parent's always had the old-fashioned glass birds on their tree. As such, my mom has gifted her children and her siblings a glass bird ornament every year at Christmas. The glass bird she gifted me this year was this sweet owl:

Here are two of my other favorite bird ornaments that my parents have given me over the years:

These bird ornaments, with their fibrous and feathery tails, were the inspiration for the cardinal ornament that I created for my parents. He is quite large though, I'd estimate that he measures about 7" from beak to tail, and about 5" tall. I created him with the red glitter Premo accent polymer, with some black and a little bit of an orange mixture. The legs were made by covering an armature of wire with polymer and baking separately before inserting them into the body of the cardinal. And the plume of tail feathers and comb feathers was created by integrating some sheer red fabric strips into the polymer at those points. My parents both loved him. My only wish is that he were lighter in weight. The bulb was a pretty heavy glass to begin with, but then there was about 2 to 3 ounces of polymer added to him. Here he is:

I also created some polymer gifts for 3 of my PCAGOE guild mates, using my handmade texture plate from a previous PCAGOE challenge, for the the gift exchange the guild offers every year. I forgot to take my own photos of the pieces, but these are the photos my guild mates took of the pieces I made for them:

Here are the lovely gifts I received in exchange, from my talented guild mates (in order, from Linda Riopel of NKDesigns, Susan O'Neill of 11BOLDstret, and Jackie Sieben of JAE Jewelry and The Pleasant Pheasant)

So, with making all these gifts, getting my house decorated for Christmas and baking a couple batches of cookies, I did not have any time left to make my challenge piece, thus the older piece that I've entered for this month (above). For anyone who might be interested, that necklace is available in my createmyworld etsy shop here. 

Whew! That was quite a lot to post about! What do you think of all the gifting creations I made? Do you like handmade gifts to give and receive? What was your favorite handmade gift? I'd love to hear from you, leave me a comment below!

Voting is open for the January challenge, and you can cast a vote for your 3 favorite entries at the PCAGOE blog. Remember, you could win a prize! Voting closes on the 7th of January at midnight EST.