What we like in Art

When we are looking for an outing close to home, my husband always suggests our local art museum.  Recently they had two new exhibits.  One was very realistic landscapes.  The other, contemporary art from the early 1900's.  After those we toured the permanent folk art exhibit again and I noticed something about what we are drawn to.

Here's the journaling for the page:

. . . . t e c h n i q u e . . . . c r e a t i v i t y . . . . r e a l i s m . . . .

Neither of us are schooled in art.  We just like what we like or admire what we admire.  The things that seem to make us go “Wow” are usually when it looks like it was really hard to do.  In the last photo on the right, Lenny hadn’t noticed this piece of the folk art exhibit much until I pointed out that I couldn’t see any joints in the metal tree.  It appeared to have been cut entirely from one piece of metal – all the leaves, even a little bird on a branch. That was impressive!  All of these photos were taken at the Hickory Museum of Art on a visit in January, 2013. The landscape caught Lenny’s attention because of the ‘bear’ shadow in the mountains and the story behind it.  The modern pieces by Will Henry Stevens interested me because of the texture and the way the colors changed even though the lines would continue. This reminded me of some art quilts.  I like art that inspires my creativity.  We enjoy visiting the gallery together.  

To create this page, I used a technique from the Art class at Two Peas taught by Wilna Furstenberg - wax.  When I saw "wax" as a chapter heading, I had no idea what kind of wax she was talking about - candle wax?  hair removal wax?  (now that would be interesting!)  None of these. There is a wax available at art supply stores she used for some of the projects and she also used crayons!  I'd never even thought about what crayons were made out of.  I'm probably the only person in this class who had to drive to town to buy crayons since I don't have children.  But I made that trip because once I saw this technique in action, I had to try it.

It was such fun melting the crayons and getting the color patterns.  I added several layers to mine really letting the colors run together.  The class example was on white paper and I decided to see if it would work on a dark background.  I"m delighted with how the colors pop.

The only challenge I've had is this is a bit brittle and I've broken off a couple of the 'drips' already. (I remelted one and glued back two more.) I'm going to pose that question on the message board to see if there is something we should be covering this with after using the crayons.  For now, my layout is in one of my shadow boxes so it won't get damaged.  Anyway, it was tons of fun.

If you'd like to have some fun with all kinds of mediums, the class is at Two Peas in a Bucket.  There are 10 chapters with a 20 minute or so video with each.  Each video shows multiple examples of each technique on 4 or 5 layouts.  There is a long PDF for the class.  Wilna is a joy to listen to.  Her explanations are clear and she is immensely creative.  The cost is $25 and this is a workshop so you go at your own pace.

The other embellishment on the page is in response to Glitter Girl's challenge for the week - wood veneer.  I passionately love wood veneer pieces so this was an easy one.  I had not used this set and I thought it fit in with the photos and the background paper from the Yearbook collection from Studio Calico.  The trim is some leather I bought at Wal-mart years ago.  They used to have the best trims.

Thanks for stopping by!  If you haven't already, be sure to enter my giveaway via this blog post or my YouTube channel.