Sunday, August 23, 2009

A Rose by any other Name


He loves me,

He love me not,

He loves me,

He loves me not,

He loves me,

He loves me not,

He loves me!

One of my favorite things to create are flowers.

I love making flowers out of all sorts of materials.

Clay flowers, porcelain flowers, metal flowers and paper flowers too,

flowers were actually the inspiration for one of my books,

naturally titled Fanciful Paper Flowers!

It's interesting to see how a bloom will take shape depending on

the type of material you choose to create it with.

These particular posies I made using polymer clay,

just sort of free forming small balls of polymer into

dainty but lively, ruffled edge roses.

I used various colors of spray paint in pink, taupe, green, blue and yellow

to give them some color and a couple of spritzes of white to create just

a smattering of speckles. The stems and leaves are made from wire I covered with antique silk and green velvet. Then I finished them off by wiring them for light and decorating night light bulbs with glass paints. A few years back I had taken a course in basic electrical wiring, just for fun!

So now I have a funny little story to share with you.

I took a welding course here in town given by a very well known,

talented and respected local artist. I was so excited about it,

I had never really worked with any kind of metal before,

not to mention gas or fire for that matter, but I thought it would be fun and have always wanted to give it a try!

And I was right, it was terrific! Absolutely exhilarating! The first class was designing what we wanted to create.

One student was making a very cool giant metal alligator, another a large globe of sorts and I, of course picked flowers, thorned roses to be exact! I showed my instructor my sketches and he approved, I was thrilled! Now to get down to the nitty gritty!

I throughly enjoyed cutting a flat sheet of copper into pretty petal shapes and I really enjoyed hammering the smitherines out of

them to soften them up and give them just the right amount of curl. And then applying the correct amount of gesso on them to create some interesting texture and color once they were heated up. But...Oh, I forgot to mention the welding class I took was

old school style, you know the kind where you actually ignite your torch by making sparks with a special flint. Well, to make a long story short, I might have had quite a future in this fabulous form of art except for two little things...I screamed out loud every time my torch

lit up and I singed all of the hair off my teachers left arm! Oh, my instructor was so very nice and polite about it, "Thats ok my Dear, it'll grow back, no problem!" I think for now I'll stick to something a little safer like paper and glue!
Until next time my friends!
BTW, I did hear a few weeks later he told all his new students about the "Hit the Deck Girl" but was kind enough not to mention any names!