I love how you can slowly uncover your drawing while darkening it more and more.
Stay tuned. More to come.
Cross hatching is definitely my favorite technique. It's free and liberating.
I love how you can slowly uncover your drawing while darkening it more and more. Stay tuned. More to come.
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Today I want to share with you some information about my current favorite art supplies.
I made this quick sketch just to try these beautiful and innovative Muji gel pens that can be erased just by friction. They write beautifully and they don't leave signs when erased. I used the Muji pen in my long time favorite notebook. It's an Ogami professional. Its paper is not real paper. This means that it's not made of cellulose but of stone instead. This means you don't have to cut trees to make it, it is completely water proof and almost unbreakable. I am working on another centerpiece. THe idea was to use recycled paper and materials and to stay on the tones of sand, white and brown. I think that one of the most beautiful flowers I could use for this purpose is the Carambola, by Carmen Sprung. It is not a beginner model, but everybody can make it with some practice. It is perfect to do with recycled paper. In this case I used old bags from Zara. If you want to practice on your own, i suggest you to use the instructions by Sarah Adams, that you can find in the link below. She has a beautiful origami channel and is very clear in the explanations. As you can see, she arranges the flowers in a slightly different way, but I preferred to have a softer star in the center. What about an origami centerpiece? It is easy to make and incredibly versatile, since you can adapt colors, subjects and shapes to any kind of event. In this case, the idea was to realize something that made the cranes dinamic, not static, as if they were flying. Building the centerpiece is super easy: you just need a skein of copper wire (that you can buy in every hardware store), some colored origami paper, and some glue (I am not suggesting you any because every country has its types, but any polyurethane glue will fit) Unroll the wire and entangle the skein until you reach the desired shape. You may prefer a more open shape for the wire or a more tidy and contained one. In this case, you may tie the center of the skein with a string as I did in the first picture. Then you can build the cranes in your favorite colors and paper, place them on top of the wires and put a little bit of glue to hold them in place. I suggest you to hold the cranes with small pegs until the glue in completely dry. Do not exceed with glue or you may risk to see some drops on your cranes. And your centerpiece is ready. You may change the subject, size and colors of your figures, but I think this it is particularly suitable for flying animals or subjects in general.
Enjoy and stay tuned... What are the ingredients for the perfect weekend? A good recipe might be: a group of people diverse in every sense, united by a passion for art and creativity that meets in a place full of suggestions to experiment with new techniques and know each other better. Alba and Antonietta, our hosts opened the doors of this wonderful art studio, that, until recently, was the laboratory of an artist and philosopher, Giancarlo Scapin. Christine Schmidt of the "Yellow owl workshop" has a personal theory about the borders among craft, art and design: "Craft is the skill and tecnique used to create an object: the "how" something is made by hand with a specific medium. Design and art both use craft. Art and design are not separated but by an aim. Design conveys information. Art conveys emotion. Design's goal is functionality: to serve a purpose such as informing or performing a task. It is all about utility. Art has its own function: art's goal is to encourage contemplation." In this case, the beauty of the shapes and colors, the life and the movement contained in each piece, the emotion they provoked left no space for any doubt: it was art we were experiencing. It was evident in every single corner of the studio. But as Schmidt says, art uses craft to reach its goal and and I think that sometimes beauty is clearly visible also in the process of creation of art. I can not help but think that the way to achieve an art work is sometimes fascinating and worthy of note itself, especially if it is an entirely manual process, done with ancient instruments that carry a story with them. And when the art involves a very physical medium like ceramics, this is even more true according to me. The studio is housed in an old woollen mill, beautifully restored. We could not have found a more suitable and inspiring context to free our creativity and follow together the traces of an ancient technique like making paper. Needless to say, in a context that is so full of inspiration, even a meeting of new friends, a picnic lunch, or the afternoon coffee ritual is full of atmosphere, especially if the cups, glasses and plates, are glazed ceramic masterpieces realized by the master Scapin. In this case, our goal was not of course to create works of art or to push anyone to meditation, but to focus on the "process of making" itself. I think we all wanted to reach the roots of our passion for the art of origami, that brought us together. And all the fun and the enthusiasm we found in slowly seeing our results coming out showed us that passion and creativity can definitely bring people together. And when you breathe art, you just want to breathe some more. And Italy is the right place for that!
A walk in the streets of Vicenza was the perfect conclusion for an artsy weekend |