Gelatin Monoprint

I have joined the many artists who love printing on a homemade gelatin plate or a commercial Gelli plate I purchased at Blick's.  Here is a print that I did with a small plate. I made four sections. I ended up making only one so I color copied it and made cards out of the print. I used string, a plastic alphabet stencil, a paper tube and bubble wrap for texture.

Reclaimed Room Make and Take!

My artist friends Megumi Inouye and Dorothy Yuki www.dotsrainbow.com along with myself
participated in a Make and Take event at this weekends SCRAP Party. We lead three workshops.
It was held in The Reclaimed Room at Building Resources. www.buildingresources.org. where
SCRAP Art - Creative Reuse in the Bayview art show is happening!

Jennifer Morningstar- curator, Monica Lee, Dorothy Yuki, Megumi Inouye
Make and Take workshop artists and Shuai Chen-Exeuctive Director of SCRAP.
(photo by Gloria Soliz)

My workshop was called creative reuse jewelry. All the necklaces were made with
paint chip and remnants of felt and cording.

Dorothy Yuki's workshop was Origami Butterflies. These  butterflies were made
out of National Geographic magazines.

                                                                                 

Megumi's origami bows made out of music sheets, ledgers, old maps and more!

The 2014 Graduate!

I am so happy that my friend Miranda  graduated from The Urban School of San Francisco!  This is the succulent lei I made for her. Her mom Rebecca told me she would be wearing a traditional Norwegian bunad that was blue. I only had once piece of thick wool felt that my friend Dorothy found for me at scrap-sf.org  It turned out it matched her dress!  The post below shows a little small demo of how I made it.

Congratulations Miranda and her parents Mikkel and Rebecca!

Graduation Lei 2014

Tomorrow our friends Mikkel and Rebecca's oldest daughter graduates from high school. I wanted to make a special lei for her. I was generously given some succulents from Patricia's garden and I had some air plants.

I used my Sizziz Big Shot die cutter to cut circles from blue wool felt.

I used my glue gun to carefully adhere the succulents to the wool circles and clear tubing.

Milk Carton Lamps

One of the most exciting things I did this summer was visiting The Workshop Residence to see my friends the Batle family. Agelio, Delia and sons Noa and Nilo were the artists in residents for the month of June. Students from the San Francisco public high school  Ruth Asawa School of the Arts also joined them. They collected hundreds of milk carton jugs and made them into beautiful lamps. I am fortunate to own one that I love.

Agelio Batle cuts some of the milk cartons for the lamps.

Leaf pattern for the lamps.

Nilo Batle sorts through more milk jugs.

The jugs were turned into amazing designs.

At the end of the month a group of friends and I attended the closing reception to see the finished lamps. They were amazing and beautiful. How could anyone decide? All from made from milk jugs!

Agelio shows friends Leslie and Megumi one of the finished pieces.

far right: Braden Weeks Earp, Director of The WorkShop Residence 

with Batle family and SOTA students.

LINK: 

WorkShop Residence website

Agelio Batle website

Rubber Inner Tube Jewelry

I took my daughter Elana's bike into our local bike shop Ocean Cyclery and I got some old rubber tires from them. One can also purchase them at SCRAP my favorite art store.  I took them home and made some pieces of jewelry. Plans are for a tutorial in the future. 

I have been asked to sell some of these pieces to some people but so far I have only made a few samples of each style!

LINK:

San Francisco SCRAP website

Succulent Sisters graduate!

My daughter Elana and her friend Annakai have a small business called Succulent Sisters www.succulentsisters.wordpress.com. They make custom terrariums by order, teach terrarium building workshops and sell terrariums of their own design at the Alemany Flea Market and popup road side shops (otherwise known as the sidewalk) in San Francisco.  Both of the girls graduated this past Saturday from The Urban School of San Francisco. I wanted to make them something special so I made them both a succulent lei. 

                                                

                                        

Here are the two leis hanging on our front door ready to be presented on graduation day.

   

Here are some photos of the process of making the leis. I was uncertain how I was going to put them together. Thanks to friend Dorothy www.dotsrainbow.blogspot.com for her technical support and to friend Gloria for giving me some of the lovely succulents from her garden.

                                           

I gathered the succulents from Gloria, our garden, some from my mom and some from
the local nurseries floragrubb.com and www.sloatgardens.com

                                                         

                             

The next step was finding something in my studio to attach
 the succulents plants. I settled on some clear plastic tubing.

                                         

The next step was taking 24 gauge wire and cutting a piece and
inserting into the base of the plant and then twisting the wire.

                                     

The next step was taking white floral tape and
wrapping the wire.

                                           

                                     

After making a hole in the tubing with a hot (putting the nail over an open flame)
 nail the plants were inserted in the hole and the wire was twisted around the tube.

Both of Elana's grandmothers could not be there at her graduation. Grandma Pearl passed away in January and my mom her Grammy could not make the trip as she is caring for my 92 year old dad. Both grandmothers gave us many of their succulent clippings and we have them in our yard. I made sure that the lei had some of her grandmothers succulents.

                                       

Annakai and Elana wearing the finished succulent leis on graduation morning!

Congratulations Elana and Annakai! Don't they look great wearing their leis on graduation day. Perfect for the Succulent Sisters! I am so happy with how they turned out. The girls were so surprised!