a couple more projects
"Project" was a bad word in Art Ed. It was much like saying "colored" for African-American, and a word I would not use for my own art units. I was encouraged to use the term "problem" instead, as art is creative problem-solving. According to my professors, "project" conjures up images of feathers, beads, and popsicle sticks, and final products indistinguishable from each other, except in the child's ability to glue the pieces together properly. Just picture the snowman collages from Kindergarten, with three cotton balls glued together on light blue construction paper, with cotton balls for the snow on the ground and more cotton balls for the huge "flakes" falling from the sky. Or my favorite project of all time, the Hand Turkey.
In case you didn't grow up in America, the hand turkey is a tracing of your hand, on which you attach feathers or paper cut like feathers on the four fingers, and a little turkey face is drawn on the thumb, with a little red paper or felt wattle (had to look up that term, but was surprised I knew it already!) hanging down. Some folks add feet, others just leave it at that.
The hand turkey is the bane of true art problems, and was a sign of complete desperation for ideas. It was like the white trash cousin wearing a Tweety Bird t-shirt, Daisy Dukes and stiletto heels to your wedding in Martha's Vineyard.
I had a brilliant idea as I graduated from the Art Education program, to send letters to fifty of the most well-known American artists out there, and ask them to each make a hand turkey. I would then compile the turkeys to make a tasteful coffee table book, proceeds going to fund art education programs. It would be released around Thanksgiving, of course, and be dedicated to all my professors, thanking them for changing the way I looked at harmless words like "project."
And here are two projects I just completed, and enjoyed working on: one is the pillow I mentioned in an earlier post, done with shadow knitting and crochet on the back. The other is a necklace and bracelet set with my favorite variegated yarn and carnival beads.
The front of the pillow, knitted with 2 colors: solid brown and then variegated brown to light blue. The "shadows" don't appear head-on, just weird stripes.
Looking at it from the side, you see a subtle band of brown, a band of lighter blue/brown, and then a band of darker brown on the other side. The purl ridges are the dominant stripe color, and the knit stitches recede into the background.
The back of the pillow. A lightweight blue pillow stuffs it out (Ikea), and I single crocheted around the knitted piece. Then I made a mesh stitch with the variegate yarn to enclose the pillow. So soft.
A choker and bracelet. I got the stitch pattern from a vintage pattern book, which had lace trimmings one could attach to linens or blouses. I added beads to parts of each row. Picots didn't really show up well, though.
More of a detail of the bracelet. Single crochet with beads and into the toggle parts, then pairs of puff stitches with chain stitches in between, then single crochets with beads on the chains. Voila.
In case you didn't grow up in America, the hand turkey is a tracing of your hand, on which you attach feathers or paper cut like feathers on the four fingers, and a little turkey face is drawn on the thumb, with a little red paper or felt wattle (had to look up that term, but was surprised I knew it already!) hanging down. Some folks add feet, others just leave it at that.
The hand turkey is the bane of true art problems, and was a sign of complete desperation for ideas. It was like the white trash cousin wearing a Tweety Bird t-shirt, Daisy Dukes and stiletto heels to your wedding in Martha's Vineyard.
I had a brilliant idea as I graduated from the Art Education program, to send letters to fifty of the most well-known American artists out there, and ask them to each make a hand turkey. I would then compile the turkeys to make a tasteful coffee table book, proceeds going to fund art education programs. It would be released around Thanksgiving, of course, and be dedicated to all my professors, thanking them for changing the way I looked at harmless words like "project."
And here are two projects I just completed, and enjoyed working on: one is the pillow I mentioned in an earlier post, done with shadow knitting and crochet on the back. The other is a necklace and bracelet set with my favorite variegated yarn and carnival beads.
The front of the pillow, knitted with 2 colors: solid brown and then variegated brown to light blue. The "shadows" don't appear head-on, just weird stripes.
Looking at it from the side, you see a subtle band of brown, a band of lighter blue/brown, and then a band of darker brown on the other side. The purl ridges are the dominant stripe color, and the knit stitches recede into the background.
The back of the pillow. A lightweight blue pillow stuffs it out (Ikea), and I single crocheted around the knitted piece. Then I made a mesh stitch with the variegate yarn to enclose the pillow. So soft.
A choker and bracelet. I got the stitch pattern from a vintage pattern book, which had lace trimmings one could attach to linens or blouses. I added beads to parts of each row. Picots didn't really show up well, though.
More of a detail of the bracelet. Single crochet with beads and into the toggle parts, then pairs of puff stitches with chain stitches in between, then single crochets with beads on the chains. Voila.
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