Inchie Book Necklaces and Keychains

I am back after a wonderful trip to Fernie, BC.  The weather was great except for a wild storm on Friday night.  The workshop was a great success with my students creating Aztec file folder books, Inchie book necklaces/keychains,

stepping stones, and Amate paper cut outs.  My co instructor Min, had them learning about Aztec history and culture, doing a bit of drama, writing poetry, and drumming.  At the end of the 3 day workshop they each presented a poem accompanied by the drums of their classmates in front of a live audience.  It was terrific!

I did these 'inchie' book necklaces or keychains with 2 classes at the conference.

There were inspired by an article in "Pages" 2012 by Sherrie Styx.

You might remember a post I did in November last year about these "inchie" books.

You now take that "inchie" book and add covers made from polymer clay. 


You can then string it together as either a necklace or a keychain.  I also had students who just wanted it as a stand alone book.

















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- inchie squares, mine are twinchies (2"x2")
- jump rings, small binder clips, or chain links
- little hole punch or awl
- waxpaper
- paint, pencil crayons, whatever you have on hand
- any little embellishments, googly eyes, fancy papers, sequins, etc.
- tacky glue
- polymer clay like Sculpey or Fimo
- little rolling pin or tomato paste can, paint container, basically anything that you can use to roll out the clay
- oven or toaster oven
- optional: glass beads, metal beads, little alphabet stamps
- hemp or leather cord
- barrel clasp for a necklace or keychain fastener
- optional:acrylic paint for antiquing
- Mod Podge

PROCEDURE:

Figure out how many pages you want in your book and cut your inchies.

I make mine 2 inchies by 2 inchies as that is easier for the kids to use but you can also do a 1 x 1". 

I always wash my hands first before working with polymer clay.  If you have any paint or marker on your hands it will transfer onto the clay. 

Take your polymer clay and cut the block in half.  This will be plenty to make 2 covers.  Start kneading it a bit and allow it to warm up in your hands.  It will be easier to work with.

On a piece of wax paper roll out the clay, you want it no thicker than 1/4 of an inch or .5 cm.  If it is too thick it will take up too much space in the jump or o ring.

Take one of your inchies and cut around it with a nail or wooden skewer.

Gather up all the leftover clay and repeat for the second cover.  Some of the kids did 2 different colors.

Take your two covers and place them one on top of the other, using the nail punch 2 holes near the top for the jump ring.

Now you can start decorating.  Metal and glass beads work well as they hold up to the heat in the oven.  If you want to add something that won't hold up to the baking (like a picture or printed text),  add it later with a little Mod Podge.

You can see the holes punched on this photo.

You can also use little clay cutters to add imprints or to cut out windows in your covers like this boy did.  The page underneath will then show thru the window and you can add a special embellishment or picture if you want.

You can also use rubber stamps to imprint the covers.

Place on a cookie sheet or baking tray. 

Set your oven to 275 degrees or so and bake for 20-30 minutes depending on the clay.

Check the package for baking instructions.

It gets a bit smelly (plastic like) so open your windows and if you have birds place them in another room.

If  you find you really like doing polymer clay you might want to invest in a second hand toaster oven.  I can usually find one at a garage sale.  Then you can use it only for clay and it's small size allows for quicker heat up as well as being able to place it outside so no fumes in the house.

Once baked you can antique the clay with a bit of watered down acrylic.  This helps any imprinted words to pop.  Paint over with the acrylic and then wipe away with a kleenex leaving just a little bit of color.  You can also glue on any bits that would not have made it thru the oven like paper text or pictures.

Now you can add a coat of Mod Podge to get a shiny finish and glue everything down.

Now we work on the pages.

Take one of the clay covers and using a pencil mark where the holes are onto each "inchie" page.

Punch out the holes with an awl. press punch, needle or even a sharp pencil.

Add paint and text or just leave them blank to fill out in the future.

My students wrote out their poetry.

Now it's time to put the book together.  You need the largest jump or O rings you can find.  You can also use small binder clips, chain links, or even wire you have looped around a large marker to make a double ring.

Starting with the back cover add pages.



Add the front cover.  That last hole will need a little fiddling. Push the jump ring closed.

On a piece of hemp or cord string on some beads and your book.  Add a clasp or a keychain ring.

and there you have a cute little book with a firm cover to last up to lots of wear.

Writing and the Visual Arts 2012 : Sneak Peek

So I am off to Fernie, BC today for the Fernie Writer's Conference.  My "Writing and the Visual Arts" workshop starts tomorrow and I'm looking forward to doing some amazing work both with the students (8-10yrs) and my co instructor.

Our theme this year is "Raiders of the Lost Arts: Ancient Aztec Legends" and we will be doing a number of projects including a great file folder book.

 We will also be making inchie book necklaces and key chains.

 

As well as Calendar stepping stones

and large Amate cutouts of Aztec stone sculpture.

My co instructor has lots of poetry, drama, and music planned.

I'll have the 'how to' on all these projects up on the blog later this week with some 'art in progress' photos. Looking forward to a great conference!

In the Style of Picasso: Guitar Collage

This is a good project to introduce students to both the work of Picasso and collage.

This is "The Old Guitarist" by Picasso, 1903-04, currently in the collection of The Art Institute in Chicago that I took on my recent trip. It is one of his earlier works from his Blue Period. Picasso often used guitars and violins as subject matter is his work and there is discussion on how it was his symbol for a woman, as the guitar/violin shape is very like that of a woman. 

and here is a painting of his titled "Bowl of Fruit, Violin, and Bottle" 1914 from the Tate Modern that I took in London.  Although it is painting, Picasso painted it to look like a collage.  He made several collages from bits of paper and then added guitar and violin details.

For our project we are first going to make the paper collage and then add paint and guitar details.























MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- scraps of paper, newspaper, junk mail
- wc or heavy paper
- glue
- tempera paint
- charcoal, colored pencil, sharpies/markers
- reference photos of guitars/violins

PROCEDURE:

Take your scraps of paper.  Tear and/or cut into pieces and start gluing onto your wc or heavy paper.  You can go over the edges of your paper as we will trim them later.  Let dry.













Using a marker or pencil add in some guitar details.  Maybe just pieces of the shape and the dominant parts of the instrument. Or you might want to do a full sketch.

Now start adding color.  Using tempera paint and colored pencils block in color in different sections of the collage.

Continue until you are pleased with the composition.  You don't have to fill every section and it is more visually appealing if you leave some areas untouched to show the collage papers.

On to the giveaway results for the newly published "The Natural Soap Chef".  I had a total of  80 entries and using Random Org to choose the winning entry:                                        

Here are your random numbers:

60

Timestamp: 2012-07-13 16:37:21 UTC

That works out to be Celese who wrote:

I just wanted to send you an email to enter for the soap making book. It looks so great and I've always wanted to try it. Thanks for doing this drawing!

Celese Sanders

Congratulations!  Thanks everyone for entering and have a great weekend.  I'm off to the Calgary Stampede this afternoon and I'll have more for you next week. Yahoo!

Book Giveaway

My giveaway contest this week features the newly published book "The Natural Soap Chef" by Heidi Corley Barto.

Now I have never made soap myself but ever time I'm at the local Farmer's Market I gaze down at those wonderful bars of homemade soap and think "I could do that!"

This is just the book to teach you how and if you already make your own soap I know the recipes in this book will perk your interest.

I am seriously contemplating trying out this one......

and this one would make me feel I was back in Maui.


34 recipes in all with names like Ocean Rain, Pumpkin Spice, Cucumber Melon, Cranberry Pomegranate.....ok now I'm getting hungry!

So on to the particulars:

-"The Natural Soap Chef" is a soft cover, 6 1/2X 9 with 120 pages.

- it's published by Ulysses Press and suggested retail is $14.95

If you are interested in winning a copy you can enter this giveaway by the following:

- leave a comment on this post
- send me a email at thatartistwoman@shaw.ca
- like or comment on this post on my Facebook page

All entries must be in by 11:59 pm Thursday July 12th/12 and the random draw will be made on Friday July 13th/12.

Canadian and USA residents only.


Good Luck everyone!

This Giveaway copy is provided by Beth Cook Publicity.

In the Style of Lichtenstein

I was recently in Chicago where I was able to take in the current Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective exhibit at The Art Institute.

It was terrific and helped give me, my kids (and husband) an overview of his work as it progressed. After returning home I updated my Lichtenstein project for kids.

By taking a single panel of a comic and making a very large canvas painting, Lichtenstein had you focus on the way the image had to be portrayed based on the limitations of the printing process. Specifically the Ben-Day dot.  Comics had to be produced in large quantities and rapidly, colors were limited, shadows and highlights were bold, and there were strong outlines.

Most of his work was adapted from actual comic panels which he would then alter as he saw fit.

The dialogue balloon provides another avenue for interpretation.

Here is my sample based on a favorite vintage cartoon character "Nancy" by John Stanley.

UPDATE: Thanks so much for Beverly for letting me know I misspelled the first one....it was one of those days!

Here is one my son did a few years ago.  It was done in marker however after seeing the Lichtenstein exhibit I really feel paint is warranted as well as varying the size of dots thru the piece.


















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- wc or heavy paper
- art board
- liquid tempera, acrylic, or disk tempera paint
- skewers, pencils, spoon handles, anything that will make a good "dot" imprint
- comic reference material
- magnifying glass, photocopier
- pencil and eraser
- fine and medium black sharpies
- tacky glue

PROCEDURE:

Find some reference material.  Old comics are great to show to the kids as they still have Ben-Day dots in the composition that are visible with the naked eye.  Recent comics no longer have this.

Use a magnifying glass or blow up one with a photocopier for further investigation.  Lichtenstein was emphasizing this component of the printing process of the time.

Tape down a piece of wc or heavy paper to an art board.

Incidentally an art board is a rectangle of masonite that is about 16" x 24".  I buy them at Home Depot or your local lumber supply store.  The masonite or MDF is 1/4" thick and comes in a huge 8ft sheet.  One sheet can be cut into 12 art boards and I just get the Home Depot staff to do this for me on their fancy cutting machine.  Every Fall I get 24 cut for school and I now have stockpile of close to 200 as they last for years.

Sketch out your panel in pencil.  I sketched a combination of panels which I close cropped.

Because we want that "comic" look paint in the heavy black sections.

Don't worry about outlining as we will add this later in sharpie.

To continue with that "comic' look we want to limit our colors. 

Lichtenstein used alot of bold primary colors (blue, red, and yellow).





Paint in a few of these areas.

For the rest of the painting we want to focus on those dots.

Using the ends of skewers, paintbrushes, pencils, etc. add dots.  Here I'm even adding some on top of the red bow I painted.

Now in an old comic the flesh tone would be made up of different colored dots but because we have blown this panel up I'm going to use flesh colored paint for mine.



You want to closely pack in these dots so your characters don't look like they have the measles!

I'm also adding some large dots to the background.

Lichtenstein liked blue dots in his backgrounds.

Let the dots dry and then using a medium sharpie put in those bold outlines.

For the dialogue bubble measure out a piece of paper that will fit in the space you want.


Use a ruler and pencil in lines to write your dialogue on.

Add the text in pencil first and then go over with a combination of fine and medium sharpie.  I think it looks more like a typical comic this way with some variation in the width of the line.

Cut out a balloon and outline it in black.


Now your text can be taken straight from the panel you are using or you can come up with it on your own.

Social commentary is up to you and I'm sure with older kids you can see many extensions to this activity. Although Lichtenstein never took himself to seriously in this work.

Glue into place.

That's it.

Have a good weekend everyone.