Spring Green Earrings

I've been experimenting with new colors of fabric for my twiggy flower earrings. I'm really excited about these ones -- the combination of light green fabric and pearl beads makes me think of the first snowdrops of spring. I'll be rolling these out at SLAM at the Burren next weekend for their Easter-themed craft fair on April 23rd. Hope to see you there!

Somerville Museum "Artist's Choice" Exhibition

I am again participating in the Somerville Museum "Artist's Choice" exhibition this year, in conjunction with Somerville Open Studios. There is an opening tonight (Friday, April 15th) from 6-9pm, which should be a lot of fun. Each artist participating in Open Studios was invited to submit one work, so the show is always very varied. I am showing "Sunset Parks", which is pretty much my favorite map. I can't wait to see how the show looks!

Papercut Map Cards

After my cutout map experiments, I've been thinking about the idea of making one-of-a-kind handmade cards with map imagery. One way that's been successful so far is three-layered handcut map cards. The cards are each a piece of thin paper folded in four; blocks are carved out of the top layer, and houses are carved out of the second layer. When the card is closed, the writing layer provides the background. I suppose that if you were to write densely enough on the card, the writing would show through in the houses.

I'll be showing a few of these cards at SLAM the weekend after next, and if that goes well there should be more available at Somerville Open Studios! They are also currently available on Etsy, if you're not in the area.

Crocheted Flower Necklace

After making some earrings with crocheted flowers (see this post), I wanted to experiment with using them for a necklace. They seem to "curl up" and get less flower-like over time, but it's still a very comfortable necklace. I challenged myself to make an asymmetrical design, and I think it worked out fairly well.

Inside-Out Gallery

The windows of the Davis Square CVS always display local art, and have been named the "Inside-Out Gallery". The display is currently various artists who will be participating in Somerville Open Studios. I'm showing two map drawings there this year. If you're in Davis, you should check them out!

Woodblock Prints

When I was studying in Japan, I took a class in traditional woodblock printing and really enjoyed it. I realized recently that map forms would probably translate really well to that kind of printmaking technique. It was great to try it out again after a few years. I cut a small 2" x 2" block, and printed a few small envelopes to use at craft fairs:

I like the way that every print comes out completely differently, based on orientation and ink density. I'd love to do some larger ones for the paper shopping bags I give out, as well!

Cutout Maps

I've been making both maps and pop-ups for a while, and I finally got around to combining the map aesthetic with the papercut technique. 

I started with black cardstock:

This was a little too hard to cut, so I moved on to thinner white paper, and experimented with adding depth via multiple layers:

The piece looks entirely different when backlit:

Then I realized it might add visual interest to cut through a printed page, so I worked on obliterating a page from an art course catalog:

I took care to cut out all names and numbers, but kept in some words like "landscape" that I thought would be appropriate. It was a fun project; I'm trying to think of what kinds of pages to try next...!

Ascension by Su-Yee Lin

My friend Su-Yee has a short story online in Ideomancer's March issue. It's very autumn and very quiet, and you should read it. Su-Yee collaborated with me on an illustration project in 2009, which you can peruse on my old site here. I feel like our styles are very related, and I love reading her work.

Stop-Motion Map Drawing

I made a stop-motion animation while working on the multi-part map I drew for my senior exhibition in 2009. It was probably the first map I made in this style, so it's interesting to see how different my technique was then.

HTML5 Military Jacket

My friend has suggested for a while that the HTML5 logo would look good as a military-style patch, and I only recently got around to the project. Originally I was going to do some kind of iron-on transfer, but I figured hand-painting it would make it more personal. I think it came out really well!

Before I started on the large logo, I made a strip of icons representing various tech classes in HTML5, to go across over the jacket's breast pocket. I sketched the shapes freehand and then filled them in using bronze-colored acrylic paint.

The HTML5 logo is graphic and shield-shaped. It works pretty well for a patch. I sketched the logo onto fabric (this time with the help of a ruler, since the straight lines are pretty crucial) and mixed paint to match the orange shades.

I pinned the fabric to a thin corkboard so that it wouldn't buckle too much under layers of wet paint.

I decided that the four logos needed something to make them pop, so I outlined them in pen (I settled on a waterproof, bleedproof Copic after exhaustive testing).

I folded under the edges and made small hems across the top and bottom, then sewed pieces of velcro to the ends and middle of the strip.

The strip attached to a piece of velcro already on the right side of the jacket, and I sewed a slightly larger backing to the HTML5 logo and pinned the whole thing to the left sleeve. Here's what the jacket looked like on:

I might want to make the logo strip a little smaller, but I don't think paint would still work in that case; paint pens might end up being better. Overall, though, I think it worked surprisingly well.