Vol. 2, No. 110, April 20, 2017

2110 - 20 - Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.

Day 20 Make five small identical things and give them away or leave them for people to find (don't forget to document those interactions!)

Wanting something easy, I chose origami balls. What was I thinking? Sure, I've been making them since my Junior year of high school, and could probably do it with my eyes closed, but it is very time consuming. Each ball requires me to fold 12 squares of paper into little triangle shapes, then connect them together. Oh well, it was worth it because they are cute and it was fun to hide them throughout my day.

I was really into today's project, so I actually made 8 balls rather than just 5. The picture shows the location of all 8 blue balls as I distributed them throughout my day. My day starts in the top left corner and moves clockwise around the square. The picture in the middle is a close up of the top middle picture.

1. TL - Lamp table in the entry way of Holy Trinity Church in Winsted.
2. TC - A statue of Mary and Jesus on the second floor of Holy Trinity School.
3. TR - On the band teacher's desk. He told me to hide one in there. I conveniently found a time when he wasn't in the room.
4. MR - On my school computer with the eraser frog that I made for one of my projects earlier this year.
5. BR - On a shelf in Supervalu. I had to pick up snacks for Art Club.
6. BC - In Elmo's hand, in the window of the Winsted Arts Council.
7. BL - On the bulletin board in the lobby of the Meeker County Family Services Building, with the poster for Lion King Jr.
8. ML - I gave the last one to one of the Lionesses after the show.

Vol. 2, No. 109, April 19, 2017

2109 - 19 - #wisdomwednesday.

Day 19 Emulate your second grade self and use only materials that could be found in an elementary school classroom.

Two art materials readily accessible in elementary school are paper and markers. As I pulled out my Crayola markers, I was drawn to thinking about things I drew frequently in elementary school. Two things that came to mind were fish and the word SMILE, with that funky 6-line S.

I made a quick SMILE drawing on a sheet of notebook paper, because lets face it, that is usually what I was drawing on in elementary school, and usually when I was supposed to be doing something else.

Vol. 2, No. 108, April 18, 2017

2108 - 18 - Stars Align.

Day 18 Use your horoscope as your inspiration today!

I am a Cancer, so I kept it simple today and made an origami crab. I looked up instructions online. Of the step-by-step instructions I found, the crab I liked the best, had it's instructions written in Chinese. I don't read Chinese, and it was a picture, so I couldn't just put it in google translator. Therefore, I relied on the sub-par images and made up the parts I couldn't figure out.

Vol. 2, No. 107, April 17, 2017

2107 - 17 - Open to Interpretation.

Day 17 Finish this statement any way you want: One thing I know to be true...

...is that Litchfield Community Youth Theatre's production of Lion King Jr. opens on Thursday. For this reason, my project today was to make 45 more dandelions to go with the 10 I made a few weeks ago. I need 55 all together so that each actor and crew member gets one. While this tends to be a large under taking, I like ensuring that each child receives at least one flower during the show. I started about 5 years ago and I try to make the flower relate to the show; for The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley Jr. I made "flat" flowers, which were painted on a bookmark; for My Son Pinocchio Jr. I made "wooden" roses from cardboard.

The process of making the dandelions is to sew string on to a straw; wrap the string around the straw and a fork, tying it off and snipping the loops to create a pom-pom; dye the flower; let it dry completely; rinse out the excess dye; let the flower dry completely again; finally fluf the flower and wrap the straw with floral tape. It is a time consuming process, but they look really neat when they are finished. Unfortunately due to time constraints, I wasn't able to actually complete all of the flowers today. I did get them made, dyed, and rinsed, so all I have to do is wrap the stems after they are dry.

Vol. 2, No. 106, April 16, 2017

2106 - 16 - Museum Moment.

Day 16 Recreate your favorite work of art.

My all-time favorite artwork is Vincent Van Gough's 'Starry Night'. I've recreated it multiple times, but I couldn't resist recreating it again. Since it is Easter, I created a jellybean mosaic a blue tablecloth.

Vol. 2, No. 105, April 15, 2017

2105 - 15 - Charting a Course.

Day 15 Create something using an old map or something that ends up looking like a map.

I got the honor of making dessert for my family's Easter dinner tomorrow. I decided on carrot cake, because it is delicious and seemed fitting for the holiday. I decorated the cake, creating a maze/map for the Easter Bunny'so carrot fields.

Vol. 2, No. 104, April 14, 2017

2104 - 14 - Sky Gazing.

Day 14 Today is National Look Up At The Sky Day! Make something inspired by what you see when you gaze upwards.

Today was going to be Easter Egg Dying day, but our friends got busy, so we had to move it to tomorrow. However, I was all set to make a galaxy egg, so I went ahead and made one egg anyways. I painted the egg with food coloring, and then splattered it with white gouache paint.

I absolutely love how it turned out, so it is quite unfortunate that it is a hardboiled egg, and will be cracked and turned into a deviled egg for Easter Dinner on Sunday.

Vol. 2, No. 103, April 13, 2017

2103 - 13 - Shoe Gazing.

Day 13 What’s below your feet? Use that as your inspiration today.

I decided to finally make my shoe planter. I took the shoe I had decorated, covered it with wax and warmed it to set the wax, creating a water-resistant barrier. Then I filled the shoe with soil and planted some succulents.

Vol. 2, No. 102, April 12, 2017

2102 - 12 - #wisdomwednesday, Morning Chorus.

Day 12 Create a frame, using any materials you have at hand. Take it with you during the day and use it to capture things you find beautiful.

This morning, I made cardboard frame that I decorated with Mod Podge and dried flowers that I had pressed a long time ago. Then I set out for a 3-hour (each way) car ride to pick up my sister from college for Easter Break. Since I knew I was going to be in the car most of the day and wouldn't have to take pictures of the beautiful scenery, so I decided to work in today's National Holidays and the #64MillionArtists Weekly Challenge as well.

• National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day #GrilledCheeseSandwichDay
• National D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) Day
• Start your day with a group singing session #64MillionArtists 
• Beautiful Rain #CreativeSprint
• Beautiful Blended Latte #CreativeSprint

Vol. 2, No. 101, April 11, 2017

2101 - 11 - Inspiration is Everywhere.

Day 11 Search the Creative Sprint hashtag or the Facebook Group and pick a sprinter who's work you are enjoying and make something inspired by their work!

I chose to the work of Peter @pthreeee as my inspiration today. During this Creative Sprint, he has been making miniature sculptures, often with nuts and bolts. I followed his lead and used nuts and bolts to make a miniature pig sculpture. I chose to make a pig, as it is National Pet Day and I have always thought it would be fun to have a pet pig.

Vol. 2, No. 100, April 10, 2017

2100 - 10 - Morning Chorus Word Play.

Day 10 Write a poem or make something inspired by a poem you like.

To combine with the #64MillionArtists Weekly Challenge, I wrote a haiku poem about singing. Using a bit of calligraphy and marker, I made my poem into a cute bookmark.

Vol. 2, No. 99, April 09, 2017

2099 - 9 - Up in the Air.

Day 9 Work with balloons as your material or inspiration today.

Being that today is Palm Sunday, I wanted to incorporate braided palms into my project. So I wove a small basket, and attached it to a Ballon, making a simple hot air balloon.

Vol. 2, No. 98, April 08, 2017

2098 - 8 - Topsy Turvey.

Day 6 Spin around 3 times with your eyes closed and use the first thing you see when you open them as your inspiration for today.

Before I left this morning for a Thirty-One meeting, I took a quick spin around my living room. When I stopped, the first thing I saw was a picture I had gotten from my grandma.  It is of a lighthouse and a poem.

I used the lighthouse as my inspiration. When I got to my meeting, I used my Boogie Board to draw a lighthouse.

Vol. 2, No. 97, April 07, 2017

2097 - 7 - Happy Food, Sticky Situation.

Day 7 Use something sticky as your material today.

Finally I have a reason to use up the old gum I had lying around! I made a small flower using chewed gum as the glue to hold in the un-chewed petals and stamen. If the gum wasn't so gross, I maybe would have done something more elaborate.

Gum sort of falls into the food category, so therefore is counts for this week's #64MillionArtists Challenge Make your food look like something else.

Vol. 2, No. 96, April 06, 2017

2096 - 6 - Trash to Treasure.

Day 6 Transform something you thought was trash into something you want to keep. Today at Art Club, we are making Pysanky Eggs on scratch board. As I was cutting out the eggs, I realized that we were losing a lot of board to the rounded edges of the egg. While many people would have thrown away the corners, I couldn't bring myself to do it, and looked for a way to re-purpose them. Then it came to me, fold back two of the corners and make bookmarks. Because I was working with corners and middles, I got two different bookmark shapes. When I got to school this morning I found that my co-worker had purchased the new Creative Sprint book! I used it to display my completed bookmarks.

Vol. 2, No. 95, April 05, 2017

2095 - 5 - #wisdomwednesday

Day 5   Go outside (or look out a window) and spend some time looking at the natural aspects of the environment around you. Make something inspired by what you notice. Bonus: leave what you make outside for someone else to find! I decided it was easier to just copy and paste the Creative Sprint challenges, rather than retyping them every day. So today, I took to the streets, walking to a nearby park known in my family as Granny's Park, but more commonly known as South Park.  It is a park a few blocks away from my house that my grandma used to take me to when I was a kid. When I got there, I walked through the park, looking for something that would be a good starting point for my project. My first thought,  and sort of my back-up plan if I didn't find anything else was to draw in the sand of the volleyball court. I kept walking hoping for something more intriguing. I was about to give up when I noticed something dark in the distance. From far away, it looked like part of a tire. I went to investigate and found it was just  a large stick, however I notice that one end was broken off to a point and had a knot, making it look like a bird's head. This was exactly the type of object I was looking for. I grabbed the stick and brought it back to the volleyball court to start sculpting. I laid it in the sand and started piling sand over the middle to make the body. Once I was satisfied, I went in search of wings. I was fortunate that the one pine tree in the park (also the only tree with anything leaf-like) had exactly 3 fallen branches. I picked them all up, using them for the wings and tail. While part of me wanted to take the bird stick home, I left my sculpture in the park for someone else to enjoy.

Vol. 2, No. 94, April 04, 2017

2094 - 4 - Happy Food, Fix It Up.

The Creative Sprint Challenge today is to break something and make something new with the parts. To combine with the #64MillionArtists challenge of using food, I broke crackers, carrots, and a banana to create a campfire with a cobble stone ring and benches. I am so ready for summer!

Vol. 2, No. 93, April 03, 2017

2093 - 3 - Book Worm, Happy Food.

Today, and hopefully all week I am combining 2 challenges. Today's Creative Sprint Challenge is to open any book to a random page and use what there to inspire what you make. This week's #64MillionArtists challenge is to make your food look like something else. Yay food art!

I am currently reading Library of Souls: The Third Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children and therefore had it on hand to find my inspiration. Just over halfway through the book, they encounter a parrot. So, I used an apple and a Cutie to make a parrot.

Vol. 2, No. 92, April 02, 2017

2092 - 2 - Party Animal.

Today'so Creative Sprint challenge is to make a tribute to your spirit animal. When I woke up this morning, I couldn't tell you what my spirit animal was, so I found some quizes online. 2 of the 3 quizzes I took said my spirit animal is a deer, so I went with it.

I went out to eat this morning with my parents. While waiting for my breakfast to arrive, I used my napkin band (I'm glad I know what they are called now) to make a deer sculpture. Quick but cute; a great project for a Sunday after so much creativity yesterday.

Vol. 2, No. 91, April 01, 2017

2091 - 1 - Start Small.

Today was the start of the April Creative Sprint. The prompt was to make something that fits in the palm of your hand using only the materials in your immediate environment. 

Today was also Set Work Saturday, which entailed being at the theater from 9-3, making a dead tree, part of an elephant, part of a giraffe, finishing the bird hats that I made a week ago, and some other random tasks that needed to be finished. I also planned to make a mouse, which would have worked for the Creative Sprint, however, someone bought one, so I put my project off, thinking I would do it later that evening. But then I was called in for more set work, this time painting gazelles. This project, 9 gazelles, front and back, took from 4-11. I posted the completed gazelles as well. So, at about 10:30 I remembered that I still didn't have my project done. So I found some paper, and quickly made a little flower for my sister. It's small and not very impressive, but after having spent about 12 hours doing art, I my creative brain was fried and this was the best I could do.