Friday, October 21, 2011

Intermission

I've had to take a little break from my lightbulb painting that I've been allowing y'all to see in progress. My baby is due SOON! Halloween is her actual due date, but she could come any day, so there's been lots of prep work going on. Plus, it's just not comfortable for me to sit at my easel for very long (like, longer than 10 minutes). Rest assured, I will get back to that painting- it won't remain in its ugly stage forever. For the time being, though, I'm feathering my nest.
Even though I haven't been working on my art, per se, I have been making and creating things for the baby's room. My favorite of which is the wreath for her hospital door pictured below:

If you'd like to take a fine art break and read about how I made these birds keep reading. Otherwise, I'll catch up with you in a few weeks with news about Baby Girl Hardin and the next installment of my work in progress.
For those of you still with me, Hi! Welcome to my crafty side. Being pregnant has been good motivation for letting this side of me play for a little while. I wanted to do something different for my little girl's room than the typical pink nursery, so I went slightly more gender neutral. I made these birds out of paper clay. I only recently started playing with paper clay so I'm no expert. It's pretty fun and forgiving, though. First I made a kind of bird shape out of aluminum foil. The bird shaped aluminum foil wasn't super detailed. I just wanted something to form the clay around so that they wouldn't be solid clay (both to save clay and to keep them from being too heavy). I wrapped wire around the aluminum foil birds and left the ends sticking out approximately where their feet would be so that I would have a way to attach them to the nest. 
Next, I just covered the aluminum foil birds with paper clay. Easy as pie! I don't have an actual clay tools, so I used the back of a tiny measuring spoon to smooth out the clay, but paper clay is fairly easy to work with, so you can use your fingers as well. You might want to have a bowl of water close by to dip your fingers in if you want the clay to be really smooth.  I wanted the baby to be kinda fluffy, so I roughed up the clay on her. I let them dry, painted them with acrylic paint, and attached them to the nest and the nest to the wreath. You might need to use a little gel medium to help the birds stay right where you want them to be. 
That's all! Stay tuned for more updates. I'll let you know when Baby Girl is here! Then after that maybe we can get back to art :) See you soon!

2 comments:

  1. I am so happy for you, Erin! Thanks for the update!

    xoxoxoxo,
    Ricki Jill

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  2. Super cute! I can't believe she's almost here. My fingers are crossed for tomorrow....please....my birthday is tomorrow so I would be able to remember hers! LOL (keeping in mind that I wouldn't remember my own if my family didn't remind me!!!)

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