September 2006 Archives

Make yourself a lovely necklace. Use pearls, gemstones, sterling, gold-filled, or seed beads for a sophisticated Victorian look

Tablet weaving is one of the oldest European textile techniques, dating back to the early Iron Age. It was mainly used for making narrow fabrics for girdles, leg bindings, borders, and decorative braids.
The tablets are small flat squares, usually of bone or wood, with a hole in each corner through which a warp thread is passed. The tablets are held in the hand like a pack of cards, parallel to the warp, and turned back or forward by half or quarter turns. This action twists the four warp threads (controlled by each tablet) into a cord that can be locked into position by a weft thread inserted between the turns. By varying the colors of the warp yarn and the direction of the turn of the tablets, intricate warp patterns can be created.
Tablet weaving could be further enhanced by brocading, which was achieved by using a second weft thread, which ran over some of the warp threads, creating a pattern on the surface of the thread. Brocaded tablet-weaves were usually of silk, using gold or silver thread for the brocaded pattern. This type of braid was a very high status item, and was usually used to decorate expensive garments.
Tablet weaving was a very skilled craft. The bands, as they are known in most countries, were often woven with the finest of wools - sometimes referred to as cobweb fine. The result was a very fine piece of work, with woven bands less than 1/2” wide common and demonstrating fantastic detail.
Other original examples have woven names or messages in the work or rows of animals. The number of patterns possible is almost limitless, with certain patterns probably typical of particular localities. Tablet weaving was one of the few occasions that almost anyone could afford at least some expensively dyed threads that could be included in the work, in an effort to dress up plainer clothing.

In an age when artists are turning more and more to the surreal and the abstract, there are those who are turning to Ultra-realism. Take a look at Evan Penny's sculptures.

A delightful little project for you and your toddler using up all the old broken crayons around the house.

Autumn Leaves, Lake George, NY, 1924 by Georgia O'Keeffe,  The Columbus Museum of Art.

Add some olde worlde charm to your handiwork. Learn the fine needlecraft of smocking.

Try some of these Egypt-motif clip art pictures.

Make this delightful pop-up card for a friend.

The National Gallery, London has one of the greatest collections of European painting in the world. Every month, one of the pieces from its permanent collection features as exhibit of the month.

This month’s chosen painting is Paolo Uccello’s ‘The Battle of San Romano', dating back to the middle of the fifteenth century.

This egg tempera with walnut oil and linseed oil on poplar wood, measuring about 72” x 128”, is one of three panels portraying the battle of San Romano that was fought between Florence and Siena in 1432.

The central figure of the panel is Niccolò da Mauruzi da Tolentino on his white charger, the leader of the victorious Florentine forces, who is identifiable by the motif of 'Knot of Solomon' on his banner. The Bartolini Salimbeni family in Florence commissioned the panels sometime between 1435 and 1460.

Uccello has effectively used here the one point linear perspective, seen in the foreshortening of shapes and arrangement of broken lances.

If you are in London this month, go see it.

Print out any of these pictures and have fun coloring them. You can also use them to make cards, files, wh,  even on t-shirts!

The ancient metalworks of Luristan have been recovered from areas in west central Iran. The Lurs are the people of the mountainous Zagros,  descended from the migrant tribes who settled in this region during the third and fourth millenium B. C.

The typical Luristan style  artifacts include a great number of weapons, ornaments, tools, and ceremonial objects, crafted with iron, bronze and gold. These golden death-masks were unearthed from Kalmarekh and date back to the first half of the first millenium B.C.

Knit yourself a lacy shawl for cool Fall evenings.  Get the pattern alone, or along with lovely natural fibres.

Start working on this beautiful needlepointed vest of colorful poppies, and be the center of attraction this festive season.

Lovely cards for you to paint with these easy instructions.

Snap is a sculpted, cast, molded puppet. Find out how he is made.

Learn to needlefelt and explore new techniques.

You are never too young for art and craft. Try this fun exercise with your wee ones.

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art since the 1920s.

Born in Wisconsin into a family of dairy farmers, Georgia did her schooling in Wisconsin and Virginia, before enrolling at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905. In 1907 she attended the Art Students League in New York City, where she studied with William Merritt Chase, and met her future husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

In 1912, between a series of teaching assignments, she attended a class at the University of Virginia Summer School, where she was introduced to the cutting edge ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow by Alon Bement. Dow's teachings encouraged artists to express themselves through harmonious designs of line, color, and shape. O'Keeffe turned to abstraction, and created a series of charcoal drawings that are among the most innovative of any art produced in the period. These greatly impressed  Stieglitz, who exhibited 10 of her drawings in a group exhibition in New York, and later her first one-person show.

In1918, on Stieglitz’s invitation, O’ Keeffe moved to New York to paint for a year. The two of them fell in love, and eventually married in 1924.

Soon after she moved to New York, she began working primarily in oil, which represented a shift away from her having worked mainly in watercolor in the 1910s, and by the mid-1920s, she began making large scale paintings of natural forms from close up, as if seen through a magnifying lens.

During the 1920s, O'Keeffe made both natural and architectural forms the subject of her work. She painted her first large-scale flower painting in 1924, Petunia, No. 2,, which was first exhibited in 1925, and completed a significant body of paintings of New York buildings, such as City Night, and New York--Night, 1926, and Radiator Bldg--Night, New York, 1927.

By the mid-1920s, she had become known as one of America's most important artists. Her work commanded high prices; in 1928 six of her calla lily paintings sold for US$25,000, which was at the time the largest sum ever paid for a group of paintings by a living American artist.

In the summer of 1929 O'Keeffe visited New Mexico, and here started a love affair that lasted over 20 years. Between 1929 and 1949 she spent part of almost every year working there, collecting and painting bones, painting the area's distinctive architectural and landscape forms, returning to New York every fall. In the fall of 1934, she discovered Ghost Ranch, an area north of Abiquiu, whose painted desert of dramatically colored, enormous cliffs and hills inspired some of her most famous landscapes.

In the 1940s, and she was given two one-woman retrospectives, the first at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1943 and another in 1946 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the first ever given by that museum to a woman. She was also awarded honorary degrees by numerous universities, the first by the College of William and Mary in 1938, and in the mid-1940s, the Whitney Museum of American Art sponsored a project to establish the first catalogue of her work.

After Stiegitz's death in 1946, O'Keeffe spent the next three years mostly in New York settling his estate, and in 1949 she moved to New Mexico permanently. During the 1950s, O'Keeffe produced a series of paintings featuring the architectural forms --patio wall and door--of her adobe house in Abiquiu. Another distinctive painting of the decade is Ladder to the Moon, 1958, and as a result of her first world travels in the late 1950s, she produced an extensive series of paintings of clouds Above the Clouds I, 1962/1963, inspired by what she saw from the windows of airplanes.

By the early 1970s, O'Keeffe's eyesight began to be compromised by macular degeneration. O'Keeffe met potter Juan Hamilton in 1973, who  taught her to work with clay and helped her complete her book, Georgia O’Keeffe, published in 1976, as well as the Perry Miller Adato video project, Georgia O'Keeffe, which aired on national television in 1977. She completed her last unassisted work in oil in 1972, The Beyond, and worked unassisted in watercolor and charcoal until 1978 and in graphite until 1984.

O'Keeffe died at the age of 98, and was cremated and her ashes scattered around the Pedernal.

Check out these African-inspired doorstoppers. Try and fashion some of your own.

Try your hand at creating a fantasy tree with apoxy clay.

Strips of paper can yield wonderfully intricate, delicate works of art. Learn the techniques of quilling, and let your imagination run wild.

Learn how to use your embroidery hoops effectively with your sewing machine.  Sign up for September's Pfaff chat.

Make a few official seals to play with.

Plan a craft party for a birthday - entertainment and party favors rolled into one!

Somemono is the ancient Japanese craft of dyeing cloth, silk, linen and other materials.

In the traditional method, dyes from local plants are used. The distinctive indigo dye is prepared by stewing clippings from locally grown ao, or indigo, in a large ceramic urn, placed in a covered area and buried to the brim in the earth, and maintained at a constant and proper environment.

A natural way to catch the sunlight and dress your windows with these easy-to-follow instructions.

Have you recently created a work of art that you would like to share with others? You can do so at the Craftown community.

This rolling, scrolling, needle point frame is a work of art in itself.

Painting with seeds is a most fascinating craft. It is something that can be enjoyed by anyone who has time, patience and a variety of seeds. The seeds are used as threads are in embroidering, or paint as in painting.
The seeds may be gathered from the roadsides, fields and gardens. There is no end to the different combinations that may be worked up in forming flower, leaves and baskets with the seeds.
To make a seed picture: Select a clean piece of sandpaper for the background. Sandpaper is recommended because it is strong, durable and will hold the glue better than a smooth surface or paper.
Start with a simple design, and practice; later larger pictures and more intricate designs may be worked out easily.
Transfer your pattern onto sandpaper with carbon paper, or draw it on directly.
Arrange your seeds on the pattern and see how they look, trying out several combinations.
Using a good grade of glue or cement, apply enough to hold each seed in a secure manner. After glue has had time to dry thoroughly, coat each seed and the entire background with clear varnish.
Frame the painting without glass, or use a shadowbox for framing which will better preserve your picture.

The safety pin dates back to the Mycenaeans during the 14th century B.C. Called fibulae, they looked remarkably like the safty pin and were used in the same manner as modern day safety pins.
The safety pin was re-invented in July of 1849 by Walter Hunt. The rights to the invention were sold for $400.
The safety pin is a design classic that is timeless. It is as much a work of art as a piece of engineering. Made of rigid but bendable metal, it is activated by squeezing the parallel sides inwards. It is safe because the sharp needle tip is covered when the safety pin is closed. It is used for holding objects, mainly clothing, in place.
The safety pin is strong, safe and very durable. Safety pins are very common and inexpensive and they come in many sizes. They are also manufactured in plastic variants.
Make some cool accessories using safety pins.

Making templates is an important initial step in quilting.

Once a pattern has been chosen, trace pattern pieces on clear template plastic, or trace on paper and glue the tracing to plastic, cardboard or the reverse side of sandpaper.

For appliqué or hand-pieced patches, trace the seam line; marked cutting lines are optional.

For machine-pieced patches, trace the cutting line, including the seam allowance in the template. Cut out accurately.

Make a sample block to test the accuracy of your templates before cutting the entire quilt.

Find here beautiful line drawings of wildflowers, with corresponding color guides. Try your hand at it.

Dress up your pens to brighten your desk.

Use a bead reamer to correct irregular beads and make them more uniform.

Capture a sunflower at the end of summer with this free cross stitch pattern.

Bead yourself a lovely hummingbird pin following these simple instructions.

The Hoffman Challenge is one of the largest competitive activities in the dollmakers' diary. Take a look at this year's winners.

Handy stitching tips make crafting a delight.

Make some fan bookmarks in time for school.

Gouache is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. The particles are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher, and the presence of an inert white pigment such as chalk differentiates gouche from water color. This makes gouache heavier and more opaque, with greater reflective qualities.

The term “gouache” originates in the Italian “guazzo”, which means "water paint, splash", and referred to the early 16th century practice of applying oil paint over a tempera base. The term was extended to the watermedia in the 18th century in France, although the technique is considerably older. It was used as early as the 12th century in Islamic art and as early as the 14th century in Europe.

Gouache dries slightly lighter than it appears when wet, which can make it difficult to match colors over multiple painting sessions. This, combined with its quick coverage and total hiding power, mean that gouache lends itself to more immediate techniques than watercolour. "En plein air" paintings take advantage of this characteristic.

Many famous artists have painted a small number of gouaches, but it is used more for graphic works such as posters and other design work, where it is desirable for its speed and durability.

The  gouaches découpées created by Matisse are a good example of the technique., notably his Blue Nudes series.

For those who would like to, but don't know where to start - learn to thread a needle and form a knot.

The civilization of the Mayas was one of the most magnificent in all of Central America. Its history can be divided in three successive periods: the preMayan era (before 320), the Ancient Empire (320-987), and the New Empire (987-1697).

The Mayan empire covered a wide region including the southeast of México, Yucatan and Guatemala. The civilization grew from the hub in the Peten region to the Tikal and Uaxactun agglomerations. The cities of Chichen Itzá, Uxmal, Palenque, Bonampak, and Copan developed.

Mayan Art is considered the richest in the New World because of the great complexity of patterns and variety of media expressions. Limestone structures, faced with lime stucco, were the hallmark of ancient Mayan architecture. Mayan buildings were adorned with carved friezes and roof combs in stone and stucco. Another distinctive feature of the Mayans was the use of colorful murals

With large quantities of limestone and flint available, plaster and cement were easily produced. This allowed the Mayans to build impressive temples, with stepped pyramids. On the summits were thatched- roof temples. The early Mayan architects used extensively the corbel vault principle, where arch-like structures extend inward until they meet at the pinnacle.

Tombs were often encased within or beneath Mayan structures. Frequently new temples were built over existing structures.

Most of the Mayan cities were built by being divided into quarters by two avenues which cross-cut each other at right angles. Roofs were flat and made with cedar beams overlaid with mortar. The walls were plastered and painted with great gods and other mythological features.

The Mayans also expressed themselves artistically. Their ceramics were made in a large variety of forms and decorated with complex scenes.

The Mayans also designed works of art from flint, bone and shell, along with making decorated cotton textiles. Even metal was used for ceremonial purposes. Items made with metal include necklaces, bracelets and headresses.

With the decipherment of the Maya script it was discovered that the Maya were one of the few civilizations where artists attached their name to their work.

Alexandre Louis Marie Charpentier (1856-1909) was the assistant of the medal engraver Ponscarme. His first exhibition at the Salon took place in 1879, and he was recognised as an artist on his own right when Alexandre Dumas bought one of his statues.

Charpentier was one of the founders of "Les Cinq", a group which played an important part in development of Art Nouveau. He was awarded a Grand Prix at the Universal Exhibition in 1900, and soon thereafter the Legion of Honor. Apart from medals, Charpentier designed sculptures, furniture and pottery. Go see his work at the National Gallery of Art.

Have a start of school party for the kids. Throw in some face painting and clown around.

Crochet yourself this bright tote and hold on to summer.

Follow these comprehensive instructions to make a pretty checkbook cover.

Beads. All of us love them. Big ones, small ones. Bright ones, shiny ones. Of all shapes.

Beads don’t just look pretty. We can use them to make a lot of things. One of the most popular ways to use beads is with the Peyote stitch.

Peyote Stitch is a particular bead weaving stitch. Native Americans used a similar stitch called Comanche Stitch to create items used in worship. It is also known as Gourd Stitch, 2-Drop,  and graph stitch.

Peyote Stitch is used to make a "fabric" of beads by weaving them together by hand ( no loom is used) in an offset row method. When completed, no thread shows between the bead or row, thus creating a "fabric" of beads. Thread is visible along the edge of the work, however.

There are a number of variations on this beading stitch including flat, even count (makes a flat piece of finished beadwork using and even number of beads per row) flat odd count (makes a flat piece of finished beadwork and uses an odd number of bead per row with a somewhat tricky turn at the end of each row) tubular even count (makes a tube shaped piece of finished beadwork using an even number of beads in a continuous spiral.) Also, Peyote Stitch can be worked with two beads at a time in each stitch, This is called "Two Drop Peyote Stitch."

Flat Round Peyote Stitch uses an even number of beads in the first row, alternating single and double bead rows cause the flat circular orientation to develop.

Peyote Stitch projects usually use an offset graph type pattern and can be increased and decreased easily. Also, bead numbers can be changed to add ruffles and other textural interest to Peyote Stitch.

Learn how to do the Peyote stitch. Use it to make yourself a beading mascot.

Aah to dance the night away with as much poise as Henri Matisse's Blue Nude With Green Stockings!

Make these lovely booties for you favorite dolly. Or her favorite dolly.

Most needlecrafters either hate thimbles or swear by them. Check out these snazzy models.

Do you collect antique toys? You mave have a few that are missing some parts. This Board can help you locate them, and also provide valuable information on your collection.

A pencil is an implement that is used to write and draw. It is usually made of a solid inner writing core of graphite, with a wooden encasing. Colored pencils use pigments, including those used in oil and watercolor paints. Pencils may also have an eraser or "rubber" attached to one end, typically by means of a metal ferrule.
The pencil found its origins in the ancient Roman stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made of lead and used for scratching on papyrus. The word pencil comes from the Latin word penicillus which means "little tail".
In the early 16th century, an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered in Cumbria, England. This was found very suitable for marking sheep. Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead, and called plumbago. The black core of pencils is still sometimes referred to as "lead", even though it no longer contains the element lead.
The soft plumbago needed some form of case for rigidity, and the first plumbago sticks were wrapped in string or in sheepskin. The news of the usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attentions of artists all over the "known world".
England continued to enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils, and the distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s.
The first attempt to manufacture graphite sticks from powdered graphite, found in other parts of the world, was in Nuremberg, Germany in 1662. They used a mixture of graphite, sulphur and antimony. Though usable they were inferior to the English pencils.
It was the Italians who first thought of wooden holders. An Italian couple in particular named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti were believed to be the ones to create the first blueprints for the modern carpentry pencil, although their version was a flat oval, more compact type of pencil. They did this at first by hollowing out a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were carved, a plumbago stick inserted, and the two halves then glued together—essentially the same method that is in use to this day.
A French officer in Napoleon's army, Nicholas Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with clay and forming the mixture into rods which were then fired in a kiln. By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied (the more clay, the harder the pencil, and the lighter the colour of the mark). This method of manufacture also remains in use today.
Today, pencils are made industrially by mixing finely ground graphite and clay powders, adding water, forming long spaghetti-like strings, and firing them in a kiln. The resulting strings are dipped in oil or molten wax which seeps into the tiny holes of the material, resulting in smoother writing. A juniper or incense-cedar plank with several long parallel grooves is cut to make something called a slat, and the graphite/clay strings are inserted into the grooves. Another grooved plank is glued on top, and the whole thing is then cut into individual pencils, which are then varnished or painted.
Many pencils, particularly those used by artists, are labeled on the European system using a "degrees" scale from "H" (for hardness) to "B" (for blackness), as well as "F" (for fine point). The standard writing pencil is "HB". However, artists' pencils can vary widely in order to provide a range of marks for different visual effects on the page. The American system, using numbers only, was developed simultaneously by  Conté.
Pencils in the United States and Canada tend to be painted yellow on the outside.
Not all countries however use yellow pencils; German pencils, for example, are often green, and Brazil uses green and black
Most pencils today are Hexagonal in cross-section. This shape is comfortable to hold and reduces their tendency to roll on desks. Although they too are hexagonal, carpenter's pencils have a flattened shape, and allow for a more precise positioning of drawn lines. Cylindrical pencils are also manufactured, and often have either artistic designs or messages for promoting businesses, causes, organizations, or services on the outside. Still other pencils have a triangular cross-section, ostensibly for comfort and ergonomic reasons.
An urban legend in circulation since the 1970s tells of NASA spending large sums of money, typically in the millions of dollars, to develop an instrument that would write in space (a space pen). This task is not as simple as it seems, as standard ballpoint and fountain pens require gravity in order to function. The typical punch line is that either someone supposedly should have sent NASA a pencil, or that the Soviets used pencils.