Let it Fly

Minerva

Did I mention that we named the Giant  (whose hand we've been building) Minerva? It seemed to fit her personality. And yes, believe it or not you can get an idea of her persona from just observing her hand. Who knew?

The whole project wrapped up on Wednesday and my partner Kyla and I have been marveling over how easy this project was. We didn't hit any major obstacles and it seems that the initial planning stage was thorough enough that we followed our plan pretty much to the T without any hair pulling mis-haps. In fact it was very enjoyable at every stage and came together beautifully.

We decided it was either pure luck or the fact that we are experienced enough now in prop building to use our collective experience to produce high quality, low stress work. But I'm sure the creative luck fairies are always close by too ;)

This photo was taken just after we finished sewing on her "skin". (faux suede in case you were wondering)

Next we created fingernails and glued them on, and used embroidery thread to sew in lines in the palm of her hand for detail. The final touch was a bit of burlap to fashion a sleeve around her wrist.

Can't wait to see it in the show!

Tree Removal

Yay! The tree that was threatening to fall on our house has officially been removed. It's actually pretty fun to watch the whole process as the trucks pull up on your lawn and people rise high above your home in a tiny bucket wielding a chainsaw :)

These two trunks are connected and part of one tree. The piece to the right is the one to be removed and the piece to the left is the one that split during the last windstorm.

And a sigh of relief was heard all around the neighborhood :)

Snowflakes and windy nights

We've been having some strange winter weather in New England. The day will begin warm and then with a whole lot of wind and bluster, freezing cold air moves in and the layers of clothes go on. And this is the only snowflake that has been around since before Christmas .......

We had a large piece of one of the pine trees in our backyard crack and fall to the ground about a month ago and I've been waiting for the other half to follow suit. It's pretty close to our house so when the wind started to kick up at 4am this morning, I was wide awake and thinking about what I would do if that big trunk crashed through the roof. Yikes!

So, in the interest of me getting some sleep ;) we hired a tree removal company to come out tomorrow and get this job done.

Whew.

Grapes

The sun was pouring in the window even while it was getting colder and colder outside. And I just liked the way this looked.....

Sewing has begun on the very large giants' hand and I will have some more progress photos to post here in the next week. 

In the meantime, paper mache has been on my mind a lot lately...may have to find the time to squeeze that in this week. Wish me luck!

Into the Woods -step 2

Good Morning :) The morning routine of dropping kids off to school, and a 7:30am run to grab groceries is behind me and I am about to make myself a hot cup of coffee

Going to the grocery store so early in the morning is so peaceful. Everything is fresh and stacked up high. All the free samples are newly made and the people who work there are quietly stocking shelves and saying good morning. Very few other shoppers are there and I was literally the only person in line at the check-out. No rush, no hurry. Everyone has a minute to notice each other and smile. Just my pace :)

So yes, the title of this post........let's get to that ;)  We had another morning to work on the giant's hand yesterday and incorporated bubble wrap and our old friend Gorilla Tape into making the fleshy parts of the hand . We even threw in some plastic bags and an old neck pillow because we love to re-cycle materials whenever possible.

We are pretty happy with the way it came out and love her mis-shappen  gnarly fingers! Turns out bubble wrap is a very good sculpting tool.

The next steps involve purchasing skin colored fabric, something to represent fingernails, and lots of strong thread. Yes, there is quite  a bit of sewing that will be needed to finish this beauty, but we are up for it.

Hope your weekend is full and peaceful. See you back here next week :)

 

 

Into the Woods

My buddy Kyla and I are back to making props for a local theater. Remember the mushroom? 

So this time we are creating a giant's hand for Into the Woods. These are our humble beginnings...

This baby is 5 ft. tall by about 3 ft. wide. Can you guess what we have used for the "bones" ?

 The giant is an old woman and we are making a bony, old looking hand to represent her. This prop stays off stage for most of the show and then drops to the floor on stage left for the scene where the giant dies. Therefore, it needs to be lightweight, resilient and easy to transport around backstage.

More tomorrow :)

Painting

This is the painting that kept me from all the to-do's on Friday....

Not to worry though, all the housework waited patiently for me until Saturday ...bleh ;)

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Would have sorted all this,

Could have washed these,

Should have put all this away,

But I did this instead :):)

Any woulda, coulda, shouldas you can ignore today ? ;)

2012

Happy New Year! I hope you are all off to a good start for 2012 and looking forward to new adventures. Sorry about these lags between posts....getting some things figured out and not coming up with the words lately.

I've been consumed with what my next steps will be in my artistic life...planning,working, signing up for e-courses, making decisions about how the next year might look. Yesterday, in the midst of all this excitement I hit that big giant wall of OVERWHELM. You've probably run into it before yourself, yes? I've been stringing together a whole lot of moments of "everything is possible" in the past two weeks and then in one instant it turned to"What?? I can't do that"!! It was a little disheartening until I decided to give myself a little time to catch my breathe and think about where this panic came from.

After some consideration (and with the help of this perfectly timed post from Amanda, brilliant!) it occurred to me once again that this wasn't about CAN , it was about WANT, and about who I am. I tend to move through life at a very thoughtful pace. How does my life and personality fit in with the goals I am setting and how does a contemplative tortoise like me fit into a world of hares?

Well, I guess we will see how in the coming year :)

Merry

Hello hello! Sorry to have been absent here for a bit. The holidays have swept us up and there is baking, wrapping, volunteering and all the things we love most about this season going on here.

I do want to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday and wish you all the best things for the swiftly approaching New Year. I love to hear from you and I thank you for the minutes you've spent visiting here in the past year. It is such an inspiratuion to connect with artists and friends from all over the world and it is one of my favorite things about having this space. 

You are good, kind, and inspiring and have brought me many smiles. Thank you so much :)

All the best to you and your families!

~see you back here in the New Year

~Andrea xox