Out and About in the Art World

I went with a friend to the The Brainery 2nd Anniversary a week ago.  It was a pretty nice set up. They had free food from ButaPub and Scratch Bakeshop along with some adult beverages. The gallery had some interesting art being shown at this time.  We could fill out a 4 page multi choice test based on questions from all of the classes they've had over the past year. I totally guessed on 95% of the questions- it's not a surprise that I didn't win. :)  It's hard to believe The Brainery has been up and running for 2 years. I'm excited for the owners and hope that they continue to grow and prosper.

Just yesterday I went with a friend to City Hall for the opening exhibition from Genesee Center for the Arts & Education for the Studio 678 show. http://www.geneseearts.org/Studio678  This is a Community Darkroom collaboration with some City Schools.  The photography and poetry/writings from these 6,7 and 8th grade students is fantastic.  It's frustrating to see that this type of wonderful supportive program has to struggle every year with funding instead of being able to offer this program to every city school.  It disappointments me that as a society we cut the programs that could help the most and fund the programs that are least effective. Check out the website above and support this program!

Runnin' of the Green 2015

I finally was in town and around for Johnny's St. Paddy's Runnin' of the Green 5 mile race.  I was a little apprehensive about the race because I had just come from running outside in 85 degree weather and now had to run in the cold and snow/rain.  In addition, I'd been feeling out of shape so running a 5 mile race was something I wasn't quite sure about.  A few of my friends were running and my mom was in town to watch.

It was a fun race in that there was 1,384 runners and a lot of green and funky outfits going on.  I wore my clover socks and kermit the frog lucky me t-shirt (purchased for a total of 4.50 at Savers) and though I wasn't sure how'd I do I set off to have some fun.

I ended up running the race in 40.18. I placed 351 out of 1,383 overall and 11th out of 95 women for my age group.  While I was warm during the run I was wet and freezing afterwards. I did enjoy the green bagels!

Dr. Seuss Wall Art Tutorial- Under $20

While visiting my sister recently she showed me a picture of some wall art a woman made and was selling on Esty. My sister asked me if I could help her create this wall art for my niece's room before I came back to NY.  We went to a second hand Children's shop called "Once Upon A Time" and found 4 Dr. Seuss books for a total of $10. My sister already had 4 extra canvases from a prior project but you can find them at Walmart or Michaels often times on sale or with a coupon for about 5-7 dollars total.

Here's how I did it.
1. You can use Gorilla Glue or E 6000.  Put the glue all over the front and back cover of the book. Split the book in the middle page to lay heavy books on it while drying.  It took about 1-2 hours for books to adhere/dry to the canvases.

2. Then I used 2 different type of folds.  2 books had a simple bend over fold. Then the other two had a bend over fold followed by triangle (and alternated until all of the pages were folded).  I took Elmer's glue and put it on the ends of each book at the binding (top and bottom) to help adhere the pages. In others I saw that they glued each page in but I have made several altered books and they pretty much hold themselves together if you do them correctly.

This was  a pretty easy and quick wall art project. And it was inexpensive.  The woman on Esty was selling them for $95 for a set of 4. Total time 1.5 hours dry glue dry time and 20min. to fold all 4 books.

Inspiration Sandwich

I finally finished all of the pages to my sketchbook for the work sketchbook project. Woohoo! I'm pretty excited how it all turned out.

I liked the umbrella piece. The quote resonated with me and I thought of my one girlfriend who has been asking me why I haven't sent her one of my sketches. I made a copy of this one only bigger and am shipping it out to her. It's great to get mail that isn't bills! :)