c-o-n-g-r-a-t-s

My roommate took her final set of medical board exams this week and we threw her a surprise party to celebrate.  After studying almost every waking hour for weeks on end, she was quite surprised to find her closest friends waiting to celebrate with her.  On a random rainy day in June, we set up a carnitas taco bar and decorated our living room for the occasion.  With leftover streamers to use, I set out to make a congratulations banner to run across the room.  With a busy week at work and a deadline the same day, this is the banner that resulted.

Congratulations!

My sister graduated from UC Davis this month and I kept up our tradition of making each other a lei from ribbon.  I opted for a less intensive and meticulous method for this lei compared to the one I made for her high school graduation.  My sister is headed to a PhD program on the East Coast, which means at least one more ribbon lei in her future.  As for me, I may find myself in a graduate program somewhere down the road, but if I don't, my sister is off the hook for making another lei.

Magazine Collage

This project sprouted after finding two lovely tiles while at SCRAP one Saturday afternoon.  Organic in its texture, the tile inspired the design, created with ribbon and magazine cutouts.  Sitting in my living room cutting through a stack of National Geographics, I stayed up later than I should have with work the next morning,  But, it was a refreshing break from the my daily routine to create something spontaneously.  Another motivating factor lies in the redecorating of my living room.  One of my roommates moved out lastmonth and I've been slowly decorating our living room to pull together the various pieces of furniture.  This collage sits on the wall in my living room and helps us get closer to establishing the character and color scheme of our living room.

Dying Easter Eggs

A little under a year ago, a fellow volunteer at Project Open Hand planted a seed in my head when he described his silk-dyed Easter eggs.  Full of paisley and other intricate patterns, his eggs looked hand painted and borderline relatives of faberge eggs.  For my monthly art night last Friday, I set us up with silk ties and scarves and more eggs than one can imagine.  I remember dying eggs in elementary school with cups of dye, wire metal loop carriers, wax crayons, heat shrink plastic sleeves and all sorts of glue-on accessories.  With that list of supplies, I cannot imagine achieving the level of detail and color saturation provided by the silk. 

Boston Cream Pies

A week in Boston with my sister inspired this baking project (and that I should bring something "back" from my trip to share with my coworkers).  For all the various anddelicious foods we consumed,we only had one Boston Cream Pie on our trip and it was from "Flour", a bakery recommended by my friend who is baking her way through their cookbook.  Her delicious multi-layer Boston Cream Pie inspired me to return to the days of college when I made cupcakes by the dozens.  

Doodling and then some

If you took any classes with me in college - especially the two hour engineering lectures, you may remember I constantly doodled on a sheet of paper folded in half, hamburger style. When I find the small stack of folded papers, I will share them as well, but this project took one of my doodles to a level I never imagined. Started while watching a Giants game, I think this is one of my most refined doodles and the real challenge for me was splitting it into four layers to meet the requirements of my silk screening class.

g-r-o-w

For my birthday a couple years back, I attended a one day Linocut workshop at 3 Fishes Studios in the dogpatch area of San Francisco with my sister. I had some previous exposure to this process in high school and was excited for the opportunity to further my knowledge. Linocut is a process of cutting away material (linoleum) to create a design on the top surface, Ink is rolled onto the flat linoleum, missing the carved area. I enjoy this process because it can capture the marks of the process in carving, like the individual brush strokes in a painting.

San Francisco Trio, part 1 (of 3)

With three canvases, I decided to create a trio of pieces based on the city by the bay. Each piece will focus on the different aspects of the city and be completed with varying materials and techniques. My first canvas focuses on the streets and city limits in the Marina and North Beach areas in San Francisco. When I made this canvas, I spent a fair amount of time in this part of SF. I played soccer at Galileo's field and at pier 27 and I took a silkscreening class at Fort Mason. I chose this corner of the city for its distinct water line and mostly gridded streets with Columbus street running straight through everything.

my attempt...

One to two months after finally being convinced by friends to start a blog to track my various adventures in arts and crafts, I am writing my first entry today. This blog will be my attempt to:

• share (and document) my projects - past and present
  
• maintain my first blog since a loosely updated xanga while in high school
• inspire and encourage others to exercise the creative side of their brain

With that said, I am excited to dig through some old files and to share all the new projects to come. Thanks for taking an interest in this part of my life and I will do my best to update on a regular basis. =]

Enjoy!
-Kim