The Edible Book Show

I have to get one last post in before the end of the month (and I won't have time tomorrow) so two posts in one day! This past Sunday, I attended the Edible Book Show at Woodland Pattern Book Center for the first time. I have several artsy friends who participate so I had heard about it for several years now but had been missing out on the fun!

All the books were made to be tasted and judged by the people attending the show. How often can you say you arrived at an art event to find the guests had already started eating the exhibits?

Fortunately there were photographs of each book displayed so late arrivals could see what each piece looked like to start. We judged the entries on creativity, difficulty and delectability. My friend Jessica Poor won a special prize for most votes over all since her Mexicali Medusa (chips embellished with food coloring, guacamole and salsa) got lots of votes spread across all three categories. Sharon Van Ruiswyk demonstrated different techniques for making your own edible book forms using everything from bologna and Wonder Bread to Pringles and spray cheese.

On the right above is Petra Press's book made with rice krispie treats and edible ink printed on rice paper. This fairy tale book below had a dangerous combination of chocolate & crispy wafers:

You can see photos of past shows here:
2008
2009
Enjoy!

Jewelry-Making Fun at Eclectica

Yes, I'm trying to catch up on all my posts for March at the end of the month! Last Tuesday, my friend Kathi and I took the Riveted Textured Pendant workshop at Eclectica Beads. We learned how to punch holes in metal, use crimp tubes as rivets, stamp patterns and letters, and add a patina with liver of sulfur.

Tuesday also happened to be a free Make & Take day at Eclectica, so we also made a beaded necklace using vintage glass leaves and flowers, and I learned how to use crimp beads for actual crimping. A very productive evening over all!

Transparent ATCs

Lisa Vollrath's always giving the Ten Two Studios design team interesting challenges. This time I used clear ATC blanks with vintage silhouette images from the Shadow Life collage sheet and text from Spirit Words. I made contact paper transparencies with the images and text and colored the clear ATC blanks with alcohol ink.

I had originally planned to glue the contact paper image transfer to the colored back using Aleene's paper glaze (because I couldn't find my Diamond Glaze), but I learned that when you stick something wet between two non-porous plastic surfaces, it stays wet for a loooooong time. So I ended up sealing the edges with aluminum foil tape cut with decorative scissors and colored with more alcohol ink!

I made six cards for trade at the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group's March meeting last weekend. You can see the whole set here

Intuitive Watercolor Faces

It's been over a month since my last post! I've been busy with work and had the bug that's going around (as has everyone in my office). SO ANYWAY, I did have time to make ATCs for the 10-Minute Intuitive Watercolor Faces Swap at Illustrated ATCs. This swap is hosted by Sal Scheibe, aka Amerasu, who wrote an article on this technique for the Winter 2010 issue of Art Trader Magazine. (Don't know about Art Trader? Check it out! It's a FREE digital 'zine about mail art!)

In theory, we spend ten minutes on each card, so three cards plus a host thank you card should take 40 minutes. In practice, I ended up making ten cards because this is an addictive technique! I got out the timer and the Twinkling H20s and sketched out five blobby faces in 30 minutes. So that's 6 minutes spent on each card, 4 minutes to go. After the watercolor dried, I added details with Pitt artist pens, some in black and some in sepia, and a bit of Souffle pen.

Then I had to do another set of five! (Did I mention this was addictive?) It was fun not knowing where the sketch would go. Some I really liked, and some were bleh. I do have a tendency to draw everyone with the same expression! Here are the 4 cards I'm sending in for the swap:


You can see all the cards I did here.