Process of T-shirt Making

Here's the shirt! I'd say it wasn't too bad for 1.5 hours and my first time :) 

I am playing in a volleyball tournament today and our team decided to do an "I <3 ____" themed outfit. I don't have one so I decided to attempt making one. I was brainstorming ideas for what to put and it felt out of place doing a location...since I'm not buying this shirt as a souvenir. I narrowed it down to either volleyball or cats and decided on the cat because it has more personality and a cuter silhouette. :)  Approximate production time: 1.5-2 hours. I'm hoping the paint will dry in time! The bottle says 4 hours. Barely made it!

Here's a step by step visual of how this shirt came to be!  I looked for a font on Word to model my letters after. I used the Gungsuh font in case you decide to make one too. It seemed close to the font found on the traditional I <3 NY shirts.

1. I wore the shirt and placed painter's tape to mark of the boundaries of where I wanted the design. The key is to do it while wearing it otherwise you might be disappointed with the placement once you've finished. Once I laid the shirt flat on the table, I straightened out the boundaries and used a ruler to center the image.

2. I cut drawing paper (it's thicker than regular printing paper so it works better as a stencil) to fit inside the boundaries. I lightly drew lines to divide up the paper into grids of where each letter would be so that it would be balanced. Then I sketched the design while looking at the font I found on Word and an image of the cat I saw online.
*If I had had more time or were to make another shirt, I would have printed out the letters instead of hand drawn them. That would ensure exact font accuracy, font size, and even thickness of lines.

3. I cut out the design with an Exacto knife

4. I taped on the stencil, being careful to tape down intricate spaces to make sure the stencil didn't budge while painting. While holding down the edges of the design, I carefully sponged on the fabric paint. (Instead of buying fabric paint, you can also buy fabric medium to add to regular acrylic paint. For me, it was cheaper for me to just buy 2 bottles of fabric paint than to buy the fabric medium. If you are using lots of colors and already have acrylics, it may be a better choice to go the other route.)

Here is a close up of the finished product! If I were to redo it, I would make sure to cover the edges of the paper with tape so that paint doesn't accidentally go outside of the boundaries. You can see some splotches on top of the "I" where that happened to me. You live and you learn :)

This proved to be a fun project! Maybe it'll come to use in the future...we'll see :)
Thanks for reading!
-M

Mosaic

I had some left over clay, pieces of glass, and beads so I made a mosaic. I didn't have any specific idea of what I was going to make. I started out with shaping the clay into a heart for no particular reason. As I started laying in the pieces of glass, a song lyric from Vienna Teng's "Enough" popped into my heart and kept repeating.  She sings...

 "I'll carry the weight of you....carry the weight of me in your heart."

As the lyrics circled and danced around inside of me, it made me think of the children I got to spend time with in India and Nepal. I will not forget how many of them came up to me and said, "Please don't forget me!" Hearing them say it with such concern and yearning made me resolve that I would do what I could to  love them by remembering them and praying for them even if we are halfway across the world from each other.

I will carry them in my heart. Their presence is ever so real and tangible that my heart can feel their weight. I will carry the weight of them in my heart and this mosaic was a way for me to materialize and express my desire.

I feel like I have left a part of my heart with those children...and I feel like I carry them around in my heart here with me.

4.5" x 5.5" Clay, glass, beads, glue. The hearts on the two maps mark the estimated location of the orphanages we visited.

A Wish Come True

Today was an exciting day! I went to visit my dandelion at the Brea Art Gallery!

 It was accepted into their juried show of artwork by California residents. I was out of town for the opening night so I went today to see it in the gallery. I feel like a parent who's sent off their child to their first day of school. I am so thrilled to have my dandelion out in the public for others to enjoy rather than collect dust in my house! When it had been accepted into the student show a couple years ago, I got to see other students having so much fun taking pictures with my dandelion, pretending to blow on it and being so excited to see a life-size dandelion.  That was when I realized artwork is meant to be shared. I wish I had gotten to be at the opening night for this show to see others enjoy it but maybe there will be another opportunity for that.

Standing with my dandelion :)

There it is! Among other works of art! I feel like my dandelion has friends :)

A wish come true!

I had to submit a short excerpt about the piece

If  you live in Socal and you're interested in seeing it in person, I'd highly recommend checking out the gallery. I really enjoyed walking around and seeing the other works of art. They have some really interesting and lovely pieces in this one!

Thanks for reading!
-M

Nails- Abstract Lines, Hearts, and Gradation

I've been really into doing nails recently. There's something about the temporary nature of it that makes it fun. After one or two weeks and it's time to take them off and start afresh. I also enjoy the small scale of it. I find it challenging to work on such a small canvas space and also forces me to be ambidextrous. I like the challenge! The first two are done by me and the third one I can't take credit for. My toes were done at a nail salon. ;)

Thanks for reading! :) Happy Sunday! -M

Nails- Feathers, Jeweled Mint, Expanding Circles

 Here are some nail art I've done recently.

Feathers
The feather design was taken from Pinterest. I added the jewel to add some sparkle. I didn't want to do the design on all my fingers so I chose two fingers and added glitter to a couple of the others. The biggest challenge was actually painting the feathers. I've never done such detailed work on my finger nails before so it was exciting to face the challenge! The other challenge was painting with my left hand. My nails on my right hand didn't turn out as great but it wasn't too bad considering I can barely write with my left :P Here's a picture of the more successful hand :)

Jeweled Mint
 I love the delicate and elegant design of many Japanese nail designs so I decided to try it out for myself. 

Expanding Circles
Not sure what they are exactly...flowers? Fireworks? Dandelions?

Thanks for reading!
-M

Mixed Media Collaging

This weekend I went to a workshop where we learned to make stencils and use a stamping technique to get silhouette shapes. After choosing an image, we ripped, cut, mixed, matched, painted, and glued to make a collage. It was a bit scary yet exhilarating because you don't really know how it's going to end up. It's a very spontaneous, go-with-the flow, organic process. I really enjoy that kind of process although it's a struggle for me and by the time I made the second piece, I was able to loosen up a little more and just take risks and have fun with it. Here are the two pieces that I made. The first one took about 2 hours and the second one was made really quickly in about 30 or so minutes.

I love words and I really enjoyed incorporating pages of a book and sheet music into these collages.  It was exciting tearing up the pages. ;) When you visit museums, you find that there's so much about artwork that a photograph can't capture. Standing in front of the actual piece, you see texture, the layering of paint, more vibrant colors, and details you wouldn't have noticed. I took some close ups of parts of the first piece so that you can experience the piece a little more.

This is the cut-out from a magazine that I used to make the silhouette. There is a beautiful quality about silhouettes-the lack of detail allows our eyes to focus simply on the shape which can trigger emotions, memories, or thoughts that otherwise may not have come up if there had been lots of details included. I personally enjoy the certain romantic, mysterious, and intriguing quality of them. :)

Hope you enjoyed seeing these collages and hopefully it inspires you to dabble in some art making as well. :)

Thanks for reading! -M