Tag Archives: paper craft

Summertime and the Cuttin’ is Easy Bulletin Board

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Summer sunset bulletin board

Summer sunset bulletin board

It’s the last week of school for Arizona kids, at least the ones attending TUSD and Amphi, and I put together this dazzling summer sunset bulletin board to send them off (and for the summer staff and camp kids to enjoy). Up until about 90 seconds before I started making it, I had no idea what I was going to do.

This one took 2 days; the first day I just put up the background. There was nobody else around and I had a couple hours, so I thought I’d attempt a rainbow sunset. If I were to do this again, I think I might try to cut all the layers of paper at the same time. It felt a bit lopsided to me. For whatever reason, the school doesn’t stock purple butcher paper, so I had to tape a few pieces of construction paper together to do that layer, and it was harder to work with.

Day 1: just the sky, mountains, and sun

Day 1: just the sky, mountains, and sun

The next day I sketched out the cactus and the birds on black paper and cut it all out as a single piece, mostly using scissors, but getting the scalpel in there for some of the fiddly bits. I used my wedding invitations as a reference. A designer put the image together for me from a few pictures; this was before I knew Photoshop, or I probably would have done it myself and been even more impressed with the result, but we were pretty happy to get invitations that more or less looked the way we wanted.

Detail from our wedding invitations.

Detail from our wedding invitations.

The next day I sketched out the cactus and the birds on black paper and cut it all out as a single piece, mostly using scissors, but getting the scalpel in there for some of the fiddly bits.

I used my wedding invitations as a reference. A designer put the image together for me from a few pictures; this was before I knew Photoshop, or I probably would have done it myself and been even more impressed with the result, but we were pretty happy to get invitations that more or less looked the way we wanted.

Anyway, the silhouette was simple to draw; the hardest part was actually making out the pencil marks on black paper so I could accurately see what I was cutting. It all came out nicely and actually took a lot less time than many of the less complex bulletin boards take, about 4 hours max, although part of that is because there isn’t any text on this one. As per usual when the bulletin board is cactus themed, I used a lot of staples for spines, and also to keep the thing in place. It needs to be extra durable to last through the monsoon.

The silhouette.

The silhouette.

Last I did the stars, which would have been a lot easier had the principal not kicked me out of the library so she could hold an interview there, because it was super windy in the breezeway and I spend half my time chasing bits of paper around, but in the end it seems to have worked out pretty well.

A Hot Spring Bulletin Board

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Volcano bulletin board

Volcano bulletin board

This dazzling gemstone celebrates the coming of spring and the heating up of the world. The idea of the volcano had been stuck in my mind for a while so I just went with it even though I didn’t have any idea of what that had to do with education or reading or springtime or really anything else. Of course, it’s the same volcano from Dragon Comics 65, which in turn is based on a pretty common photograph, but I can’t find the attribution.

Closeup on the smoke

Closeup on the smoke

Once the volcano was up, there was a lot of extra space, so I made the crazy sun and the smoke. Time consuming but fun.

This piece took 3 days; the first day I did the background, the second day the volcano, and the third day was the sun, smoke, and text. I picked the quote the second day after making the volcano; really had no idea what words I would use until pretty late in the evening. The text is from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. 

Closeup on the crazy sun

Closeup on the crazy sun

Bulletin Boards for Continuity’s Sake

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For the sake of getting all of them in one place, I’ve decided to upload some of my early bulletin boards. A few decent layouts that happened to be more text than image, didn’t get added in the backstory part of this blog. However, it’s nice to have them all under one category, in case people want to review. I don’t have exact dates for the old ones, but maybe I will work that out someday.

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Giving Thanks

This is my first or second Thanksgiving design. The quote is “Mankind owes to the child the best it has to give,”  from the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. I love the font as well as the message. Since there are people who seriously don’t believe anyone has a right to any of those things, it’s nice to know that there are organizations asserting that yes, kids should have healthcare and education (and food and peace and love and shelter and play and freedom). I would also add “water” to this sentiment, but I guess it’s sort of implied in food.

Who Do We Love?

Who Do We Love?

It’s too bad that this image is not high enough resolution to make out all the text. I remember that white heart on the left talks about the Roman celebration of Lupercalia on the one on its right is about the real Saint Valentine. The slightly smaller heart on the far right just lets people know that I will add a heart for them if they think of more categories of things to love. This is either my first or second Valentine’s themed bulletin boards.

I don’t do particular holiday anymore so much as I do feelings and emotions. Typically, For Thanksgiving and the winter holidays I’ll have a theme about light and family, for example. Usually there will be something with a heart in mid or late winter but it won’t necessarily be about the holiday.

This Wednesday would be the day that I would switch from the New Year’s design to something for springtime (although thematically, these tend to offer similar ideas, and yes, I’m aware that that east coast and midwest are still snowed in; here in Arizona it’s the time of wildflowers and new leaves) but I got called up for jury duty that day. I’m still hoping I won’t have to go. Jury duty is ridiculously anxiety producing for me, and I’ve never even gotten past the first room where they make you watch a film about democracy. I totally believe in the potential of democracy and a trial by a jury of your peers, but I find getting up early to be physically debilitating, and I find being forced to sit on a hard plastic chair in a room full of strangers for an unspecified period of time incredibly stressful, and I also find being in the courthouse in general psychologically unpleasant (like, poking old PTSD unpleasant). If you could fulfill your jury duty online, watching the trial on your own schedule (within reason, of course), I’d be way more into it.

Paint It Whatever Color

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Papier-mâché is an interesting looking word if you spell it with the French accents. There’s something both gratifying and disgusting about the process of creating it, though. Although I am far from fastidious in my personal habits, I despise being actively, tackily sticky or dirty, particularly when it involves my hands and arms. But for certain things, like baking bread or making papier-mâché, I’m willing to make an exception.

Family photo, Montezuma Castle

Family photo, Montezuma Castle

The 9-year-old came home a couple weeks back with an assignment to build an ancient Indian dwelling based on the design of some group of people who lived in Arizona, and her first choice of dwelling was Montezuma Castle, the most striking ruins site we visited on our recent tour of Arizona. Immediately, my brain started kicking the idea around. How could this idea come to fruition?

Papier-mâché was the answer.

I can’t really count this piece as my art. I designed it, and I told the kid how to make it, and I made her do most of the work—say, about 90%—without my interference, although I did come to her rescue when something was beyond her ability, and I stepped in for some of the fine detail work: cutting windows out with a scalpel, the parts that entailed using India ink, and placing the buildings in the cave. I also mixed her paint colors. Otherwise, she was in charge of creating this thing.

This seems like a pretty successful project to my eyes!

Montezuma Castle, executed in paper and paste: probably the best ancient Indian dwelling in all of 4th grade.

 

I confess that she was having so much fun painting that I couldn’t stop myself from helping. Anyway, it was getting late and she’s so meticulous and I needed to clean up and make dinner. I especially love the little accents I did on the front when she pointed out the real cliff had a lot more texture. I love painting and am certain that I would not suck at it if given half a chance.

Later that night, after the kids went to their mom’s, The Man was fooling around with the leftover materials, specifically the other half of the balloon shape we used to create the cave.

The other half of the cave. Note its specific shape.

The other half of the cave. Note its specific shape.

“It fits perfectly on your head,” he declared after determining that it was too small for his gigantic noggin. Then he stuck it on my head. In fact, it did fit perfectly.

Now, if you’re like me, in the sense that you really like dragons, and art, and the Internet, and have a lot of friends, you have probably seen/been sent this time lapse video of papier-mâché dragon being built. While I am not as good as the professional guy in the video (yet), I am not bad either, and after the second time the video appeared on my Facebook feed, and after wearing this paper hat around for a while, I decided to create a dragon hat. Yesterday I started the horns; today I hope to finish them and affix them, and then turn my attention to the problem of building something to fit over my head when I haven’t got a mold of my face and I’m not willing to get flour paste in my hair.

Of course, now the girl wants a Maleficent headdress  executed in the same style.

Since I didn’t really show you any of my actual work today, here’s another picture from earlier in the year, which was a request from some good friends who were getting married and wanted an agave sign for outside the venue. Aside from the Trickster’s Hat stuff, it’s really the only painting I’ve done in a long time. I’d love to learn more about the craft.

Their colors were springtime green and bubblegum pink.

Their colors were springtime green and bubblegum pink. It was windy on the hill; here we see the “ring bear” affixing the sign to the easel to keep it from blowing away.

 

Here’s a Spectacular Hodgepodge of I Don’t Know What

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Finding myself without any pithy observations regarding art, writing, or the intersection between the two, allow me instead to offer a completely random assortment of recent-ish images.

Let's call it a snake in the grass

Let’s call it a snake in the grass: torn paper mosaic from 2013

I’m pleased that today was a good day, writing-wise. Got about 3500 words out on this graphic novel script, which is nothing to sneeze at, although I could have done a few thousand more words if I’d been stern with myself.

Have a pointy mandala why not?

Have a pointy mandala why not? This one puts me in mind of a compass rose. It’s quite skewed.

I also read and critiqued a friend’s essay and discussed it in what was essentially a one-woman workshop. As an old veteran of Iowa-style workshop (I’ve taken 10 of those suckers, 6 at the graduate level) I can offer pretty good feedback. Would that I could read my own writing the way I read others’.

October 2013

October 2013 I apparently cut out some weird looking pumpkins. The one in the center is by far the saddest jack-o-lantern I have ever created.

This bulletin board is one I didn’t like well enough to put in my original gallery of bulletin boards, but it’s OK. Eventually, I’ll get them all up. The quote, if you can’t read it, is from Percy Bysshe Shelly: “There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky.” Since I have space considerations, and my target audience is on average, 8 years old, I often use small segments of quotes. This one continues,  “which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!”

Time to Learn and Grow

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At least, it’s time to learn and grow if you’re a small child living in southern Arizona, where school gets out in May and starts up again as early as late July. I missed my beloved bulletin board, but we are reunited once again.

I feel like, if kids have to go back to public school, the lease I can do is instill in them a sense of magic and wonder to the process.

I feel like, if kids have to go back to public school, the least I can do is instill in them a sense of magic and wonder about the situation.

This one took 8 hours: 1.5 hours at school on Monday putting up the background and outlining the butterfly, 3 hours at home Tuesday night cutting out the letters, and 2.5 hours Tuesday creating the “spots” and putting all the pieces together. For whatever reason, the school was only stocking 3 colors of butcher paper, so my background choices were black, brown, and yellow. I typically save the black ones for Halloween (for added creepiness) and the winter holidays (to make the idea of lights pop out).

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These letter are hand cut (obviously). I just Googled “magic font” and this was one of the first ones that came up.

The quote came later that night, after I had settled on the butterfly. Typically, I pick a keyword, or a few keywords, and look for quotes that suit the idea, although sometimes I start with the quote or message and choose the illustration based on that. In this case, the keyword was “beginning.”

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I use a ruler to draw guidelines so the letters are all the same height, then sketch and cut freehand. However, when the same letter comes up more than once, I use the first as a rough template to ensure that they look more or less alike.

I had an apprentice for this piece, and she’s finally reaching the age where her help is, in fact, helpful. My stepdaughter wanted the bulletin board to feature school supplies, which I originally vetoed, since I had already settled on a butterfly, but then I realized that the butterfly could more easily have a school supply pattern on it. Originally I intended to just make a torn-paper mosaic, but this was much faster and more beautiful.

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My apprentice gets hands on.

In the past, she’s always wanted to help, which usually resulted in things taking four times as long, but she’s finally big enough to understand and follow directions. She applied the rubber cement to the paper and passed it over, which allowed me to assemble the collage more quickly. She also colored the tips of the pencils, applied the ovals to the crayons, suggested color and placement choices, and helped rip the paper.

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My apprentice feels a sense of accomplishment, and possibly wonder.

I also dropped and broke a stapler in this process, so now I owe the library a stapler. However, I did manage to unjam the one I broke last May, but we’re still down one stapler.

Update 7/31/14

I think I’m off the hook for the stapler.