Posts Tagged ‘recycled’
Breakfast without electricity
James and our two children made me breakfast on the fire the old fashioned way, it was delicious! fresh bread baking over the embers filled with egg, no electricity just candles and fire. We used turf our friend gave us from a nearby bog and charcoal that was left over from our Wedding feast.
The lanterns were all made for our wedding too. They are recycled tins that have been drilled into to create the holes for light then either wrapped in tissue paper with p.v.a. glue or painted with house paint. The jars are recycled or salvaged from the garden then painted with nail varnish ( the old salvaged ones). The more modern ones are wrapped in a layer of pink tissue paper. We had a lovely lighting ceremony one night in the garden, I will post the photographs James took of it, sometime soon.
Happy Breakfasts!
Arting Around!
Words cut out of recycled gold paper from coffee packaging, hand turned wooden platter made by my Dad, home make banana bread, butter and cling film on wooden table.
Why should art be separated from our “normal” everyday life?
Thank you for looking.
Some art in the garden
This are some photographs I took today in the garden of the Secret Gallery.
“Travelling forty days the roads and trails of a distant country” Mixed Media on board, haiku poems written on Travels to India and Nepal
“This Moment” Oil crayon on a concrete, rust and dried paint mould that came out of an old bucket I found while clearing out the garden to plant vegetables!
“Love, Laugh, Sing” A recycled cable holder with words written in pencil painted and varnished.
Windy Wednesdays and flowers on the garden table
Photograph Recycled juice carton and oil paint
The wind blows a lot, the sea is so churned up it looks white, doors swing and slam, balloons get caught up in mini whirl winds and we giggle as we watch our children run around in circles trying to catch the illusive balloon! When I go out into the hurricane, my hair covers the whole of my face which is tense and grimacing as I attempt to clear away the escaped curls from my mouth and eyes getting more and more irritated! Swearing at plastic bottles as they are carried off from under my nose in a very erratic fashion, finally coming to rest half way up a thorn bush or some equally uncomfortable place! I love nature but I do have trouble coming to terms with the wind especially when it is cold and wet as well.
It is Wednesday again, it is windy again but today is a beautiful sunny day. I have just put some painted cartons at the gate and they are full of water so they don’t fall over,(apart from one that has more rounded edges and attached seed or bulb container) and even if they do they don’t smash like a vase would. I really Like the idea they they are affordable hand painted objects, as not everyone can afford to spend several hundred on a painting or artist’s print or sculpture. So today the Secret Gallery is open, well outside is we are still working on inside. I enjoy putting art in public spaces, this is like a very modest and transient form of motorway art!
These are multiuse vessels, one of their uses is called “art on the go” for filling with water and taking with you if you are doing water colour or or using any materials that need water, outside, I am in the process of designing the rest of the “art on the go” artist’s kit! I am going to keep one in my own car just in case I get the urge. It is a bit like the idea of having a suit case packed and ready for spontaneous adventures! Something James suggested but we still have not done, one day! Spring is defiantly in the air!
Arty child’s play with kitchen stuff!
You don’t need to spend any money to make art, sometimes you could just reach for the spice rack and rummage around the kitchen in search of inspiration. Maybe you could even eat it too! You can use out of date spices that have been sitting in the cupboard for 10 years! Food colouring for that green St Patrick’s Day Leprechaun’s hat cake you made a long time ago!
Last night, while one of our children slept, refusing to wake up from a nap, I started to cut up pizza boxes for our wide awake daughter to paint on. Usually the thing that puts me off painting with our children or letting them paint on their own is the amazing mess they make! It is such an ordeal, changing clothes first, constantly cleaning paint off them and everything else around them. I am a bit silly I suppose letting them paint with my oil paints! So I reached for the turmeric, paprika and soy sauce, three wizened potatoes a couple of reused plastic containers and the biscuit and grey squares from the recycled pizza boxes, I find this better than paper for children to paint on as it is tough and does not get all scrupled up. I cut out some shaped to make potato prints with my well loved Swiss army knife. I forgot that when you print it comes out in reverse, be warned!
I just realised that I should have used the pastry brush instead of the normal paint brush, to make this a completely pure kitchen art experience for our daughter! There are many more things in the kitchen to paint, print or sculpt with. Once, I made brown bread horses, and hung them off a tree for birds to eat, maybe that with be the next kitchen art project we could do. James has been teaching them to cook so they are pretty knowledgeable on spices and cooking ingredients now! Our three and a half year old made a great curry last week and our two and a half year old made a tasty Risotto!!
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