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After a somewhat disappointing start,
I picked up the royal frosting and started again.
Round Two of the sugar eggs, involved the girls
having a turn assembling and decorating the
remaining sugar egg halves.
It was better. No, it was good.
The colors that were wrong the day before,
were suddenly right. The frosting behaved.
Things clicked.
Here's another image from my Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge.
(Click to enlarge)
I love how the hand appears to be reaching for something.
This month for Ladies Art, we made sugar eggs.
To prepare the sugar eggs, combine 5 Tablespoons of
water with 2 pounds of ultrafine baking sugar or
superfine sugar. Mix with your hands until the sugar
is the texture of beach sand, color as desired, and then
pack into molds. Flip the packed sugar onto cardboard
or a cookie sheet and bake at 200 degrees until the
eggs (or other shapes) are firm. After cooling,
royal frosting is used to glue the eggs together, and
then decorations are piped on.
I made all of our egg halves before hand, so they would
be cool to work with. I used a 4 pound box of baking
sugar, and had eggs aplenty.
I like this project, and I've done it before. If you protect
the eggs from moisture, they last for decades.
But. This time, the project was lacking a certain joy.
I don't know whether it was the dark day or the rain,
or that the frosting was first too thick, and then too thin.
Little things that went wrong stood stronger than the
things that went right. Perhaps the weight of the world
was just too much.
But that's okay. They are just sugar eggs.
If they don't work, they don't.
Perhaps, this was one of those days where we needed
a scapegoat. Perhaps we needed something
expendable to point at and say, "YOU. You are wrong.
I don't like you, and I'm throwing you out."
There is something powerful in making and destroying.
Art doesn't need to be pretty or perfect.
It's about the process, not the product.
This year's fifth grade auction project involved decorating the backs of dominoes. The project was lead by a local artist, Gary Hirsch, who is currently exploring this medium.
It was a good project. It was inexpensive, quick, and really fun for the students. The students were instructed to decorate each tile with images that brought them joy.
Each child was given 3 tiles. We used Mark-it pens,
which work better on the hard plastic of the tiles
than sharpies, and come in a large array of colors.
Afterward the dominoes were clear coated with Modpodge to seal them. We also attached magnets to them.
The student's really enjoyed being able to make art
with something not normally associated with art.
My favorite part of this project was seeing the mosaic
created out of the images.
"Do you see what I have to put up with?"
This is a scan of the original page about phrenology from my Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge. I've left the image pretty large, so it could be downloaded and used. Enjoy!
Click to enlarge.
Sunbeams? Contagious?
(photo by Auntie O.)
Sometimes Mr Fuzzypants appears confused as to who holds the power of opposable thumbs.
He seems to believe that he has Jedi-like mind powers,
and that if he looks at me like this:
I will cave to his will.
This look occurs when I find him on the counter, or
in the dish cupboard, or behind the pots and pans,
or when he's caught sharpening his claws on the rug.
Recently, he tried sharpening his claws more slowly,
as if there is a speed when using claws on the new
dining room rug is acceptable. He also tried doing
it while laying down, as if horizontal makes a difference.
And for the record, horizontal or vertical, fast or slow,
with eyes open or closed, making eye contact with me
or not, you may not sharpen your claws on the rug.
No, Mr Fuzzypants, these are not the droids you are looking for, and I am not the weak minded fool you think me... okay sure.. it can be dinner time.
What was I saying?
Okay, this is my sad story. This is another collage I
made on our Collage Day during spring break.
The background is a page from an old copy of Goethe
that uses the old fashioned script of German.
I layered half circles of rice paper and stitched over the
curves.
The little head illustration is from the Cyclopedia.
It's a diagram of the regions of the brain used for
phrenology (the study of a person's personality using the bumps on their heads).
I scanned the original illustration into the computer,
reduced the size, and then printed it out on photo paper
in a contact sheet.
Now, take a finished collage, add a kitten (known as
Mr Fuzzypants), and a vase of tulips. In the time that it
took me to walk ten paces and turn, he tipped the
tremendously heavy vase over and drenched the table in water.
Oh yes, there were words, and tears, and a pile of
stuff that went into the garbage. Utter ruination.
The good news is that the original page from the
Cyclopedia was safely put away, and I can reuse the
scan as much as I want.