dictionary paper blooms and salvaged aluminum wire

I’ve been on the lookout for paper flowers that can be made easily with old dictionary paper. I wanted to add them to our altered bottles to pretty-up the photos in our etsy shop, and to make the bottles themselves even more of a unique gift item.

Jeff adds the sculpted design on the bottles with pieces of masking tape.

Layers of glue are brushed on to make it hard, durable and paint-able. If you would like a closer look at Jeff applying masking tape to a bottle, we have a video showing exactly that, here.

The flower blossom is made from one page of a dictionary (any paper could be used though).

The page is torn or cut in half long ways, and then each piece is folded in half, long ways again.

With scissors, cuts are made on the fold side, about 1/4 inch (.5 cm) in width and about two thirds deep into the folded paper.

This is placed onto a strip of masking tape---the folded edge away from the tape. Now, the photo only shows one section of the dictionary page being used. But, I use both, when I’m making these by just adding the second piece right next to the first one. This makes a much longer strip, and a fuller flower.

For the stem, a salvaged piece of aluminum wire is used that we saved when a hurricane brought down all of our power, cable and phone lines into our yard. You can use any type of wire or stick though. Thin tree branches look really nice.

After cutting the wire with wire cutters, and twisting one end in a small coil shape to help stable the bottom while it stands in the bottle, the other end is attached to the tape.

Then the paper strip is slowly rolled up, keeping the tape in line with itself and pinching it down as you go along.

The ‘petals’ will need to be gently pulled down, a bit, to open up the blossom.

One more thing that I’ve done, for the flowers in our etsy shop, is run the paper through our printer to color the paper. It gives a nice transparent shade of color to your blossom. This is easily done by creating a picture, in any paint program, the size of your paper, with a swash of color down the middle where the fold will be.

These are a couple of our 'nu cola bloom bottles'!

cheers, ~dale

digital art zine - spring issue 2011

Published at issuu.com, is our first digital art zine of my illustrations featuring jeff’s altered dolls he has made from sculpting with masking tape.

I hope to create these issues twice a year to help document our works' progression. Each image is numbered and the names can be found on the back cover.

Several of the dolls and artwork are currently available in our Etsy shop. More should be up soon. Feel free to inquire about any by contacting us at art AT ocasiocasa DOT com.

This was actually fun to put together and the website at Issuu was very easy to use, and it's free. I would recommend it to anyone who has documents on their computer that they would like to publish in a magazine or catalog format. Issuu will host it on their website and will be available for any of their users to read, but it can also be embedded into your own website with ease.

hilda meets renny - a stop motion video

This is an ocasiocasa stop motion video of Hilda, the art doll, in the making, and who gets a visit by her good friend, Renny. Once again, our music track was created by our son, Lucas.

book cover art photography

Stacked in a pile, high on a shelf, in a hall closet, were some old hardback book covers. Many were Readers Digest. They were put there so long ago, we aren’t sure what happened to all the pages that used to be inside of them. We feel confident that they were used up in some creative fashion, and have two nightstands with collaged tops under glass to back up our claim.

It was time for another art show and I wanted to to include some illustrations, I’ve been working on, of our art dolls.

Attaching the prints to vintage book covers seemed like a unique and appealing way to present them.

The images were printed out and cropped. Artist tape was used to cover the bottom raw edge. And the prints were attached with photo corners.

I liked how they turned out and the response was very positive.

After the show, I put some in one of our local shops, The Franklin Shops on first street, and made a display box with cardboard, from reused shipping boxes, black artist tape and some printed photography.

This is one that sold at the show and is a personal favorite of mine, which I titled,”valentine”. The dolls in the photo are also currently for sale at The Franklin Shops on first street, but look a little different now. You can see an image of them in our last post, here.

happy valentine’s day, ~dale

storefronting square space style...

The Franklin Shops on first street is a newly opened boutique retail center inside a refurbished 1930’s hardware store, and a welcomed addition to our historic river district.

Our artwork has taken up residence inside of some of the square space wall-units in the shop.

Something new in our space are jeff’s flat wallets.

He creates and design them, free-hand, entirely from masking tape and draws on them with india ink.

They have a credit card and id pocket inside, and fold up nice and flat.

I love the designs on them, and have been scanning and storing his drawn images for possible future projects that I keep thinking up … even though jeff keeps exclaiming, “no pillows.”  hmph.

Well, then ... I say the wallets themselves can also make a cute accessory for the dolls.

Here's to new beginnings.

cheers,

~dale

creating illustrations with ooak…

 

 

Inspired by Bowie’s song – Starman, I created a digital art print with photographs of our one-of-a-kind ira starman the alien art doll, placed free floating, topsy-turvy, in outer space with a fellow starman.

With Jeff’s new art dolls, I believe I’m going to have to create more of these illustrations. It is just too much fun not to and I love all the possibilities.

 

 

 

This art print, in particular, is titled ‘let all the children boogie’ and was put in our shop today, just in time to be entered into the Nasa & Etsy Space Craft Contest---original, handmade artistic items inspired by NASA’s space exploration program.

I love the idea of this. When I think of our space exploration program, I like to believe that it is fueled by children’s imaginations from all over, and that the talented men and women at NASA were passionately drawn to their fields while very young and obsessively imagining all what lies beyond.

 

 

While creating the illustration and deciding on a name, I came across this classic David Bowie music clip performing Starman. This is wonderfully nostalgic and tender sweet to myself, but no matter what era you spent your formative years in, there is no denying Mr. Bowie of being the original, wildly creative, and magical thinker that he is…

 

 

…there’s a starman waiting in the sky
he told us not to blow it
cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
he told me:
let the children use it
let the children loose it
let all the children boogie…
~david bowie

 

here’s wishing you a hazy cosmic day yourself,
~dale

when your art looks back at you

We have been busy working on a collection that we are hoping to start showing this winter.

Yes…we discovered a new canvas for jeff’s masking tape art technique

---gently used, abandoned dolls.

Not sure why, but to me, winter seems like the perfect season to introduce these upcycled, homeless toys.

Maybe they remind me of the toys from the Island of Misfit Toys etched into my psyche when I was little and watched Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer every year.

I’ve certainly enjoyed them huddled around our studio these last couple of months,

…and taking photos of them.

Their faces have a way of capturing my attention, and distracting me from my work.

Faces aren’t new to jeff’s work though.

Here’s something that I don’t think I’ve ever told you about Jeff: he is a ‘people person’ like no one I’ve ever known. I believe the energy he receives from interacting with people feeds the core of his soul.

I imagine that is why he likes to create faces so much

---the interaction you have with art that looks straight back at you is on a different level than any other.

Perhaps that is why some of the most famous paintings are portraits--- like Mona Lisa, Girl with the Pearl Earring, or one of my favorites---The Helping Hand by Emile Renouf.

 

 
This little butterfly art doll hangs in our etsy shop now and is the first to be offered for sale from our new collection.

Our day of the dead art bottle has just been listed here, in time for the celebrated and beloved Mexican holiday, “Día de los Muertos”. Whenever I see it, I smile about as big as it’s smiling itself, right back at me. :-)

Another thing that makes me smile? …this animated short, I recently came across.

(¡Viva Calaca! Day of the Dead from Ritxi Ostáriz on Vimeo.
Created in 2008. ¡Viva Calaca! is an animation project by Ritxi Ostáriz (http://www.ritxiostariz.com) based on the Mexican Day of the Dead. Direction, illustration and animation by Ritxi Ostáriz. Music by the American artist, Voltaire.)

 

However you intend to greet the end of October, I hope it is as celebratory and full of good times as this charming and creative video is.

cheers,
~dale