beetlegrass

Girl in a Dress #7 ("Lobster Girl")

"If you don't come in out of the sun, you're going to turn into a lobster."

And she did.

The little hairy fibers from the Yellow Pages start to stand up after several passes of water & give a kind of crackly effect.

This work & these images are © Megan E. Jeffery. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Girl in a Dress #6 ("Ingrained Girl")

Using phone book pages as the background for these paintings can create actual wrinkles on the surface of the canvas. Kinda perfect for making cloth folds. And wood grain.

This work & these images are © Megan E. Jeffery. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Girl in a Dress #5 ("Hot Girl")

When you're trekking thru an inferno, what you really wanna be wearing are white go-go boots.

"Hot Girl" was painted onto a backdrop of Yellow Pages, and I wanted to maintain that yellowness.

This page had a bunch of lines in it, so these became the dress' folds.

I've been painting these while lying on my stomach on my unmade bed.

Couldn't do this if I was working in oils. Or if the canvases were 4 x 6 feet. Or if my elbows weren't built rock hard and ram tough.

This work & these images are © Megan E. Jeffery. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Girl in a Dress #4 ("Local Girl")

It's been awhile since I worked on this series of little paintings (5 x 7"). Had to make something with more immediate results than the laborious scritch-scritch-scritch of needle felting.

Choosing to think of it as "Creative Cross-Training".

Prepped the canvas with acrylic ooze and a page from the phone book, a technique learned from a Claudine Hellmuth book on making altered art. It's an interesting place to start an image, so I'm allowing this background dictate what shape, etc., the girl will take. It's like playing a game. 

Pencil & gouache for the image. I like gouache for several reasons. The most important being that I had some on hand. Also: can act as a watercolor, or it can be opaque. Versatility, baby. Used some watered-down white acrylic for the highlights.

EXTREEEEEME CLOSE-UP! The title for this painting, "Local Girl", is because a  local street map from the Yellow Pages was used as the background.

This work & these images are © Megan E. Jeffery. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Super Minis

All I need is the air that I breathe & an outdoor flea market.

Mini soup cans, about 1" tall.

My milk bottles bring all the boys to the yard.

The larger of the 2 hydrants was purchased a couple of years ago, but wanted him in the picture anyway. The smaller of the hydrants is only 1/4" tall -- that's little!

All the stuff above was purchased from the same vendor -- I paid $1.50 total.

I also got 2 pieces of Pyrex from another vendor for $2, but you don't need to see a photo of Pyrex every week, and, more importantly: I'm not going to photograph Pyrex every week.

These images are © Megan E. Jeffery.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

WIP: Hand Puppet Heads & Hands

Lately I've been drawn to hand puppets. Been seeing them in puppet film shorts, at the flea market, and in a documentary about the artist Paul Klee, who made over 50 of them for his son.

I love making finger puppets, but there is so much more STUFF I want to be able to do, to be able to put into & onto the character, and all this requires a "bigger canvas". A hand puppet seems to  the perfect blend of "doll" and "actor", with an added theatrical benefit of movement in head AND hands. 

I wanted to make some. 

So I am. 

I wrapped a sheet (maybe 1 foot in length?) of aluminum foil around the thicker end of a tapered candlestick for the neck (to allow for finger space & cloth?), and lightly scrunched the remainder of the foil  into a head ball. 

At first I tried using a papier mache product that I had on hand to create the "skin". I had had much success with this method in the past when I'd made some Santa head ornaments.

For some reason, this time, the product was not cooperating, and fell off in sheets when I'd get a section done. Frustrating.

Then I remembered a Crayola product called Model Magic, which is easy to mold, is lightweight (avoid the Finger Fatigue that comes from using solid marble), dries within 24 hours, and can be painted, etc. It comes in a variety of colors, but I opted for white. I don't care for the uniformity that comes with a solid color -- too cheezy? too plastic-y? -- so I will use paint, etc. to get the look I want.

 

After these dry completely, I'll give them a coat of gesso to smooth out any transition between the blorb of a feature and the face/hand. Also, want a better "bed" for the paint to lie on. Don't know if this gesso step is required, but I'm a good one for adding unnecessary steps. It's what I do. It's who I am.

These hands were made by wrapping an armature of aluminum foil around the candlestick (the "wrists"), leaving about an 1.5" of foil up top -- the "fingers". To make these, snip into the foil 4 times for 5 fingers, & pull the thumb down into his rightful place. Gently pinch these foil fringes into finger shapes. Doing this gives the fingers more dimensionality, and makes them thinner -- remember that the Model Magic will add mass. Used the side of an Exacto knife to make creases, nails.

Foil is a good armature. It's cheap; it's easy to shape; it gets your basic shape made, which conserves your "skin" material.

These images are © Megan E. Jeffery.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

To Market

Today at the flea market, I spent a total of $3.50.

This victrola/pencil sharpener cost 50¢.

These two Pyrex dishes cost $2.

Each one of these plastic charms cost 25¢.

These images are © Megan E. Jeffery.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Pillow Talking

Two more pillows with needle-felted family sayings to show.

The first has a little ditty my dad quotes a lot:

"When in trouble, or in doubt, run in circles, scream & shout."

It's dad's subtle way of saying, "Stop getting whipped up into a frenzy about NOTHING."

"Wuz you there, Charlie???" is something my paternal grandmother would say, and if you'd like to give it a whirl, narrowing your eyes aids in the delivery.

For a relatively short saying, there are 2 implied messages:

1. "What do YOU know about it, anyway?!?" 
2. "Back off!"    

This is like writing a family tell-all book. Using wool.

Craft items, concepts & images are © Megan E. Jeffery.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

WIP or ... Head Cozy™

Was working on another finger puppet for the Law Enforcement series, & thought it'd be great fun to slip it over the head of my nakey Captain Picard action figure. 

Who knows? Head Cozies™ just may be the wave of the toy future.

This image is © Megan E. Jeffery.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Medal of Rummage

Today @ the Seekonk (MA) Speedway Flea Market, I got these 6 medals for $2.

They look like real military ribbons, but they're all from the Rhode Island Baton Twirling Association.

I want to be mistaken for a high-ranking government baton twirler.

I think anyone who can bend their leg like this is deserving of a medal.

And quite possibly -- a parade.

This wee gun cost $3. Tried to talk the guy down to $2, but he warn't having none of that. So I folded. Sucker.

Two Anchor Hocking Fire King (like Pyrex) bowls for $3.

Today's Total: $8.

These images are © Megan E. Jeffery. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.