Lisa Thorpe

Miracles, the Meaning of Life, oh yeah and Pinterest…

Raise your hand if you love Pinterest….(my hand is up by the way) . If you don’t know what Pinterest is, it is like the idea folder and recipes binder and pattern box you have tried to keep up with all these years- it’s the pages cut out of Sunset magazine and Bon Appetite that you tried to organize but never can keep track of. Pinterest is an idea box without the box, folders and binders all your good ideas are in one place and you can see everyone else’s good ideas too. Usually on Sundays I give myself a little weekend treat and troll through Pinterest for ideas. I find it particularly useful for elementary art teaching ideas. Last Sunday I came across an old art teacher chestnut that I almost dismissed. The idea is to glue down yarn to card board and when it’s dry wrap it in foil then paint with india ink and buff it with steel wool so it looks like tin tooling. I’m going to guess this was published in Sunset magazine in the 70’s because it was all the rage when I was a kid. But the truth is it’s hard to get good results. First it’s hard for anyone least of all young children to make the yarn and glue behave, second the foil rips when buffing and then the whole thing is a mess. But for some reason the idea stuck with me and I decided to try it in a slightly different way. I spray glued leaves to matt board then spray glued the foil over that and rubbed it down. Then instead of using india ink I used my new best friend Design Master spray paint (I swear they are not paying me to mention them- and don’t think I haven’t tried- but I just love this stuff for everything!) any how and then buffed it off with steel wool. Voila! Fantastic results, then I decided to try vinyl letters also to great effect.

Ok so you get why Pinterest is in the title but Miracles and the Meaning of Life, where does that come in you say?? Well this one little Sunday Pinterest moment led me to excitedly experiment with a new idea, and once I had my new foil pieces I needed some reason to use them. So I was motivated to work on some collages to incorporate them. And wanting to add meaning to my images I searched for some thoughtful quotes. When I had gathered some of the worlds accumulated wisdoms I spent a meditative afternoon laboriously rubberstamping them on graph paper. In the end I made twelve new mixed media encaustic pieces that I love, made new an old technique and got acquainted with some deep and pithy thoughts from some of the worlds great thinkers, if that isn’t a miracle born of a relaxing Sunday morning drinking coffee and perusing the internet then I don’t know what is! Find yourself a miracle… go on get out there and find one – if you can’t find one then make your own!

ART SALE: I know most of you live far away but I’m having a Studio Sale to sell these works and others you have seen in this blog on Thursday and Friday November 19-20^th from 3-7pm, if you are in the Sonoma County area please come! Directions

ART CLASS: Want to learn some of the techniques I share in this blog? Come to my December 5-6 Winter Creative Retreat and do just that! Register Now