Luna Lula

The Beginning of a New Year!

2012-01-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

The beginning of a new year is always full of resolutions that many of us leave behind as

soon as January is over! But I am going to work on keeping those 2012 resolutions longer this time. Of course my first resolution is to become healthier, loose weight ,exercise and change the way I cook for my family and myself. My second resolution is to make some time for myself! Whether it's to meditate or create some art work, I'm going to practice giving myself at least 30 min. a day. My third resolution is to make sure that every minute I'm with my kids, I'm really with them! I find myself always looking at the time and trying to fit as much as I can in before their bed time. As part of my journey I have decided to record and share my success and failures with you!

I have joined Weight Watchers and I plan on working out with "just dance" on the Wii, this way I can have the kids workout with me! Planning time for myself will be tricky...you see my kids require that I lay down with them until they fall asleep- which ends in ME falling asleep too! I end up waking up at like 10:30- 11:00 and drop into my bed for the rest of the night! So, first I need to get these kids to fall asleep on their own! I don't have a clue how to work this out, so I'm going to be searching the net for that tonight! Stay tuned for more "exciting" moments from my life :)

Playing with Clay once again...

2009-05-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

My love for throwing has been revived! Student teaching at the high school has given me the opportunity to throw clay on the wheel again. The high school is blessed to have an extremely gifted potter who is very "Simpatico". Trevor has open his studio to me, and I am very grateful. I have one free period aside from lunch, and so I go and lose myself in the serenity of the soft humming spinning wheel, cold slippery clay, and the Kings of Leon playing in the background. Its hard not to be at peace in this studio, just the smell of wet clay alone calms your soul, and the feel of the clay gives you the sense of being connected to the earth some how. Captivated by the smooth vessel pulled up from a mound of clay I drift away, leaving all stress behind. Its no wonder this ancient method of making pottery is still practiced today!

Visit Trevor's website: http://youngbergpottery.com/

Sheep Grazing the White House Lawn??

2009-05-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Yes! Presidents Day was coming up, so I decided to do a bit of research on past Presidents and sheep. You might be wondering why I even thought of connecting the two, but I had read once how George Washington had given Thomas Jefferson tips on raising sheep at the Monticello Estate. I was hoping to do a lesson on felting, therefore I decided to search for a connection and found all sorts of neat little facts. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were all inaugurated in Wool suits, made from American wool Sheep, and Madison's wool suit was actually from his very own folk (and was the only suit he owned). I also found out that When Jefferson became President, the King of Spain sent over some Merino sheep, which lived and grazed on the White House lawn. Jefferson became so intrigued with his royal breed, that he began breeding Merinos at his Monticello estate. Jefferson's merino were not the last to graze the White House lawn, during World War I, President Woodrow Wilson in order to cut expenses had sheep graze the lawn as well.

My lesson also included bit of of information on the similarities between human and animal hair. I was so happy to see how interested the students were in the science of it all. If I ever do this lesson again, I will definitely bring in some microscopes so that students can look at the hair under the microscope. They were fascinated with the whole felting process, and how hair felts. It was so easy to make them fall in love with wool! Students made felted wool beads. Then we made small sculptures with wire and the beads, as well as jewelry.

Sweet Stuff

2009-05-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

Ice Cream and Cup Cakes!!!

Who can resist either one? My daughter and I have a tradition when ever were in New York City, we head over to Crumbs bakery across from Bryant Park, order two large vanilla cup cakes, then head over to the park to indulge! We just recently went to the city to see MaMa Mia, and of course we had our cupcakes. Needless to say I was inspired by my cupcake to create a lesson plan for the high school students. The lesson was to create a Bas Relief (a low relief) painting of anything that had texture, could be food, landscape, etc... I of course decided to create a cupcake for my example using acrylic paste and acrylic paint. I first built up my cupcake with cardboard, then spread on the paste. Once it dried I painted with acrylic. I had so much fun doing it, that I decided to create an Ice Cream Sundae too! Everyone enjoyed the project. Two of the best reliefs will be on display at the Trumbull art show at Trumbull Mall! The mall show will be set up in the first week of June. Don't miss it!

Felting Crazy!

2009-03-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm back! Happy New Year! I wanted to share my latest felting projects with everyone. I had a little bit of free time and made these three scarfs. The first one was inspired by Matisse's cut out work, hence the colored blocks. The base of this scarf is all North American wool, and the colored blocks are all in merino wool. The black is brown sheep wool, which has some mohair, but still felted really nicely. I had been working with the Kindergartners on a Matisse project and so that kind of lead to this piece. The second scarf is very soft and lofty. It's all merino wool, which is extremely soft. I decided to try adding flowers, and I'm not sure if you can see the curly blue angora mohair in the back ground. I wasn't sure if it would felt in, but it worked out fine. I did place a complete layer of wool on top to make sure! My daughter says it remains her of Hawaii. The Turkish lay such intricate designs, I plan on studying more about how this is done, and will soon follow up with my discoveries. The third scarf has already been gifted to a good friend of mine, she really loved. For the most part this scarf is American sheep wool, the dark brown is merino, and the string is alpaca. Stay posted for some pictures on the whole process with instruction. Also stay posted for my felted wool ball jewelery.

Just Hooting Around!

2008-11-20T19:21:00.000-08:00

I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week! I would have loved to knit for everyone for Christmas, but there isn't enough time! I always plan to start in the summer, but it just doesn't always work out- so the next best thing is sewing. I drew up the pattern for this little owl, but I'm thinking of changing it a bit. I had a hard time with the eyes. The eyes were much smaller before, and it really didn't make my owl very cute (he looked spooked out). Then I sent a picture over to my cousin and she suggested larger eyes, and she was right!!

Little Elli: This is also a gift, and I'm really happy with this little guy. I love elephants, and so it was really fun drawing her up. At first I thought about adding button eyes, but I think with such a large floral pattern, it doesn't really need it, right? Let me know what you think!

Would you like a piece of cake?

2008-11-16T21:31:00.002-08:00

The Birthday Hat

is finished! My goal was to make it look like a cake, what do you think? I was going to put a candle on top, but then I was afraid it would look too cheesy, so I added 3 swirls on top instead. There are two rows with a checkered board motif, I was going to add more, but was afraid of the hat not stretching well over the baby's head. I used the same hat pattern, just mixed it up a bit with of lots color, reverse stitching, a little motif, and some embroidery. I like what happened when I added a row of reverse stitching right before I started to decrease for the cap. I think I'm going to play around with this idea some more, I'll keep you posted with the outcome. The inside is pretty clean, all the ends are neatly woven in, but I think I am still going to line the band of the hat with some fleece. I'm a little nervous about it, because I've never done that before, but I'm hoping that if I sew it on inside out, and cut the fleece on the bias, I should be OK, right? keep you fingers crossed!

Send in the clowns...

I have included a recent chalk pastel I finished for class. I used a photo that I found on-line of a clown from the Barnum Circus, he was at the Hartford Circus Fire in 1944, his name was Emmett Kelly. Kelly was a "Tramp" clown. I love clowns, but tramps are my favorite. Kelly was famous world wide, performing for even royalty! Another famous Tramp performer that everyone knows, that I also love is Charlie Chaplin! While working on this portrait, I was talking to my daughter about clowns, and should her a clip from Chaplin's movie "going to the circus", she loved it! we were both laughing so hard, I had forgotten what great medicine it is to watch him! About 5 years ago, my husband and I took our daughter to see a show in New York called the "Slava SnowShow", I highly recommend it if you love clowns, it will be an experience you'll never forget! Slave is a tramp clown, and there is no speaking through out the whole performance, but it made me cry , laugh, and feel so alive! If you haven't seen it, GO!

A Beautiful Fall Morning...

2008-11-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, I just wanted to share my morning pictures. I was driving to my test and this is what the morning looked like. I try to always carry

my camera, and lucky for me I had it in my purse. I shot these picture from inside the car, through the window. This first picture is what the actual morning color was, I experimented with sepia and blk/wht on the other photos. I'm really happy with the black and white one. I think I'm going to enlarge that one and frame it for my office. I might make a watercolor of the first one.

They are untitled, so if anyone wants to give me an idea for a title I'm open to suggestions, I'd like to include these in my portfolio.

The Test went fine. I feel really good about it. I was really good about the time , and even had 5min left to go over and add things. Taking the test at Yale was very different from taking it at U.N.H. They were very professional , and very clear with the instructions. Unlike the first time I toke this test, they were sure to address the Art students about the two tests being separate.

My birthday baby hat is almost finished, I'll be posting it up soon! During the morning of the test I couldn't study anymore, and just knit up a storm while waiting.

I have a few projects I'm working on such as a hooking project, and a Japanese felting technique called Nuno felting. The Nuno felting is an experiment, but I'll let you know how it works out. Basically it's wet felting on to silk chiffon. The effects are so beautiful, I'm sure many of you have seen and heard about this on other blogs or online.

Boa noite!

It must have been the full moon...

2008-11-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

Hello again everyone. I am not sure what happened, but Mona Lula is lost in cyberspace forever. I can not get back in!!! I had to re-register, and picked a new name that I think fits me perfectly: Luna Lula (crazy lou!).

Moving on:

Worked on a little art project with my son's today, and they seemed to enjoy it. We have wall space in the kitchen that we use for art work. Our "board" is still a work in progress. We decorated turkey feathers. I cut out feather shapes out of cardboard (recycled from something), and set up the counter with pompoms, paint, glitter, barley, plastic beads, shells, and glue!

They painted their feathers first, and had fun mixing colors, one of my son's discovered the color grey! He wanted black and white paint, and he loved the outcome, "look mommy I made grey!" I quickly put together a turkey, with brown paper ( I should have used paper bags!). They also painted some toilet paper rolls, they'll be making Pilgrims and Native American people to put up next to the turkey. We've been reading about the pilgrims voyage and how they became friends with the natives, we have also been talking about what we are grateful for, so I think this year will be the first time they really understand what Thanksgiving is about! For my dear friends, I sent e-vites to see the boys at work from Flickr.