Art for the Kitchen: Woodburned Wooden Spoons

The kitchen holds so much of our lives:

cooking, eating, washing dishes, chatting and laughter, playing games, singing...

It makes sense to fill our kitchens with things that we love, don't you think?  Since I can't always find those quirky things I have a liking for, creating some becomes the only option.

Having a Russian father, I have a special place in my heart for Russian nesting dolls (matryoshka dolls), which aren't always easy to find, so I decided to wood-burn one on my spoon..

Making Borscht will be extra fun now, I think.

Here is the process I use to go about wood-burning wooden spoons.

First I sketch the design I've chosen lightly with pencil.  I then begin wood-burning as if I was using a pen.  (There is not way to erase with a pen, so that is why it is more like drawing with a pen rather than a pencil.  There is no room for error so having a steady hand is necessary.)

Being careful 

1. not to let the wood-burner sit too long on any spot: this makes a deep, dark burn;

2. not to accidentally touch anywhere on the spoon with the tool where marks are not wanted because it can make marks rather quickly.

These are two tips that I had to learn the hard way.

When the burning is finished and you are satisfied with your burning, turn the wood-burning tool off and set it aside in a place where it can safely cool; it stays hot for a bit of time (and be sure to stop when you like it as it is: better to stop when it is satisfying than to continue and possibly make an un-fixable mistake).

Once you have made sure the spoon is also cooled, erase the pencil markings from the spoon.

Next I use coconut oil and rub it into the spoons.  I also have some beeswax around, so I rub in a small bit of that, too.  You just want to rub in an oil that wouldn't be harmful to eat as some will come off when you use it in cooking.  I have found rubbing coconut oil into my wooden spoons every few months helps to keep them from cracking.


The backs of the spoons are also fun to burn but be sure to do them before you rub the oil onto the spoon's front.

I enjoyed doing these spoons more than I expected, so I bought a selection at a kitchen store and burned them to sell at the Christmas craft sales.  These were fun to work on in the evening when the kids were in bed and I was sure to have quiet (and no bumping).

I got some ideas from Pinterest, some from calendars or cards, some from things I have enjoyed drawing before.  The scope of ideas is endless!

 

 

 

I think these chickens were from a design I saw on a piece of material; I liked their quaint simplicity.

 

 

 

 I did not sell all of the spoons, so some were great to give away in Christmas gift bags.

 I had fun making these and I'm sure you might, too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Art Lesson: Watercolor Painted Vintage Wall Art

I was feeling the need to make my mantel sing of spring,

so I dug up these old wooden oval pieces I had once painted on and decided I did not like.

I decided to paint the edging of these ovals in black.

I found some vintage images on the Graphics Fairy of birds and printed them up in the center of each page by pasting them into Word and situating them to the size and place that I wanted them.

 (We've had a visiting blue jay to our yard in the last 2 weeks who is as blue of a blue jay I have ever seen).

I wanted to add a bit of color, so I splashed water all over the page with a paint brush

and then added some blue

and then some touches of red.

 Once that had settled into the paper a little bit,

I began painting the bird with a darker and less watered down blue.

 I filled in the leaves, branch, and flowers as well.

 Once the jay was done, I followed the same process for the Robin picture.

It is always a nice break to just paint an image that is already all drawn up for you.

Who doesn't love a bit of coloring-book style painting?

 I let these dry thoroughly and then cut them to fit into the oval shapes

(I did this by tracing the full oval shape onto the page and then cutting it down evenly on all sides until it fit, but a piece of tracing paper would also work to be more precise.

Laying it into the frame and running a pencil around the inside edge carefully should work).

Once I had them cut, I spread glue all over the backs of the images and then pasted them into the ovals, using paint containers to hold the image down on all the edges.

 Wanting a more vintage look, I heated some water and, using a damp teabag,

dabbed the warmed tea bag all over the image until it was stained as I wanted.

(This could also be done before gluing the image into the frame).

 The teabag was so used up, it cracked at bit and shed some bits of tea onto the images,

but I left them there to dry to add more character.

Once dried, I painted two coats of Mod Podge, allowing the first coat to dry completely before applying the second coat.

I then applied a squeeze of Martha Stewarts all purpose gloss paint from the bottle it comes in around the edges to make them look sealed in to the frame.  I used a paint brush to carefully brush it in and a few damp q-tips to clean up any smears.

Here they are all finished.  Can you see the difference with the Mod Podge?

The shine makes them look more like framed pictures.

I then put some frame wall hangers on the backs of the bird art

and hung them over the mantel in the living rooom

They added a touch of quaint, older looking decor to the wall with no expense at all:

I just recycled and used the supplies that I had...

aren't those the best kinds of projects?

Have you added any spring to your home this season?

I am still working on the bee picture.

It is coming along pretty well, but I am trying to wait until it is all finished before I share the processes I tried with it.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Art Lesson: Sketch Page of a Cardinal.

Hello!

Today I am sharing a sketch page on cardinals.

I had a request to paint some of these,

so I drew one first, to get their proper body shape.

Here it is:

Adding paint makes them stand out more.

Who doesn't love the bright red of the cardinal against a fresh snowfall.

Of course, cardinals are beautiful any time of the year!

Until next time, keep sketching;
and thanks for stopping by.

As always, these sketch pages are free for use, just not for resale.

(To copy these pages, click on the image, right click, and then click on "copy".

Open up Microsoft Word and right click on the screen, and then click "paste".

 The image should paste onto the page.

You can then click "print".

If you have difficulties or suggestions, please let me know.)

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Free Vintage Images: Birds with Nest, Water Scene, Country Road.

Hello!

Here is a fun page I found in one of my old late 1800's books.

It isn't spring here right now,

but I needed a nice image for some tags,

so I edit\ted this image into separate images for the one I wanted.

I used these birds on my price tags for my craft sale pieces.

Here is is antiqued.

 This part is so pretty on its own, too.

 

 Finally,

here is the man walking up the road.

 What a peaceful walk.

I would love to walk there; wouldn't you?

 You are free to use these images as you'd like.

Thanks for stopping by and have a happy weekend!

Sharing at:
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Art Lesson: Rooster.

This week's art lesson is a sketch page of our rooster.

I like our rooster.

He is quite the protector of his three lady hens and I enjoy watching him find bugs and then

cluck to let them know he has something for them.

He has been pretty tame to us humans so far,

and I hope that will continue so that all will be peaceful around the yard.

Here is a printable sketch page which you are free to use as you'd like,

just not for resale.

Thank you for stopping by!

(To copy this sketch page, click on the image, right click, and then click on "copy".

Open up Microsoft Word and right click on the screen, and then click "paste".

 The image should paste onto the page.

You can then click "print."

If you have difficulties or suggestions, please let me know.)

Free Vintage Image: Owl

Hello!

Today I am sharing a vintage owl illustration.

We hear an occasional owl outside in the pine trees or out in the pasture.

He has a very distinctive : "Hoo, hoo, hoo-hoo."

They are such unique birds.

Here he is in black and white.

Here he is antiqued.

The owl is from a book from the late 1800's

so you are free to use his as you'd like.

Thanks for stopping by.

Art Lesson: A Simple Trick for Re-using a Sketch.

Hello.

Today I am going to show you a trick my art teacher taught to us that I have found helpful on so many occasions.

Our ducklings began hatching out today, and I took some sweet pictures of the fluffy guys.

I decided I wanted to use one of the pictures I took to make a painted piece for our bathroom

since I have a couple of ducks in it as a slight decor theme.

I also possibly wanted to create some cards with the image.

A helpful way to work on an image before sketching it onto the final piece is to sketch it onto tracing paper.

This allows most of the sketching, erasing, proportioning to be worked on until the desired look is achieved.

There are tricks to getting these elements.

This is a sketch I did on tracing paper a while back.

I used a grid on my tracing paper and created the same grid on the picture that I had photocopied and enlarged.

I was able to check out my proportions based on what was in each square of the grid of the photo copy.

For my duckling picture, I decided to skip the grid and just sketch the image,

using my pencil to measure the the length of the hand and then the fingers.

I then used my pencil and measured up the length of the duckling's body and head,

compared to that of the hand and fingers.

From here, I began attempting to place the eye of the duckling, reworking the shape of the eye until I got what seemed right, as well as some of the shaded lines on the face and wing.

 Whenever I felt stuck or confused about what was wrong with my sketch,

without actually touching it, I ran my pencil over the image on the photo on the area I was trying to draw

to capture the shape/angles of the area I was trying to correctly see.

 (Here I was running my pencil over the area of the tail and up and over the thumb.)

I set this image aside for now until I have a chance to work on it again later this week,

giving my brain a rest from it so that when I come back, I will see it with new eyes.

I find this helps me better see what areas of the image may be incorrect.

However, I will not do too much more detail,

perhaps just a bit more of the line detail in the fingers,

and then I will have my sketched image on the tracing paper.

All of my erasing and measuring marks will be on it instead of my final canvas.

I will be able to rub some softer pencil on the back of the image and then transfer the image lightly onto the final canvas, and be able to use that image again if I'd like to.

I will show you the details of this more clearly in a future lesson

Let me know if you have any questions or if something was not explained clearly.

(I had hoped to do more with this drawing, but the subject of this drawing swallowed up much of my time. Looking at them, though, can you blame me?
Watching them with their momma is hard to resist.)

Until next time, thank you for stopping by!