When the holidays roll in, wreaths make a grand appearance.  Wreaths are a fun way to decorate and show off.  You can put them on your doors, windows, or even inside of your home to decorate in a unique way.  I used to always buy wreaths for varying occasions, but this year I have started to get in the artist spirit and create my own wreaths.  Wreaths are not just for Christmas time and holidays though, you can keep wreaths out for decor year round.    Let’s look at some of my favorite wreaths, and find out how to make a micro mesh wreath like the ones you see all over the place.  When you make your own you are saving money and you will feel good knowing that you created it.

This wreath is made from a foam circle with fabric pieces bunched to create ruffles.  You can either pin the fabric or hot glue it the the foam.  The flowers are also made from fabric and you can make your own or buy some ready to go.

Why shouldn’t Valentine’s Day get a wreath?  This can be made a couple of different ways.  I made mine with a wire clothes hanger.  I carefully bent it into a heart shape and just tied the curling ribbon around it.

This is an adorable wreath for any birthday festivity.  Again a foam wreath circle would work great for creating this birthday wreath complete with party hats and more!

Mesh wreaths are becoming more and more popular, and they can be really pricey.  They are easier than you might think to make though.  Watch the video to find out how to make your own mesh wreaths.

My love for art has turned into something more.  Now, I want to get in on the action and start creating my own art pieces and get crafty so that when people visit my home they can enjoy the things that I have made with me.  Finding inspiration and projects to work on is that hardest part for me, but for the past 5 years my husband and I have collected corks from wine bottles.  Needless to say, along with quite a few donations, we have a multitude of corks that are waiting for some kind of happy home.  There are just so many things that you can do with wine corks that I want to try.  Take a look at some of them below.

Funky wall art.  One of my favorite stores is Anthropologie.  At locations all over the country there are unique displays of art created with corks, and this has really inspired me to cover my walls in cork.  You can see in the picture below the corks are colored.  Upon closer inspection they are dyed so it keeps the cork look, unlike painting which can completely cover it all.

Decorative accents.  I already have one accent on my mantle.  As a wedding gift, my husband and I were given a large glass vase.  So we filled it with corks and I placed our cake topper, which was a pewter letter ‘D’ in the front to be surrounded by the corks.  It is a great way to display some wedding memories and use up our ample amount of corks.  Something new I want to make though is a cork wreath.  It is so cute and I know all of our friends will love it.

Cork boards and more.  You can even create your own cork boards, cork coasters, and more.  The good news is also that you are re-purposing all that cork instead of tossing it out.

When it starts to cool off outside and the last few months of the year approach I always bring out the yarn and needles to create some unique art work and knit pieces.  There are far things more relaxing than cozying up on the couch with my basket of yarn at my side and knitting the night away.  Seriously if I can knit it, then I will make it.  I like to consider knitting to be my favorite form of art because it is not only something that I can create that is pretty, but it is also very useful.  Knit scarfs, sweaters, and hats are there to keep you nice and warm.  Then there are knit coozies that I make for my husband to put around his canned beverages because they are oh so cute.

If you want to enjoy the art of knitting but are not too sure where to get started, just know that there are a lot of resources for you out there.  One of my favorite beginner tutorials is below though, and it will teach you all the basics you need to get started.  Remember these helpful tips too:

1. The bigger the needle, the bigger the bigger the stitch.
2. The amount of slip knots you start out with on the needle determines the size of what you are knitting.
3. The amount of tension can also determine stitch size.  If you pull tight, the stitch will be smaller and tighter.  If you do not pull a lot of tension the stitch will be larger and more “loose.”

As of recent, I have a serious love for infographics.  They are pretty, easy to look at and understand.  Plus, I do not have to force myself to read a long document to find out all sorts of statistics and information only to forget the important parts by the time I finish it.  If any of you are like me, then concentration and memory are not two of your strong points.  That is perfectly fine if you are looking at a well done infographic.  The graphics will aid you in your research and if you forget something you can easily scan the image for the exact stats you were in need of to begin with.

You might be wondering why I am talking about this on a blog about art, well obviously I like to think of infograpics as art.  Those who create infographics are using some form of art, and it is a visually stimulating thing to look at also.  To help give you some insight, I posted an infographic below about what else but infographics!  It reveals why infographics are more superior than typical documents.  Have a look!

You Will Learn…

• An audience has to interpret what they read in a typical document, while they can experience it through art with an infographic.
• Infographics are far more engaging than regular written documents
• More than 60% of the US population learn visually

To start I think it is only appropriate to give a shout out to the Daisy Manufacturing Company.  That is the name of the company that first introduced the paintball gun in the seventies.  Of course paintball guns were not first created for recreational sporting use and fun times.  Oh no, paintball guns were intended to be used for work in the farming and forestry industries.  Farmers could use it to mark cattle, and those in forestry could use a paintball gun to mark trees.   In the 1980s paintball started to become a fun sporting event.  Once paintball became popular, it was surely only a matter of time until someone would get a hold of a paintball gun and do something creative with it.  Thus, began paintball art.

Now, when you think about art with a paintball gun, you probably think of something like the image below.

The above paintball art almost has a sort of Pollock feel.  It has great interest and depth, and all around I would say that a paintball gun is like a paintbrush in the right hands.  With the above picture in mind, I found a video for you to enjoy.  This shows an artist using a paintball gun to create an image of Muhammad Ali.  It is really neat how he created the work.  The only bad thing is that paintball paint never dries, so the art was washed away in the rain.  Check it out.

Performance art is everywhere.  There are performance artists on street corners, on stages, and probably even close to you right now.  Performance art can be something that is very considered and perfected, or it can be something that is very organic and full of spontaneity.  At any place at any given point in time, performance art can happen.  It is an art form that can stir emotions and get people talking just like, or even more than other types of art.  Some people choose this method to expose issues and concerns.  Others might do it because of the enjoyment they receive.  No matter the reason, like other art mediums, performance art is important.  One of the most inspirational performance art pieces that I have witnessed is that of  Keith Wheeler.

Now to Keith Wheeler, this may be his calling from God, but in my opinion it is also a form of performance art.  You see over twenty five years ago Keith was called by God to take up a literal cross and walk with it.  Many people would think of this act as a protest to bad things of the world, but it was revealed to him that the cross was actually a symbol of reconciliation, peace, and God’s love.  Matthew 16:24 says, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  To Christians this is a figurative way of dying to self and giving up your life to God, but for Keith Wheeler it was a literal interpretation that he carried out.

This man is just a man, but thanks to a large calling from God he has reached all sorts of places with a twelve foot cross on his shoulders.  Places full of turmoil and wars like the Middle East and China, Bosnia and Rwanda.  Not even committing a crime, Keith has had to go through various arrests and has been thrown in jail.  Even once this man was placed in front of a firing squad to be shot, and because of the mission from God, he was even beaten and left for dead.

A lot of performance art inspires and is filled with inspiration, but the art of Keith Wheeler and his walk with God is a true inspirational story.  That is an incredible act and performance indeed.

You can find out more about Keith Wheeler at his website.

I tend to get easily bored, and actually when I am in my bored state, that is when all of my ideas come to me and my juices flow. Just the other day I was bored out of my gourd and it dawned on me that I should create a painting made with various “paints” from around the house. I put paints in quotations, because I made my own paint out of things that I found. Like, coffee, for instance. If you read my post on painting with coffee, then you can get the inspiration. There were other things I wanted to try as well. So I immediately got started on making paint. You would be surprised at all that you can use as a paint medium that is directly from your kitchen. Take a look.

Coffee–I have used coffee to paint before, but this day I was intent on getting a range on monochromatic colors. I had some coffee left over in the pot which had goo color, but I needed some lighter and one darker shade for what I was envisioning. The get the lighter shades, I simply added in water. For the darker color I used a saucepan to boil the coffee. It thickened up and got darker in hue. The darkest color was almost black, and it was beautiful. I had four shades of coffee paint that was ready to go, but I wanted more.
Tea–Using tea as a paint is very similar to using coffee. Different teas will give off different colors of browns. I like that tea can get even lighter than the coffee and I wanted an almost cream color, so I steeped some bags of black tea. To get some golden and red colors, I also steeped a bad of green tea.
Berries–There were frozen blueberries in our freezer, so of course I wanted to try it out. I have heard of people turning berries into a paste paint of some sort, but I wanted to go all natural. After thawing the berries, I mashed them up very generously. Be careful with this one because I also stained my shirt while playing with the berries.
Ketchup and Mustard –I needed some reds and yellows to play with, so of course these two condiment staples were on my paint list.

To get some real creativity flowing, I burned some herbal incense and got started. I painted on a paper surface with all of the paints. That tends to hold the paints the best I’ve found. If you’re looking for something fun to do, then break out some “paint.” Create your own masterpieces with everyday things in your kitchen.

Have you looked at the dark, inviting colors of coffee grounds and considered using these warm colors from your mug as a form of paint?  Saria Montreal, an art student in Washington, DC, has.  As an accomplished watercolor and pastel artist, Montreal wanted to do something a tad unusual and more challenging than her previous works.  Coffee was her choice for color.

“I began by simply dabbing over a sketch I had made, using coffee and a sponge.  I found it to be very interesting, giving my work a certain ‘old world’ feel and look.  As I continued experimenting with coffee for coloration, some of what I did looked grand, while other attempts failed.  I learned a lot from my experimentation.” She said she was inspired to try after seeing a watercolor special on her Direct TV Channel Lineup.

To get the effect she speaks of, all that physically is required is some wet, brewed coffee, watercolor paper, and brushes or sponges.  But the skill level required can take months, or even years, to master. Too much coffee can result in an overly elastic paper, where the color may not even stick well or be dramatic enough.  Other problems with not attaining the perfect texture are from the coffee not drying well, or even breeding mold.  In the latter case, the coffee stain might actually peel away from the paper over time.  A talented coffee artist can achieve lasting results after years of developing techniques.

Using brushes to apply the coffee paint is sometimes followed by spraying water directly onto the painting, to help smear an dilute the coffee on the water color paper for even greater effect.  The main scope of this water application is to achieve a slight blur or softness that is more subtle than brushes can get at.  This technique was something Montreal learned while studying pastels as well.

Coffee painting can be a rewarding and enjoyable meditative art, in addition to producing beautiful colors on watercolor paper.  The aroma of coffee contributes to a sense of comfort in many artists who try it, and enhances a sense of well being.

“What I most want from this is for my audiences to see a beautiful thing on paintings, something that is new and lovely.  I want them to know that they, too, can try this and become skilled at it, to create more art,” said Montreal.

Deciding whether art is ugly or beautiful is an entirely separate question from determining whether art is art or not.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Whether you are in a museum looking at ancient art of watching Direct TV Utah, so you are experiencing art. This means that one’s legitimacy in judgment of any work of visual art must necessarily be so subjective as to defy definition.  The sublime nature of any single mind’s ability to categorize art along some interior scale of beauty is one of the many gifts of mankind, but one, like all others, that should be responsibly educated and enlightened.  To blatantly permit one’s artistic sensibilities to atrophy or even decay is a crime against the human spirit in many ways.

As beings with the ability to recognize, categorize, and define and rate art based on some commonly accepted criteria is higher order thinking.  No other creatures on Earth possess the same rational propensity towards beauty that humankind enjoys.  It would be primarily irresponsible, and secondarily inadvisable, for any person to declare any work of art “ugly” without a very thorough examination of what appears to make it so, both from external sources (the work of art itself, the objects that surround it) and internal ones (the mind, the soul, and the attitude of the person viewing the art.)

An artist has an interior vision of  what he is creating.  Most of the time, this vision is something shrouded from the thoughts and perceptions of his or her fellow man.  The whole thing behind an artistic work is a “vision” of sorts that only the artist can “see.”    It is therefore imperative that we strive to put ourselves in the position of the artist when we set forth to form interpretations or make sweeping declarations as to whether a work is beautiful or not.  We cannot know the mind of the artist, or what she really saw during her vision, but we can apply a degree of human empathy that will allow us to better understand what about the art makes it a thing of beauty.

Yes, some art is created with the express notion of being ugly, on purpose, for exactly that reason.  An artist may set out to create something ugly in order to contrast something unassuming, to bring out its beauty for being so near in proximity to something seemingly devoid of beauty — but even that, in its ability to bring out the beauty near by — is beautiful by its own merit for having done so.

In my opinion, art is an feeling that a person or group of people find a way to express through creative and meaningful outlets.  For example, recently a man in England disconnected his Home Security in order to create fear so that he may be inspired to paint again. I feel that everyone, in their own way, is an artist.  We all have a way to use creativity and create some form of what others would consider to be art.  There are so many types of art:  music, writing, painting, watercolors, dancing, singing, and so much more.  The list is practically limitless, and I don’t know of anyone who has not at some point drawn a picture, sung out loud, or danced around in the very least.  All humans are naturally born to be artists, so at what point did the ideas of art critics come into play?  Who’s to say that someone’s way of expressing emotion and feelings is wrong or bad?

There is no bad art, but there can be misunderstandings when it comes to artistic interpretation.  Often, what an artist creates is poorly received, or not properly studied, by the general public.  This can result in people leaning towards calling the work of art “bad” or inferior, when as a work of human expression it can be, truly, neither.  The only way art could be really bad would be if the artist had fraudulently created it, with no intention of self expression or the generation of beauty whether by sight or invocative emotion. Since there is no way for one human to know the true intentions and thoughts of another, there is no way to prove the potential inauthenticity of an artist’s work.  There is, in essence, no way to demonstrate whether any artist indeed set forth to create something with no meaning at all, that is not designed to be artistic.  Therefore, we defer to what the artist suggests through the strokes of his pen or paintbrushes, the hues of varying degrees of expression.

Art has long been debated among people who are certain they fully grasp the artistic range of creativity.  Many people readily dismiss some artists’ works, relegating them to a lesser standard based as if they were your everyday mundane cable internet bundles, and not art. They are judge only on their abilities to appreciate art as viewers.  This is not the best way to approach art interpretation.  Any work of art depends mostly on the artist who creates it, yes, but also upon the person experiencing it.  To learn to be a better observer and recipient of created works, one must put in the time to study art carefully and attempt to understand at least some of its defining characteristics.