Conjecture

Well, it’s finally here! The last piece of artwork from last year’s solo show “RE:Imagined, Created, Purposed”.

Beginning with a piece of foam core that would be mounted on a wood panel, I drew and cut out various shapes. Originally I thought I would use one of the panels covered with old book pages but the design seemed too busy for that so I switch to one of the panels I had painted black. 

 

One I had the design decided upon I leafed through my magazine stash and selected images that went together well. I was really excited to include the peacock feather in with the other images. 🙂

“Conjecture” © Lynne Medsker

For a little added interest I used three of the rolled magazine pages that were left from creating “Ceremonial” and “Continuum” for an accent in the upper right corner of the piece. I have more pieces left and have been thinking of other artwork I can use them in so you may see that again in the future!

Next week I’ll begin with some new work and then hop around to get caught back up from last fall and this spring. At least I won’t run out of content for a while!

Lynne

Circadian

As promised in the last post, I’m continuing with artwork created on old LP’s.  Today’s piece began as all the others shown here, stacked and waiting for some creativity to find them. It is actually the one on the top of the pile, that’s been spray painted with hammered metal color paint.

Different from the last post, there are no magazine pages. Instead,  I began by outlining the record onto a piece of watercolor paper and drawing a mandala with that circle. On one side was the drawing, on the other side I had fun with some abstract painting of watercolors.

Once the paint was dry I began the tedious task of cutting out tiny areas of the mandala so that, once attached, the record would show through.  Yes, these images show some pink & brown instead. That’s my pretty cutting board and my work table. 🙂

After all the cutting was done the paper was attached to the record and extra drawing, ink and glass pieces were added to it for some dimension.

The final step creating “Circadian” was to add the mechanism and hands to transform it into a work clock. Viola!

“Circadian” © Lynne Medsker

Hmmmm. I wonder what the next piece will look like? You’ll find out in a few days!

Lynne

 

Ceremonial

Okay…back to catching up art from last summer’s solo show of recycled/upcycled art work! The next few posts are all about artwork that was created on 33 1/3 LP’s. One of my very first gallery showings, about ten years ago, was made up of the same thing so this isn’t new for me, just re-visited as it fit the theme.

The first step for all the pieces was to fasten wood pieces to the back so the hangers could be attached and so that they would stand out from the wall a bit when hung, giving them more dimension. It was also essential because some of them were made into clocks and there needed to be space for the mechanisms to fit. 

After that step was finished I began work on the individual pieces. Some had been spray painted and others were not. For today’s piece, Ceremonial, it had been painted  bright red. The time-consuming part of this creation was rolling all the magazine pages! From a distance many people have mistaken them for pencils. 🙂

Once that had been done then I began playing with the layout of the piece. I had cut a piece of scrap foam core and covered it with aluminum to use as a vertical break in the piece so I arranged the magazine rolls to one side of it until I was pleased.

Prior to attaching all the piece I colored the aluminum piece with inks to compliment the background color of the record.  Then it was time to glue the pieces down, add a few embellishments and, ta-da, finished!

“Ceremonial” © Lynne Medsker

More record art to follow soon!

Lynne

 

Carefree

Here’s the third piece of artwork created from a section of an old metal filing cabinet, titled “Carefree” –

“Carefree” mixed media (metal, copper & paint) 22×48″ SOLD

Unlike the pieces I’ve shown previously, the piece of metal wasn’t cut apart but instead I used the plasma cutter to etch & cut the design in the metal, cutting openings within the design. Here’s an image of the metal after cutting and sanding, before anything else was done to it.

The next step was to paint the entire piece black, using spray paint. 

From there it was time to start adding in all the details. I spent a lot of time sprawled out on the floor of my studio with paint pens adding each little mark! I love creating tree art, no matter what the media, so what some might see as a long, tedious task I enjoyed each moment of.

Once all the details were finished I mounted the piece on a large wood panel (also painted black) with pieces of copper sandwiched between the metal and the wood.  I am happy to report that this piece has found a wonderful home and I had the honor of being invited there to see where it had been placed. I couldn’t have been more pleased to see how it seemed like it was just made for it’s location. The light from nearby windows made it dance and change as the sun moved through the sky and the room lighting highlighted it perfectly as well. As an artist you can’t ask for more than that!

Conversion

“Conversion” mixed media (repurposed metal on wood) © Lynne Medsker

During the next few blog posts I’ll be sharing artwork created from reclaimed metal from a large file cabinet that had been discarded. The first step was to cut apart the cabinet into managable pieces! Once that was done then I drew the design and cut out each of the smaller pieces with a plasma cutter.

Shapes, cut & numbered

Laid out for painting

Spray paint applied

Hammered metal spray paint

After cleaning them up a bit they were spray painted in various colors and then re-assembled & glued onto wood panels.  Decorative nails were used to help secure the piece and add extra detail.

Glue & Nails

Almost finished!

The three circles were mounted on different thicknesses of wood pieces to add depth to the overall image. This piece and the upcoming “Pathway” are both the same size piece, approximately 12 x 36″ each. Currently they are on display at Artistic Designs Gallery in Brownsburg, Indiana.

Ambience

“Ambience” cut paper over book pages mounted on 12×12″ wood panel $145 © Lynne Medsker

The first of three similar pieces that were created for last years upcycled/recycled show, Ambience began with a blank 12×12″ wood panel that was covered in old dictionary pages. Then a mandala like design was drawn onto the back of a black piece of paper and carefully cut with an x-acto knife.

Design drawn in pencil

Cutting the design with a knife

Finished cut design

Paper mounted over dictionary pages

Once the cutting was finished the black paper was mounted on top of the pages and ink, buttons and other embellishments were attached to create the finished piece.

colored ink added

Look for the other two pieces to arrive on the blog later this week!

Lynne

Something fishy

Back in the fall, during my unintentional blog hiatus, I created several new pieces of whimsical art using scrap wood pieces, old dictionary pages and ink. They were fun! I have ideas for more pieces in this style once I get back into the studio. Today I’m sharing one of my favorite pieces from the batch I created.  It began with one of these pieces of wood, the backgrounds painted with acrylic:

Add some torn paper shapes:

 

Then lots of ink details and DONE!

Fishy © Lynne Medsker

Just for fun I left some of the paper un-attached to the surface to make the pieces more dimensional, in this instance the fin on his side!

Lynne

P.S. If you’d like to see this, and other creations, in person they are located at ProArt Gallery in Greenwood, Indiana!

LAST CHANCE SALE!

Special pricing on these beautiful wall sculptures and metal art pieces. I really hate to part with some of these – a few are even hanging in my living room. BUT, moving them would be hard work too so you get to take advantage with these prices at are 75% off!! There are over a dozen beautiful pieces show on the sale page of my website –  here are a few samples!

Was $795, now 195!

Was $695, now 150

Was $345, now 85

All the details on how to purchase these (and other) pieces are on the website, click the link above to go directly to that page.

Happy Shopping!
Lynne

Keep on Rollin’

Many hours of April and May have been spent rolling up magazine pages in varieous shapes and sizes for upcycled artwork. When I’ve been busy working on other projects I’ve had others helping with this project as well.  I’ll never look at magazines the same!

When I began in April the bulk of what I worked on were paper beads…

I’ve had to abandon that project for now but at least have a good “stash” started. When I begin to show images of the work created for the upcoming show look for these magazine pages to show up frequently!

Exploring: Fun

The last two posts have been about the wonderful “IDEA Store” in Champaign, Illinois. Today I will share the original reason for my trip there – a workshop! Presented by artist Michelle Stitzlein, aimed at those who create art with children, we re-purposed plastic lids into creative works of art.

plastic lid assortment

Each person was given a 24×24″ piece of plywood to work on, which we first painted with a layer of paint as we pleased. Since we’d be working with round shapes there would be areas of the background that would probably peek through so this made a much better background than just plain wood. Once the paint dried then we began to arrange the lids into whatever pattern we desired. Look at the assortment of lids we had to choose from:

I think I started and stopped arranging at least three times before mine finally began to take shape like I wanted it to!

After it was  arranged then the hard work started: DRILLING. It was about this time I realized that larger caps equaled less drilling, but it was a bit too late. Good information for future projects though! 🙂 Needless to say, I did NOT get everything drilled to the board before time ran out.

Progress made before class finished

I’m pretty sure my design changed between removing it for transport and re-assembling it when I got back to the studio.

“Fun” 24×24″ mixed media art on wood © 2013, Lynne Medsker

But that’s okay, I like the way it turned out! I think this would be a really fun piece to hang in a kids room or at a daycare, peditricians office, etc. Bright, cheerful and eco-friendly! Here’s a detail shot:

detail from “Fun” © Lynne Medsker

It really gave me lots of ideas for future projects and other materials that could be used to create with. Fun, indeed!

Lynne