Great day for a walk in McCrory Gardens to take a few pictures.
McCrory Gardens – Brookings, SD
Nature Park – Brookings, SD
My favorite type of day to take pictures; lots of sun and a blue sky.
Large Mandala 13
I wanted to create something very colorful. I wanted it to feature the five-petal flowers I drew when I was younger. It was drawn on a 16″x20″ black art board using Sakura Moonlight pens. I used every color in the set plus their white pens.
Hand Painted Nativity
I was looking through my boxes, yes boxes, of crafts I had not finished for my next project, and I found the nativity set. I opened the top cover of the box, and everything looked yellow. Then I removed the plastic cover, and the pieces was still white and in great shape. The price tag on the box had the year of 2004. This set survived a flood and traveled over 1100 miles to it new home.
I painted each piece with acrylic paint, but I wanted the pieces to sparkle. After the paint dried, I applied pearl glaze over each piece. Usually, the pearl glaze is added to the painted, but using it like varnish, gave the pieces the shine I wanted. To seal the pieces, I sprayed each with polyacrylic varnish.
Painted Coaster – Set 5
This is another project that was sitting around for a long time waiting for me to finish it. I do have a few excuses: 1) Resin is difficult to work with so I normally put it off; and 2) Items should be varnished in warm weather. For these coasters, I use the Fluid Painting technique, also known as Pour Painting.
I first sealed the wood tiles using a white primer and let it dry for a few days. The paint mixture was 1 part acrylic paint to 2 parts Floetrol, with a drop of shredder oil. The different color paint, white, pink, light blue, dark blue, purple, red was layered in a cup (multiple time) and pour over the wood tiles.
I let the paint dry for weeks, before cleaning it with a mixture of Dawn soap and water. Again, I let it dry for a few days before spraying the tiles with varnish. And, then they sat for months. I had to dust them off before pouring the resin over the tiles. Resin does not like dust or oil. Either of these on the surface would cause bad results.
After letting the resin cure for a few weeks, I put glued cork on the back of each tile.
Tiny Flower Vase
The parts for this tiny vase have been laying in my craft area for a long time, and I finally got around to assembling flower arrangement. It was made with left over Sculpey clay and baked in the oven. I sprayed the arrangement with polyacrylic varnish. The flower arrangement is approximately 4″ tall.
Plastercraft Houses 2021 – 2022
Yes, it took me a long time to start and finish the latest Plastercraft houses. These houses were produced by California Creation, (which has gone out of business), and painted by me. The houses are painted with acrylic paint and sealed with gloss varnish.
Pizza Parlor
Fire Station
Ink Drawings
As a gift, I received a set of Calligraphy Ink with Glass pens. I could have used them in calligraphy, but instead I decided to see how well they did with drawing. Below is a picture of one of the sets I received.
The first thing I did with the ink was to determine the exact color. I did this putting all the colors on a sample sheet. I’ve learned opening a bottle is messy. It contains a little stopper and while removing it you will get ink all over your hands. My solution was to open the bottles using rubber gloves and a baby wipe. Below are my drawings. I wanted to use every color on both drawings.
Glass Tower
In January, I created one tile/design/pattern/window a day for 31 days. Each tile is 4″ x 4″ x 0.252″ or 101.6mm x 101.6mm x 6.4mm, which should work very well for 3d Printing. Here are examples of some of the tiles I created. They are just designs and patterns, there is no hidden meaning behind a tile.
What can you create with these tiles? I created a Glass Tower in Tinkercad with the 31 tiles. The only tile I reused was the last tile, the bottom tile, the tile I used for the floor. Below are pictures of my Glass Tower. The 3D view is available at this link: Glass Tower
All the tiles are available for copying and tinkering on Tinkercad. What can you make with these tiles? A square, a window in a building, a charm for a necklace. Just use your imagination and log on and search for sarahcath under People to find a design.
January’s Tiles
For January, I drew on two tiles per day. One tile was white and one tile black. Some were nice, some were not so nice. Below are the better tiles. I used Studio Series Artist’s Tiles, Micron pen on white, and Sakura pens on black. Shading with a pencil made some of the tiles beautiful.
Sarah Cath's Adventures 