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TrashieART: Self Portrait

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TrashieART.

It has been a little while since I have made anything.  And I got the creative itch last night.  Here is what I came up with.

I took a photograph I had and used the “stamp” filter in Photoshop to turn it solid, flat, and black and white.  Here is the original photo:

 

And here is the photo after using the “stamp” filter in Photoshop:

 

Next I made a stencil, using an old file folder from my office:

Then I spray painted the stencil onto a flat, hard canvas board.  and used black acrylic paint to go over the spray paint, adding a thicker, less graffiti like texture.

After I had the portrait painted onto the canvas, I thought it would be cool to use the nespresso pods as hair….adding depth and texture to the piece….a different medium.  So I cut the black pods, and a couple of red ones, into long strands.  And then simply glued them on appropriately onto the image.

 

And here is the result:

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Now go be creative…and turn your  something old into something new.

 

 

old wooden chest makeover

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my neighbor (and friend) purchased the below wooden chest 16 years ago.  she decided it was time to let it go.  and i decided i would give it a makeover and use it for storage.

here is what the chest looked like before:

 

 

and here is what it looks like now…

 

 

 

I have several magazines around my apartment that i am saving for trashieART purposes.  they came in handy for this project and became the key element for this chests little facelift.  i carefully chose some photos from the magazines that spoke to me…a little dark and mysterious.

 

once i had my photos chosen, i simply cut them out, and sealed them to the wooden chest using clear medium glaze.  a thin layer on the wood itself, sticking the photos on…and then a layer over the photos….using my fingers to press out any air bubbles that might have accumulated under the magazine pictures.

 

and lastly, i had some red and black indian paint….and i mixed a small about of the black with the red to get a deep color…and painted a few of the wooden panels on the chest.  adding some color to top it off.

and voila:

 

trashieART.  it’s that easy.

LGBT upcycle ART.

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wikipedia:  The rainbow flag, sometimes pride flag, LGBT pride flag or gay pride flag, is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, andtransgender (LGBT) pride and LGBT social movements in use since the 1970s. The colours reflect the diversity of the LGBT community, and the flag is often used as a symbol of gay pride in LGBT rights marches. It originated in California, but is now used worldwide. Designed by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker in 1978, the design has undergone several revisions to first remove then re-add colours due to widely available fabrics.[1][2] As of 2008, the most common variant consists of six stripes, with the colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is commonly flown horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow.

and what do the colors represent?

 

living as a proud, gay woman, i wanted to make something that expresses pride.  love.  diversity. inclusiveness.  hope.  and courage.

i had two already used canvases left to re-purpose.  many cleaned out nespresso pods…full of color.  and a beautiful piece of stencil street art i found via google…which represents the diversity of love.

i started with the two old canvases i wanted to do something with:

 

and the many used nespresso pods i have:

i printed out the stencil art i found, and would later transfer onto the canvas:

i cut it out, and figured out where i wanted to place it on the canvas…and then transferred it onto the canvas using liquid pouring medium glaze.

 

and lastly, i glued the nespresso pods appropriately on the two canvas, to make the rainbow flag, surrounding the two women.

 

 

 

 

and there you have it.  all used materials re-purposed to make something new.  trashieART.

 

 

overflowing with nespresso pods

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looks like there is some art to be made.  just cleaned out more used nespresso pods.

stay tuned…

out with the film…now what?

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i had some old film rolls from back in the day when film dominated…before our digital world took over.  so here is a small little piece i put together with an old canvas, old films strips, some paint, some detailed design paper, medium glaze, a stencil of wings, and of course, those little nespresso pods.

another drawer turned shelf

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your trash turned to ART.  

on one of my ride-abouts, someone had placed their entire kitchen counter/sink out on the street corner.  i was on my bicycle, so i couldn’t take much of the treasure, but i took one of the smaller bathroom drawers, knowing i could make a cute little shelf out of it.

before:

so i painted it red:

then i just put some patterned paper as a background and some stripes of paper elsewhere…sticking it on with medium glaze.

and voila:

and there it is hanging in my office next to the other shelf i made out of a dresser drawer awhile back.

more trashieART to come..

 

time for some trashieART fun!

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here is a recap of what trashieART has been up to the last several months….turning trash into ART!

 

HARD AT WORK

more to come….

trashieART with friends!

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my friend katie has been wanting to make some upcycle art ever since she saw trashieART having so much fun on the jane velez-mitchell show.  so we finally got together and had our own little upcycle art party.  we turned my living room into a little art studio, so to speak.

with mothers day coming up on the horizon, katie decided to create something for her mom.  she started out with an old painted canvas i had, and no longer wanted.  so i told katie she could re-use the canvas however she wanted.  and so began her creative mind a running.

katies mom loves dogs. with that in mind,  here is the brilliant art piece katie made:

items used:

1.  old used canvas

2.  used file folder that the wing and heart stencils were made out of.

3.  glue

4.  paint

5.  scissors

5.  paper, computer, and printer (she printed out the quote by will rogers, which she found online).

meet the artist, katie:

 

thanks katie…for such a fun monday ART night!!  your mom is going to love her mom’s day gift!

an espresso maze-DIY

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ME AND JANE

my neighbor and friend, kari, found this gigantic old canvas in an alley.  how kind it was of her to bring it home for me, knowing about my trashieART hobby.  the canvas was an old, faded orange, splatter painted piece.  i wanted a black canvas, so i sprayed it all black and it sat around my apartment for months, waiting to be transformed into something.  but what?

my girlfriend, jane, was eager for me to do something with this old canvas.  but i just didn’t know where to start….. until she came up with a great idea….a maze.  a simple maze.  jane is very creative herself.  what a great and fun idea!  so the last time she was in town, we spent a night making a maze out of used nespresso pods. it was quite a fun little project.

and there you have it.  more trash=ART from trashieART.

thanks for stopping by.

annies doppelgänger.

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i was doing some research for work, and i ran across this image that strangely resembles my friend, annie.

annies doppelgänger.  i wanted to make something with it.

annie, as i see her, is a dark, mysterious woman.  she’s a thinker.  an artist.  a young, talented force.  i look at her sometimes from a distance, and her head is down.  she’s thinking about something.  she looks like the girl in the picture (which is stencil art not an actual photograph).  deep in thought.  sad?  scared? uncertain? confident? dreaming?  i don’t know what she is pondering.  but i’d often like to know.  she is curious.

so here we go…

1. the board was found in an alley (i think it’s a piece of a dresser drawer.)  here is what it looked like originally:

2.  so i painted it

3.  then i printed out the annie doppelgänger:

4.  next i took glazing medium and i covered the board with a thin layer, and then put the image where i wanted it, and covered the picture with glazing medium as well. (acts as a clear glue).  i also added a bit of color to the image with some paint…mixing silver and red together to get a shimmer pink-ish color.

5.  next i took one of my old paperback books that i no longer need/use, and cut out sentences from the book, to use as the background.  i first spread on a thin layer of glazing medium onto the board, then placed each sentence one by one where i wanted it to lay, and put more glazing medium on top, and smoothed it out with my finger to get out any big bubbles.  i did this is small sections.

6.  i took some black and pink used and cleaned out nespresso pods and figured out a design i wanted to use for this.  i came up with a cross. not as a religious symbol, but rather a symbol of protection.  that’s the way i choose to view it at least.  i crushed a few of the pods to get some depth.

7.  i then glued the pods on, and voila.  annies doppelgänger  trashieART is complete.  

i hope she likes it.

thanks for stopping by and checking out my trashieART.  where trash=ART.