Local Art and Crafts for Gifts

I have found so many beautiful and unique Christmas gifts at this yearly sale.

Winter Arts & Crafts Sale at Multnomah Arts Center
7688 SW Capitol HWY, Portland, Oregon 97219

Ceramics, textiles, jewelry, prints, paintings, Connie Moore Designs greeting cards and more!

All sales support arts education.

Thursday, December 5 — 9:00am – 9:00pm
Friday, December 6 — 9:00am – 9:00pm
Saturday, December 7 — 9:00am – 4:00pm

Best wishes,
Connie

The pens

I had to make sure and show you the wonderful pens my husband Roger has been making with wood from our forested home and re-purposed materials. You can now find his pens exclusively sold at Moments by Norri, a shop for creating memorable gatherings and finding local artisan gifts.

This one is one of my favorites:

Gatsby Style Twist

In spalted and highly figured Norway maple burl and gold titanium finish

The maple was submerged in green dye and processed for 24 hours in a vacuum chamber. This piece was then heated to harden and stabilize the dye before turning on a vintage wood lathe.

This pen is part of a Norway maple that fell during a snowstorm at my forested home in Portland, Oregon. A burl is a rounded knotty, irregular growth that when polished has elegant decorative detail.

Chipmunk

Acrylic on 2 in x 2 in canvas board
This painting I did with the aid of a magnifying glass and tiny brushes. The subject was derived from a photograph I took one Christmas. A chipmunk had gotten a hold of some holly I had put in a plant arrangement outside. This painting was entered in the Blick Mini Masterpiece Challenge.

 

Graphic designers are used to working in a fast pace environment. And as one I have tools to my advantage. I worked up my different images and textures in a multi layered PhotoShop file on my computer. Not to do a digital painting – which this is not – but to work out shapes, color and textures and get a good feeling of how they could work together before dipping the brush in paint. The result; I have in my mind a finished image and along the way there are happy accidents that add flavor to the piece.

Here I have deconstructed my image using filters slowly working to less and less detail and one with the grain filter turned up for an extra texture view. I print them out on 8.5 x 11 in this case larger than the size of the painting. On my canvas I draw then paint what I see on my printouts in the reverse order. Cheating? No. They are just tools after all and on a two inch square you need all the help you can get.