Painting and Folding

Today came another layer of paint on the 3D tree. I am very pleased with how it is coming out!

Robyn and I went out tonight in search of tissue paper in vibrant colors. First we went to our neighborhood Dollar Tree where we purchased four multicolor packs that gave me 25 sheets(per package, 100 sheets total) including red, blue, lime green and yellow (and pale pink, which I’ll save for present wrapping!). This was a great start for $4.28! BUT, I still needed purple and orange!

We decided to run over to Michael’s Arts and Crafts, to see if they had any. The best part is that I still have a gift card for them with just over $40 on it! And, I had a coupon on my phone. (I think this is the best idea- I always forget my coupons, or they expire- and now I can just check my Michael’s App or my Joanne’s App to see what coupons I can use!).

Materials for Flowers

We found multipacks (you can see it in the top of the bottom image) that had more colors than I needed, but was the only way I was finding purple and orange. The pack had 100 sheets with 10 colors of each. I ended up being very excited to have the pack though it wasn’t cheap ($7.99 – 40% off coupon). The flowers were planned to be two-tone, so those other colors came in handy!

The pipe cleaners were also from Michael’s. I bought 3 packs($2.99) hoping I would only need two! And, I also grabbed a pack of orange party napkins, in case I didn’t think the orange was bright enough.

Michelle Dupuis’s tutorial on making tissue papers was fantastic! She posted just over a year ago about making these. I love that she came up with five different flower types. Since I chose to do all of mine as Dahlias, I had fun mixing up the colors a bit. Michelle used 10″ squares. I decided I wanted mine smaller, to be proportional with the tree. Now, don’t ask how I figured that out, because  I don’t know. In any event, I decided 6″ squares would be good. Thankfully the squares do not have to be perfect! Here they are all cut out, with some of the pipe cleaners I planned to use:

Tissue Squares

Here is how they came out! The bottom is folded like a fan, with the ‘center’ color on top, held tight by a purple pipe cleaner. The top is the sheets each pulled out to give the puffiness! Here is another view:

Two-Tone Purple

Initially I knew I needed 35 flowers. They would be the ones I needed having art mediums “blooming” from them. While I was making them I decided that no, every reed stem off the tree needed a flower! So, all in all, I think I created 90-95. Here is the pile:

80+ Tissue Paper Flowers!

For right now, they are staying folded up. Once the stool is done being painted and I have my art medium items created, I’ll start “poofing them out.” Here is another view:

Purple Dahlia Flower

Tissue Paper Flowers and Pipe Cleaners

As with any project I am working on over a period of time, I start dreaming about what the end result might be. Sometimes I dream many different concepts, and other times I get stuck on just one. This project has been no different. Over the past month the tree has evolved as many times in my dreams as it has in reality. And, so often I believe that even when I’m not actually focused on a problem, project, idea or etc, my brain somewhere is still working on it. I’m sure a lot of artists could relate, and perhaps you can too, even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist.

“At the birth of the word “art,” it was a verb that meant “to put things together.” It was not a product but a process(3) that Eric Booth writes about in his book, The Everyday Work of Art: How Artistic Experience Can Transform Your Life.

It is interesting how we change word meanings for a length of time. I firmly believe anyone can work through the art process to create something wonderful. I taught an art class this past fall. My 25 students ran in age from three-6 year old girls, to teens, and adults: male and female, moms and dads, grandparents. Some thought of themselves as artists, some worked in the arts field, while others swore they couldn’t do art for anything. With just a few basic instructions, showing the process, they were able to learn how to create in the simplest of ways. By the end of the session, each and every person had created a piece of work all their own.

This tree has been begging for something. What that something was, I just did not know. Until one night- it was one of those nights where the insomnia was so bad, I thought I’d see the sun rise. At the point of lingering between sleep and not, flowers came to the forefront of my mind with this tree. It needed flowers! The flowers would show the blooming of all the art mediums that this genetic family of mine played in.

After the initial idea, I jumped into pinterest to see what types of paper flowers I could come up with. As I was looking through, I wasn’t thrilled with what I was finding. I didn’t want them to have a “scrapbook” appearance. In fact, I am not much of a scrapbooker anyway. My other thought was that those flowers could become very heavy, very fast. And, my tree’s branches of reeds might not sustain them. That’s when I came across these beautiful tissue paper flowers! I recall making them as a kid in Sunday school class, and in regular school as well. I finally found a few bloggers who had touched on the subject. I found one in particular that I decided to use. Michelle Dupuis the creator of Rust & Sunshine ( http://rustsunshine.blogspot.com ) posted a tutorial on making five real to life paper tissue flowers. Her directions were superb, and very easy to follow. I choose to follow the instructions for Dahlias. I chose them for two reasons, the first is that Gerberas and Dahlias are the two brightest flowers I can think of… next being Glads! And secondly I could make them two tone bursts of vibrant color.