All about Pie – A Memorial Day experience!

We went to Boalsburg PA for the Memorial day festival on May 25th! I baked 3 different pies, Peach Ginger, Traditional Apple and a French Apple Custard.  Together the Wheeler/Schissel clan entered 13 different pies.  After the judging the pies are sliced and then sold for $2.00 a slice, so if you want to try your pie you better line up!  For more information on the contest  and celebration go here http://memorialdayinboalsburg.org/schedule.php

All our pies lined up starting with my French Apple Custard pie!

A table full of pies! Oh My!

Not only is there a pie baking contest but there is also a craft fair full of country crafts, caned goods and more refined art.  I came across this potter:

Avant Garden Pottery – Pottery for Home & Garden made by Jeff Stambaugh

Jeff had the coolest ikebana flower arranging vases I have seen in a while.  I really liked that the little spikes matched the color of the pottery. Nice touch.  His pieces really displayed the flowers and the pottery- it is a nice balance. He has no website but his contact information is avanggardenpa@yahoo.com

Advertisement

New Patterns

Its always interesting creating new stamps.  I never know what the pattern will look like until the stamp has been finished and I get to play with it.

Stamp 2-9-15

I walked out to the studio this evening to work on my stamp for the week and noticed this frost pattern on the front porch.  I took several pictures of it but could not capture the essence I was looking for but did enjoy the spiral pattern.  When I was doing the drawing I wanted one that was slightly larger on one end so that when I stamp into the clay and flip the stamp over it will create a spiral pattern down the piece as I stamp around.  We will find out if it worked when its bisque fired and I can try it out!

I started out looking at frost on the studio porch. But couldn’t quite capture the essence of what I was looking at.

this frost almost looks like ferns or grass waving in the wind.

I used sketch # 14 to create the stamp.

Stamp 2-8-15

Check out this decorative grass I saw on my run this morning! Isn’t it cool the way it spirals in?

Another view of the decorative grass. Looking forward to the sketches and stamp that will evolve from this.

here are my sketches and lump of clay. Looking forward to creating!

nice long elegant spiral…

Introducing stamp 2-8-15

Stamp 2-7-15

So I started out these sketches with my middle and last initial.  L for Linore and S for Schissel.  Then I started day dreaming about curves and breaking it down a little further to individual parts of the letters and came up with this leaf pattern.

Initials that dissolve into imagination…

I settled on sketch #23

The beginning. I have cut out the outline of the leaves

I cut away the excess clay.

and cleaned it up, taking out the inside of the leaves and giving the outside edges a clean crisp line.

The finished stamp. 2-7-15

Stamp 2-6-15

This pattern will require 2 stamps to be made

This turned out pretty neat. When its paired with the next stamp it should make a pretty cool pattern.

Stamp #2

Completed stamp #2

Stamp 1-5-15

I spent some time looking through some old graphic design books, did some sketches from them and ended up with this:

The beginning sketches

Selecting the sketch. I chose #5

Without further adieu. The finished stamp!

Stamp 1-4-15

So I go for  runs on a regular basis and there is this fantastic old mail box that I pass almost every time.  Its iron and rusting but has some really cool scroll work and from there I ended up with this stamp.

Stamp 1-3-15

To start out the week I found an old Magnolia leaf on the ground when I was running this morning.  I was intrigued by the tip of the leaf and the dip of the end of the stem.  Below are the sketches from the leaf with variations on both.

 

I originally settled on sketch 15 but could not figure out the design for the stamp, ultimately starting over with new sketches and ending up with sketch 21 that is reminiscent of the tip of the leaf but looking at it now looks like fallopian tubes.  Weird.

Below are the different stages of the stamp as I am working on it.

The beginning…

I had to start over…

The new design seems to be working…

It turned out nicely.

Finished and labeled.

Stamp- 1-2-15

So I have been going on regular runs this year and trying to observe small things along the run that will help me stop and slow down a bit.  Today I came across these cool memories from childhood.  I snapped a couple of pictures so I can make a stamp from them. Below is the process:

As a child, these would fall and we would call them “helicopter wings” laughing and chasing after them.

1st I made some sketches…

Than I cut off a lump of clay…

Refined the edges and removed some clay

and ended up with this…