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 Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Make art from Starbucks trash
 Wired is having a contest: Create things out of all the stuff you get at Starbucks—stirrers, sugar packets, napkins, cups, chairs that aren't bolted down, anything. The example to go by is the Star Wars fighter ship (at right) that a Wired contributor created out of coffee boxes, 50 cups and 216 stirrers. Build your dream, take pictures, upload the instructions to the Create Wiki page, and your work could be featured in an online slideshow. By Grace Dobush | Projects
10/29/2008 1:13:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Random Act of Kindness
With all the heartbreaking stories and images about Hurricane Ike and the Wall Street woes in the news, I think the short film "Historia de un Letrero" ("The Story of a Sign") is well worth the couple minutes it takes to view. The film, produced in Mexico and the United States by 24-year-old Alonso Alvarez
Barreda, won a Cannes Film Festival prize this year and was brought
to our staff's attention by one of our freelance writers. It brings to light the kindness of strangers and helps us focus on our blessings, as well as the beauty still abundant in the world around us. To view the movie, click here. To learn more about the movie and the contest, click here. By Chris McHugh | Projects | Random Thoughts
9/17/2008 11:17:22 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Tuesday, June 10, 2008
 Tuesday, May 13, 2008
A Sisyphean sketching project
Jason Polan wants to draw every person in New York. In his words: If you would like to increase the chances of a portrait of YOU
appearing on this blog please email me (art@jasonpolan.com) a street
corner or other public place that you will be standing at for a
duration of two minutes (I will be on the corner of 14th street and 8th
avenue on the North-east corner of the street from 2:42-2:44pm this
Thursday wearing a bright yellow jacket and navy rubber boots, for
example). Please give me more than a 24 hour warning and please make it
a scenario that is not too difficult for you to accomplish (the corner
outside of the store you work at during lunch time, or in front of a
museum you were going to go to on a Saturday) because I may
unfortunately miss you and do not want you to have to invest more than
2 minutes of your time in case I cannot make it. You may or may not see
me drawing you during this time. If I do draw you, you will see
yourself (or rather, a drawing that hopefully somewhat resembles you)
on this blog that evening.
When the project is completed we will all have a get together.
Awesome! Somebody better order sandwiches for 8 million ASAP. Via Emdashes By Grace Dobush | Cool Web sites | Projects
5/13/2008 11:21:44 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Friday, April 25, 2008
 Friday, April 18, 2008
Friday Flowers: Pansy Power
Projects | Tips
4/18/2008 4:45:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Friday, April 11, 2008
Friday Flowers: White Tulips
 Watercolor artist
Birgit O'Connor shares her strategy for painting glorious white tulips in the latest installment in our Friday Flowers series.
As she shows you how she painted White Tulips (watercolor, 40x30), O'Connor offers this advice:
Treat a white flower like any other flower, only with much less paint, letting the white of the paper represent the brightest hues. The principal idea in the latter method is to paint the lines that imply the shape and let the white of the paper represent the flower.
Click here to see all nine steps and her palette, and click here to see last week's demonstration, Radiant Reds. And be sure to check back next Friday for the next step-by-step demonstration! By Grace Dobush | Notable Artists | Projects | Tips
4/11/2008 1:12:28 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Thursday, April 03, 2008
Friday Flowers for April
 Every Friday this month, The Artist's Magazine is bringing you a step-by-step flower painting demonstration on our website, www.artistmagazine.com. Today watercolor artist Birgit O'Connor shares "Painting Flowers Step by Step: Radiant Reds" for painting gorgeous red tulips. She explains step by step how to achieve a vibrant, clean red and the
right value contrasts to make your tulips blossom beautifully. See her finished piece, Parrot Tulips (at right; watercolor, 30x22). Don't miss more flower painting demos the next three Fridays in April! (OK, Grace, enough galavanting on the West Coast! Time to come back and tell us all about it!) By Chris McHugh | Notable Artists | Projects
4/3/2008 8:17:36 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Wednesday, March 26, 2008
 Friday, February 29, 2008
Lucky winners and a boxmaking demonstration
Congrats to the three commenters who won the three calendars! Those are being shipped out today.
In unrelated news, I just posted a demonstration of how to make a book box for my other job. You can watch it below and download a PDF with detailed directions on the Family Tree Magazine website. Happy weekend!
By Grace Dobush | News | Projects | Videos
2/29/2008 3:38:42 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Friday, February 15, 2008
How I spent my Friday afternoon



Put my boxmaking and bookbinding skills to work for a crafty demonstration for the other magazine I work on. Great end to the week. I hope your long weekend is a creative one! By Grace Dobush | Projects | Random Thoughts
2/15/2008 4:49:01 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Monday, January 07, 2008
The joys of small editions
 I'm really excited—this morning I interviewed Jen Bekman, a New York City gallery owner and the mastermind behind 20x200, a project that is bringing art to the people, man.
Like the popular Tiny Showcase, 20x200 creates very limited and very affordable runs of high-quality photos and fine art prints. The price structure is what distinguishes 20x200: Each piece comes in an edition of 200 small prints for $20 each, 20 medium-size prints for $200 each, and 2 really big prints for $2,000 each.
I love it because Jen's bringing art (and exposing emerging artists) to the common Web surfer. The work is gorgeous, and some of the prints totally sell out. (And fine artists are encouraged to submit their work for consideration!)
Keep your eyes peeled for the May issue of The Artist's Magazine to read the whole article! Above, Many Mountains by Ky Anderson.
By Grace Dobush | Cool Web sites | Projects
1/7/2008 2:02:05 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Thursday, December 06, 2007
Make an erasable lamp

From A Little Hut, a little project:
Step one: Buy a cheap lamp with a large, smooth base
Step two: Paint it with chalk paint and let it dry
Step three: Draw on it with chalk
Step four: Erase and repeat step three.
Step five: Bask in its light and your awesomeness.
By Grace Dobush | Cool Web sites | Projects
12/6/2007 6:29:17 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Monday, November 19, 2007
Learn how to screen print!

There's still time to do Warhol-style portraits of friends and family for holiday gifts... CRAFT zine has put up step-by-step instructions of how to do screen prints on their blog, along with a list of materials you need.
Serigraphy (if you want to get all fancy) is so versatile. It can be utterly polished or intentionally flawed. Graphic designers love screen prints (and so do I), but the methods have fine-art applications, too.
Have you ever tried screen printing? I've done some T-shirts before, but I'd love to attempt something bigger. By Grace Dobush | Projects
11/19/2007 11:23:37 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Build your own frames!
By Grace Dobush | Cool Web sites | Projects
11/13/2007 4:33:44 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Friday, September 21, 2007
Build your own sketchbook
 While going through my favorite blogs this week, I came across a link to this artist's description of her sketching arsenal.
Martha of Trumpetvine Travels has developed specific tastes in art materials, from a specific fountain pen to a style of sketchbook. She rebinds her Moleskine notebooks to replace the paper that comes in them with watercolor paper.
(You can also have a look at a step-by-step demonstration of how she sketches, with details on what paints she uses.)
I've never been a painter, but I do like to doodle and write lots of notes. For that, I built my own sketchbook, which you can see at right. Inside is a mix of lots of random sheets of paper. They are bound in a Coptic style, very similar to the way Martha does hers. Check out her detailed instructions on rebinding to give it a try yourself! By Grace Dobush | Cool Web sites | Projects
9/21/2007 3:55:19 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Tuesday, September 11, 2007
For your next birthday...
Via the Craft Zine blog: The coolest cake I have ever seen. This might be perfect if you've got a friend or family member who is still trying to solve the Rubik's Cube they bought in 1981.
By Grace Dobush | Projects | Random Thoughts
9/11/2007 2:33:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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 Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Project: Linoleum print tutorial!
I'm a huge fan of printmaking, especially linocuts, because you don't need a lot of equipment or money to make some really beautiful prints.
Today I stumbled across this linocut tutorial with good instructions and very helpful pictures to illustrate the process! (It also includes a margarita recipe, I guess to get your creative juices flowing?)
If you want to try linoleum prints on for size, check out Dick Blick's printmaking supplies. All you need to get started is a linoleum block (I find mounted ones are easier to deal with), a linoleum cutter, some water-based ink, a brayer for rolling the ink and some paper. (There's a basic kit for sale for $15.99 here.)
Here's a two-color linocut of mine from a while back:
 By Grace Dobush | Projects
8/28/2007 10:00:25 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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