Meet and mingle with our ~ DIY Vespa Venture in Venice created by young makers! If you’re connected with us onInstagram, you’ve seen young artists creating these precious popped out pieces in an after school workshop just before Valentine’s Day, hence the love lock addition! The vision was to create a colorful creature, possibly a vivacious vole, venturing and vrooming through the streets of Venice on a vibrant Vespa, full of Valentine’s gifts galore…that’s a whole lot of V’s, right!?! Of course, you could design any type of pretty packages for transport or choose any cute creature to be captain. Take a peek at our {hands on + mixed-media} process creating with crafty kids in Carbondale, Colorado in our downtown art studio at 449 Main Street.
Have you ever wanted your very own Vespa scooter!?! They come in SO many beautiful colors under the sun! They’re simply so easy to spot on a summery street in all sorts of savory shades. How could you ever choose from seafoam green, luscious lime, savory sky blue, amazing aqua, sunshine yellow, outrageous orange, just to name a few of the “scoops of sorbet”! Someday I’ll own my very own but for now, these vrooming Vespas completely fill my heart. Children LOVE creating things that are cute, crafty, creative, connected, contoured, centered on cardboard, all with a clever catch! This project took a splash into artsy architecture, a love lock tradition on-trend, and added a speedy story to showcase. Then there was the venturing vole (you could create any creature or even a humanized character) making a vrooming Valentine’s Day special delivery by Vespa!
YES!!! Our SUMMER ART CAMPS just opened for early enrollment! We also have our last SCHOOL YEAR ART WORKSHOP coming up with just a few spaces ~ a TOUCAN’S TRIP TO TAHITI in TIE-DYE starting the week of April 13th! Take a feathery flight this spring and join us in the studio!
ONE Sketch a variety of Vespas using photos for reference. Select your favorite and get started on some exciting designing and color planning.
TWO Create the full body of your Vespa by sketching it out on light-weight cardboard. Cutout. Decide which components you’d like to pop out to create added dimension. Most of our artists popped their fenders, seats, racks, lights, and more! Smaller pieces take on more “pop” with traditional cardboard. We had an easy to cut, yet “thick cardboard” to create “spacers” between pieces to pop-out even more dimension. These pieces were simply glued between.
THREE Glue parts and pieces in place using white glue or a “cool temp” hot glue. Foil was a very moldable material for added detail but it needed to be hot glued. Some artists covered their foil with paper-mâché, while others used foil as a metal accent and left it artfully exposed.
Waa-laa! Here you have a finished Vespa ready for a Venice venture. Did you know Vespa is an Italian brand of scooter? The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946, to a full line of scooters. To think it all started in Italy.
FOUR Paper-mâché is optional. Our older artists had time to add a light layer of paper-mâché. Paper-mâché creates strength and unifies but it’s an optional step if you don’t have enough time, especially since the finished Vespa will be connected to another element for added strength.
Most artists love adding a little paper-mâché to their life! Extra small pieces of newsprint enabled the contours to still show the dimension and detail. If you do mâché your Vespa, fully dry before moving onto paint.
FIVE Paint your Vespa one solid color. Dry. Then move into smaller detail painting until your heart’s content.
SIX Embellish using specialty papers, sticky foams, foil, pom poms, and more. Secure in place with glue.
SEVEN Working on heavy-weight watercolor paper, sketch out a humanized creature with a whole lot of character to drive your Vespa (possibly a vole, pig, hedgehog, or maybe even a panda) and sketch out a stack of packages for your Vespa to transport! Define with permenent marker. Paint using watercolors or additional supplies at hand. Artists love adding watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons for artful accents. Dry pieces and cutout. Add thick cardboard pieces to the backs to pop out pieces before adding to the background element coming up next!
DRAWING + PAINTING A VENETIAN CITYSCAPE
Take a splash into creating a Venetian cityscape for your Vespa!
ONE Working on 18 x 24″ heavy-weight watercolor paper, we created a simple stencil for the center bridge placement to give young artists a starting point which had the curve line bottom, top line, and both side-lines, similar to the image above but less detailed. From this point, artists individualized their bridges by incorporating additional curves, lines, and details. The bridge, above the canal waterway, was then painted using a warm “golden pallet” of warm liquid watercolors.
TWO Create buildings using vertical lines with a ruler or yardstick. It seemed best to have 6 – 7 buildings. We discussed how building further away will appear smaller. We also discussed how the buildings were in the distance and how they could appear more “washed or sketch-like or loose” as this wasn’t the most important detail to this piece. Buildings were painted using a wash of warm watercolors.
THREE Move into painting the waterway, aka the canal, using cool watercolors for a colorful contast. We used a combination of traditional pallet watercolors and liquid watercolors. Travel up to painting your sky using cool colors which may entail clouds. Explore a variety of wet on wet techniques and washes. Dry.
FOUR Use a pencil to create the horizontal “3 – 4 levels or stories” on each building and add windows. Look at windows on old Venetian buildings and how they’re different than windows on skyscrapers of today. Compare architecture of today to historic architecture in Venice.
A bird’s eye view of painted pieces just before windows were added.
FIVE Use a black permanent marker to finalize windows and additional details. Most artists colored their windows in black to create a pop of color and contrast.
Love the additional waterlines-n-waves + bridge detail this artist added to her piece to personalize using a permanent marker!
SIX Assemble your entire piece and glue down all the clever + creative + crafty components which include a Vespa, creature aka driver, and packages all on top of your bridge above the lovely canal in Venice. Learn about the love lock tradition and add a mini metal lock to the bridge and toss keys into the canal to celebrate the completion of your colorful creation!
Take an upclose peek at all the clever additions on this piece.
Celebrate childhood + creativity + coming together as a community before taking a trip to Venice inspired by your very own clever creation!
Absolutely love this precious piece that was created by one of our youngest artists and immediately framed by her lovely mama in a sweet shadowbox for showcase, sweetness, and safekeeping!
This is my current scooter of travel, but you’ll be the first to know if I take the leap to get my very own Vespa for vrooming & venturing the downtown streets of our little mountain town of Carbondale, Colorado!
Tag us on Instagram with your creations. We’d absolutely LOVE to see them! As always, thank you for following our artful adventure on Main Street in the heART of the Carbondale Creative District! Send us a note anytime! We’d love to hear what you’re thinking, dreaming, envisioning, and of course, our favorite ~ CREATING!
Much love and happiness creating in this creative + colorful world filled with collaboration + connection + community + arts & crafting! Happy Springtime from our studio!
Thrilled to introduce you to Gina Vide ofWillowday! Gina is an amazing (…and oh SO talented) artist living in Sweden, between the sea and the city! She’s flower-inspired, a maker of miracles + magic + moments, with an ornate eye for “delightful detail in the delicate” captured through design and illustration! Her style is whimsical + wondrous, and completely full of woo + wow + wonder! She loves creating + crafting with children and exploring a creative + colorful childhood. So honored to have Gina’s ABC Flower Safari and Fir Fox + 24 Flower Friends travel to our studio for a little collaboration! Literally, they came by airplane into Aspen, for First Friday ~ September, to celebrate our One Year Anniversary, in our NEW location on Main Street! TODAY, Gina launches her ABC Flower Safari Art Prints! Next month she’ll launch her NEW book ~ ABC Flower Safari! The timing is just perfect to celebrate a sneak peek of her creations through a hands-on artmaking experience inspired by the artist herself! Enjoy peeking into Gina’s amusing animal alphabet as a little tasty treat this Thursday! Enjoy the joyous journey!
Our First Friday artmaking event ran from 6 – 8 PM. Early birds anxiously waited outside the studio, with faces and hands pressed to the glass! Happy faces were peeking in and excited to get creating with Gina’s ABC Flower Safari! Yes, a true artful adventure for all ages!
Gina Vide creates magic with her whimsical creatures made from paper, paint, cardboard, and flowers. Here you can see “Fir Fox” and a few of his furry friends as they take off by airplane from Sweden to visit the Rocky Mountains, landing in Aspen | CO, just before we picked them up for the ABC Flower Safari Exhibit!
Every letter of ABC Flower Safari is inspired by an animal and a coordinating flower. Meet “Fir Fox” pictured above. Can you even believe Gina created a full alphabet connecting an animal to a flower? We have her ABC Flower Safari Art Print in the studio and we’re happy to announce these original prints are now available in her Art Print Shop! You can also read more about our collaboration on Willowday!
A favorite photo of a little artist completely inspired by Gina’s “Fir Fox”! Children used cardboard, paper, paint, and flowers to create their very own Willowday inspiredmasterpiece on First Friday! Gina’s imagination runs wild, can’t even think about how whimsical her NEW book ~ ABC Flower Safari will be! Love this must-see, “Fir Fox” Adventures | No 4 | ~ “Once upon a Friday, Fox read a fairytale in the fern fort.” #willowdayfoxtales
Gina’s “F is a Fir Fox” is part of a series she developed to spark imagination in kids and the world around them, using flowers, paper, cardboard, and animals. You can use #willowdayproject to share some of your very own creations part of #willowdayflowersafari on Instagram!
Gina started this series with kids in mind. It grew from her long interest in children, teaching, nature, play, and parenting with a fun crossover to illustration. She loves the simplicity of elements and imagination found in nature walks with children that evoke a story.
We met several years ago on Instagram (@willowdaygram + @handmakery) and became part of the Rockin’ Art Moms. Over the years we’ve kept in touch and have formed a friendship afar…someday we’ll meet! Gina started a summer series, Friday Flowers for Kids, on Instagram. She was able to complete her delicate + detailed series by September as the perfect highlight to welcome fall and First Friday! It all came together and the gallery wall went up with ~ ABC Flower Safari handcrafted by Gina Vide!
A favorite letter is Gina’s “Lilac Llama”! We weren’t able to get ahold of lilacs this late in the season but how this artist so lovely improvised! Discover Gina’s 3D Lilac Llama with template to make your very own.
The studio was alive and in full bloom as children of all ages shuffled through the studio (sneak peek) with their families. Picking flowers, painting cardboard, cutting and gluing paper, assembling parts and arranging pieces.
Look at this delightful dog inspired by Gina’s letter D “Daisy Dog” created by a nine-year-old, aka my daughter!
A most mastered “Hydrangea Hedgehog” inspired by Gina Vide’s letter H!
Love how this family formed a team of makers.
This sweet-sisterly duo spent the evening inspired, emulating Gina’s letter P “Peony Pig” for a priceless + pink + pair of pigs on parade!
This family “art affair” definitely brought community, closeness, collaboration, creativity, color, and craft to a complete circle!
A couple of happy zookeepers in the studio of safari!
Another F is for “Fir Fox” mastered by this maker!
Meet E is for “Eucalyptus Elephant” definitely a most favorite in the ABC Flower Safari collection!
This artist must have known she’d need to wear red to compliment, and really make her gorgeous green elephant pop in this priceless photo with a little P-O-W-!!! and polka dots!
Many artists were intrigued and inspired to create their own creations and unique combinations! Love this delightful D for dolphin!
With our logo being the owl, couldn’t conclude without adding Gina’s letter O is an “Oxypetalum Owl” handpainted in one of our most favorite tints of turquoise!
Love how this mini maker matches her eyes to her owl’s eyes in a wide-eyed expression! Hooo!
Next month Gina Vide will be launching her NEW book ~ ABC Flower Safari! We look forward to celebrating with her! Be sure you’re on Gina’s Willowday Mailing List! Excited to announce HANDMAKERY will be highlighting a very special “fox celebration” inspired by Gina’s “Fir Fox” which is perfect as we welcome fall, the changing seasons, and Gina’s NEW book!
In the studio, Gina also creates the most beautiful pieces using petals, leaves, and other items collected from nature during her walks in nature! Definitely pop into her Art Print Shop and say hello! Thank you Gina Vide for bringing your inspiration all the way from Sweden! So LOVE all you do!
Tag us @handmakery with your creations on Instagram! Follow our BLOG for more inspiring process-based art projects! As always, thank you for following along on this artful adventure in beautiful Carbondale | CO at 449 Main Street! Send us a note anytime! We’d love to hear what you’re thinking! Much love and happiness creating in this creative + colorful world full of collaboration + community!
Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. – Pablo Picasso
ANNOUNCING FALL ART WORKSHOPS!
Workshops + Classes + Events start September 4th, 2018!
PENCIL IN & JOIN US:
DATE: September 7th | First Friday 6 – 8 PM
EVENT: HANDMAKERY’S 1st Year in NEW Location Celebration + First Friday + FREE Art Making to Connect with Exhibit + Open Studio + Gallery Exhibit!
EXHIBIT: Swedish afar artist, Gina Vide of Willowday, and her creations for upcoming book ~ ABC Flower Safari! Gina’s work will incorporate playful + whimsical animals, flowers, paint, illustration, and typography all captured through photography! All ages will love this beautiful + delicate + detailed exhibit! Read more about Gina Vide!
LOCATION: HANDMAKERY located at 449 Main Street in beautiful + historic downtown Carbondale | CO at the heART of the Carbondale Creative District!
Keep checking HANDMAKERY.COM as additional programming will continue to be added throughout the year! Programming will include: children’s weekly art workshops for expanded ages, arts + craft evenings for children/adults/ladies/couples + family, holiday art making, art camps, open studio, one-of-a-kind birthday parties + special celebrations + customized events, specialty summer workshops, special guests + speakers, pop up events, and more! What would you like to see offered? We’ll let you in on a secret… our first Ladies Art Night is coming soon! Take a VIRTUAL VIDEO TOUR of our studio!
A PEEK INSIDE THE STUDIO:
Featuring ~ Children’s Art Workshops, Mini Maker Mornings, Birthday Parties, Adult Arts & Crafts Nights, and First Fridays & Pop Up Events! Take a peek, below!
CHILDREN’S ART WORKSHOPS…
MINI MAKER MORNINGS…
BIRTHDAY PARTIES FOR ALL AGES…
So far, thirty, one-of-a-kind parties have been hosted in our studio in our first year on Main Street! Get your special event on our events calendar! No date is too early to pencil in! Send us an email hello@handmakery.com and let us know what you’re dreaming!
ADULT ARTS & CRAFTS NIGHTS…
Our first ~ Ladies Art Night is coming soon! Create a personalized account or contact us to get on the wishlist!
FIRST FRIDAYS & POP UP EVENTS…
We hope to see you at September’s First Friday on Main Street and in the art studio soon! It’s truly such a wonderful way to discover your community and connect! Tag us @handmakery with your creations on Instagram! Follow our blog for more inspiring process-based art projects! As always, thank you for following along the artful adventure in beautiful downtown Carbondale | CO at 449 Main Street! Send us a note anytime at hello@handmakery.com to let us know what you’re thinking and dreaming! We’d love to hear your ideas! Much love and happiness creating! xo Ami
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