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!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! We’re onto 2019, hip hip hurray! Excited to share with you our latest workshop ~ You + Me + a Teepee ~ Alpaca My Bags ~ DIY Artful Adventure a project dreamed up in the studio and created with children, ages 5 – 13, over an 8-week session! The best part of this project you ask? It’s multi-layered, dimensional, full of exploration + experience, completely artful + action-packed, personalized, and even A-G-L-O-W to light up a stargazing night! Take a peek!
Early online enrollment is highly encouraged as seating is limited! Start a new year making + creating + connecting in a colorful community focused on a creative + collaborative childhood!
A proud + confident artist feeling aglow and over the moon with a stargazing smile!
Mini-exhibits were truly aglow. It was our first show with gallery mood lighting, definitely the best ambiance of the year! Artists were anxious and animated to show off their colorful creations to family and friends.
On a little side note: Be sure to find us all around the Roaring Fork Valley in The Scout Guide Aspen, Volume 6! A beautiful + NEW publication just launched! THANK YOU for featuring HANDMAKERY in ~ Ones To Watch Aspen, via Amy Groom & Erin Jones | Owners/Editors of The Scout Guide Aspen! Pick up your very own copy of this beautiful guide in our art studio, around the Roaring Fork Valley, or even read online!
SUPPLIES FOR ~ You + Me + a Teepee Alpaca My Bags DIY Artful Adventure:
Pencil + eraser
Canvas- stretched/framed
Watercolor pallet
Liquid watercolors + brush + sponge + water container
Papier-mâché + white light-weight paper + plastic cloth
Tealight candle (battery/non-flame)
Heavy-weight watercolor paper
Fine-point permanent marker
Gel pens- shimmer, metallic, brights
Faux alpaca fur
Googly eye
Peel + stick glitter foam sheets
Hot glue (adult use)
Embellishments- pom-poms, pom-pom ribbon, felt, tissue circle confetti, and more!
PROCESS FOR ~ You + Me + a Teepee Alpaca My Bags DIY Artful Adventure:
ONE Begin with a galaxy sky on a stretched framed canvas. Focus on using cool colors to stain the bright white canvas. Work light to dark. Experiment with staining, dripping, splattering, movement, and layering techniques using a paintbrush, a watercolor pallet, liquid watercolors, and even build up to adding a tempera paint layer. Use salt for additional experimentation and effects. Dry. Relayer to go darker. Eventually, even incorporate some black. Dry. Splatter using metallic liquid watercolor and dip a tiny wooden stick with white tempera to stamp for distant stars in the galaxy sky.
TWO Fully dry canvas. Draw mountains using a pencil in the lower half. Paint in mountains using India ink. Dry. Embellish sky with glitter, metallic confetti flakes, metallic circles and stars, metallic sticker stars, and even tiny snowflakes. Attach using gluestick and/or white school glue. Use matt Modge Podge to lightly seal embellishments with a 1″ utility brush.
THREE Draw and cut a small + simple paper silhouette which will become the “you + me” of this piece. The silhouettes may include people, animals, trees, or even the combination. Attach silhouette and seal with Modge Podge.
FOUR Use wooden skewers to form a simple teepee frame with a flat back. Assemble using masking tape and partners.
A peek at teepee armatures ready for a doorway and then a single layer of papier-mâché.
FIVE Move onto adding a doorway that is front-facing with a horizontal crossbar and two lower sticks running verticle made out of tiny wooden dowels. The doorway is a great addition to personalize the teepee but be sure it’s large enough for a battery tealight candle to be placed inside. Doorways can be triangular, square, or even arched!
SIX Papier-mâché the teepee armature using light-weight paper similar to copy or butcher paper, so the finished teepee will glow when the tealight candle is inside.
Dry teepee overnight.
A completed teepee just before being embellished. Add a tealight candle for a lovely nighttime glow.
SEVEN Sketch out bags for travel on watercolor paper. Did you get the workshop title? Alpaca my bags… I’ll pack my bags! Gear for travel may include suitcases, stuffies, plants, firewood, gifts, coolers, and more! Once sketched, outline with a fine point permanent marker and color using sparkle gel pens. Carefully cut out.
EIGHT The much-loved alpaca is smaller than a llama. Simply sketch and cut an alpaca from faux alpaca fur. The alpaca is best drawn from a side-view and embellished with a bag using fabric felt, pom-poms, and any other exciting decor. The fabric alpaca can be attached to the canvas using white school glue or hot glue.
NINE Attach the teepee to the canvas using hot glue or Gorilla Glue (adult use). Dry. Artists can then embellish their attached teepees using glitter sticky foam pieces, pom-poms, pom-pom ribbon, large tissue paper confetti circles, felt, yarn tassels, and more! Repeat a design around the three sides of the teepee sculpture to create a little radial symmetry.
An alpaca artist at our mini-exhibit! Love at “furry” sight!
“Oh là là”… the nighttime glow just before the mini-exhibit + recognition ceremony. All lights were on deck.
Probably one of our favorite exhibits with an amber glow and all-round ambiance into the night.
Galaxy skies aglow…
… a night to celebrate and remember!
THANK YOU to everyone for joining us in the studio for an artful evening to celebrate!
Tag us @handmakery with your creations on Instagram! Follow our blog for more inspiring process-based art projects! As always, thank you for following this artful adventure! Send us a note anytime! We’d love to hear what you’re thinking and dreaming! Much love and happiness creating in this creative + colorful world full of collaboration + connection + community + arts & crafting! Happy New Year!
The art studio was filled with mini maker exhibits and recognition ceremonies as ALL six-week workshops wrapped up last week! We celebrated our fifth exhibit, an end of the week highlight, hosting a FIRST FRIDAY “kid at heART exhibit” showcasing my 88-year-old grandfather, Bob Fadely aka Papa Bob, and his very first art exhibit ~ COLORING IN COLORFUL COLORADO! Megan Tackett, an incredibly talented and enthusiastic writer, captured my grandfather in both a delightful article in The Sopris Sun and live interview on KDNK! After it was all said and done, my most genuine Grandfather shared with me, “Last week was one of the BEST weeks of my life!” “Art (without a doubt) washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso
As springtime unfolds the outdoors become artfully alive! Dragonflies always mesmerize with their stealthy speed, shimmery color, intricate detail, and pattern on point. They lead us to our favorite outdoor places and spaces, including rivers, ponds, and lakes. Spring into a simple process upcycling household goods to create a bountiful + beautiful ~ DIY Delightful Dragonfly dreamed up in the HANDMAKERY art studio! Simply take a peek!
First Friday was our ~ Opening Night Celebration at our NEW art studio location at 449 Main Street in downtown Carbondale | CO! With a wide array of ages and not knowing exactly how many guests we’d have joining in, we kept it celebratory + simple + full of dazzle, painting and embellishing ~ Celebration Crowns! Main Street was blocked so everyone could enjoy an evening strolling the streets of historic downtown! The night was festive and full of flavor, with everyone back-in-town from summer adventures. The community was alive, vibrant, and actively adventuring around this artistic town!
We hope you’re enjoying the last days of summer! Have you heard the news!?! HANDMAKERY just moved to Main Street! We’ve been working all summer to get our new studio up, running, and ready for HANDMAKERY’SOpening Night Celebration ~ First Friday, September! We’re so excited to be located in downtown Carbondale | CO! We’ll now be located in the heart of historic downtown at 449 Main Street, in between flowers, yoga, coffee and across from piping hot pizza, sounds tempting, right!?! Yes, we definately have the BEST neighbors! We’re incredibly excited to be part of the community and the Carbondale Creative District!
Summer involved planning, designing, constructing, ordering, organizing, and decorating our new studio which we LOVED! Highlights of our new space include: being nestled in the heart of the community, 14′ ceilings, timeless wood floors, historic charm, a crisp + clean + modern flair, natural lighting + big windows, all our favorite art supplies, and maybe our favorite element… a teeny-tiny restroom!
PLEASE PENCIL IN + JOIN US:
September 1st | First Friday 4 – 8 PM
HANDMAKERY’S Opening Night Celebration + First Friday ~ FREE Art Making + Suprise Giveaways + Studio Tour!
STUDIO SNEAK PEEK EVENT:
We hosted a ~ Studio Sneak Peek + Free Kids Art Making last Thursday from 4-6 PM! Several families + creatives came to tour the NEW studio and out-on-the-town to create ~ a wondrous wearable~ to shine + showcase + sport + spotlight around town on ~ First Friday, September 1st! We had 100+ people attend this spectacular evening event! A HUGE thank you to everyone that attended our first event! The support for mini makers on Main (…and coming soon BIG maker events….including adults, ladies, couples, family + friends) was incredible! See additional photos of the sneak peek in this week’s Sopris Sun newspaper on page 8!
Take a peek at our video-clip gone-wild over on Instagram, highlighting all the artful activity of our ~ Studio Sneak Peek!
At the ~ Studio Sneak Peek, artists created {hands on + mixed media} Owl Feathered Necklaces using cardboard, beads, jumbo pipe cleaners, markers, glue, stickers, string, sparkles and more! Everyone had a great time in the studio! Over the last several years over on Instagram, I’ve admired Wendee Wingfield, a local + Roaring Fork Valley photographer. Wendee RSVPed to our event, I couldn’t even believe it! We had never met before but when she walked in with her five children, I was beyond thrilled to finally meet Wendee and her children in person! Wendee Wingfield generously sent me a gorgeous collection of photos she took of the ~ Owl Feathered Necklaces her children created in our NEW art studio on Main Street. If you’re not on IG yet, it’s a fantastic place to meet new friends with similar interests! Find us on IG @handmakery!
Take a glimpse at Wendee’s Wingfield’s photos below and discover her amazing talent + beautiful collection over on IG @wendeewingfield! You’ll be amazed at what she sees through her lens and the life she creates!
Join us! Today we’re celebrating my dear friend, Barbara Rucci of Art Bar Blog, and her #1 New Release, Art Workshop for Children: How to Foster Original Thinking with more than 25 Process Art Experiences!Beyond excited to highlight two inspired projects from this book that we themed under an Art Bar Dessert Party: Cakes + Doughnuts with young artists in our own studio!Here’s a creative clip to give you an idea, just how beautiful Bar’s new book is for creating a creative childhood. To get the inside scoop, juicy details, chance to meet the maker and all her magic, dive in here!
Barbara invited me to join her book blog tour that will feature 26+ amazing kid + art bloggers. Over the summer I had the honor to preview and endorse Bar’s new book, Art Workshop for Children. I was on a three day camping trip, and basically couldn’t put this incredible book down. After returning, completely inspired, I preordered it on Amazon and spent all fall anxiously awaiting its arrival! When my book arrived on October 15, it felt amazing to finally have it in my hands. It’s truly a gem that will shine in our studio for years to come. Beyond amazed at all the 25+ creative workshops, simple in both setup and supplies! Bar basically delivers a rich, open-ended, studio experience, keyed into unleashing a child’s creativity. Bar unfolds an easy to follow, beautifully visual layout, that guides one towards expressive exploration and artistic discovery in a studio, classroom, or home.
Happy Summertime! Hope you’re enjoying some much deserved outdoor time with family and friends venturing in the GREAT outdoors! We’re definitely soaking up and savoring summer and heading into the mountains for camping getaways! Excited to share with you these outdoor + camping + canvas + landscape paintings created in our recent children’s workshop, SPRING IS IN THE AiRTIST! This mixed-media painting was inspired by one of our favorite wanderlust painters, Katie Daisy and her beautiful piece, Let’s Sleep Under the Stars! Take a peek at Katie’s inspiring paintings and our painting process with children! Thank you @katiedaisy for your painterly inspiration, adore your style, whimsical spirit, and passion for the outdoors!
We’re excited to showcase + share a few favorite photos of May’s First Friday + Family Block Party! Can’t believe this was our third First Friday + Family Block Party in our downtown + outdoor art studio! It was absolutely a beautiful night to be out-on-the-town among all the festivities in the open air! Here’s to springing forward as we leap into time spent creating in the warm outdoors and to long summery days handcrafting with children!
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