Up Up and Away!

After our success with creating a collaborative work of art AND actually donating it to a local hospital,  Park Avenue Artisans Collective is starting a new project. Due to the exposure from our first project, we actually attracted some new artist members!! We have doubled our group (to 8!) and we may be gaining more! If you are an artist in the Montgomery-Bucks Co area and would like to know more (or join us!), feel free to contact me.

Our next collaborative piece is a long way from being finished (we have coated the board with gesso), but we are finished the planning phase. Our subject matter this time around will be hot air balloons. We will collaborate as a group on the background, and then each artist will make a balloon (or 2 or 3) to mount on the background. Each balloon will be unique, one of a kind, and hand made by each artist, in the medium they choose. At our last meeting, several members already had completed their balloons! Wow!  They are really motivated, and they motivated me! So, I got my rear in gear and made my balloon. I may make an alternate one later, but for now, this is my balloon...


My wire balloon and sketch

Before making the wire balloon, I sketched it and cut it out, to use as a template. It is 3 inches high, from the top of the balloon to the bottom of the basket.

It's made of copper wire. I created the frame from 14g wire and then wove and wrapped 28g wire in and around the frame. I wove the "basket"  in 20g gunmetal wire, to be a slightly different color. I attached it with little bits of dark brass chain. It's slightly dimensional - the center frame wire is bowed upward, to give it a slight 3-D look. As I said, I might make an alternate balloon between now and the end of summer, with some colorful beads or enamel, but I kind of like the lack of color in my "all wire" balloon.

Hopefully it will be "uplifting" without any colorful beads.

 

I am already thinking of hot air balloon inspired jewelry to make, for when we display the finished piece in public (hopefully fall 2015 at the library). Stay tuned!