Making wings for my sculpture, the firefly!

This is a sculpture that I've been working on for a while now, probably for over a year, since the body had to be build twice, and so on... You see, I wanted to make it out of porcelain, very thin, so if I put a light inside it would show through, but my first attempt came out too thick.

As you probably already know, my sculptures are all round, so to make this shape using just a very thin layer of clay is definitely a challenge. So I did a second one, much thinner, but this time I was not taking any chances, and made little tiny holes just in case I want to put lights inside!! I feel that if I go thinner with the clay it would just be too fragile for transportation.

The head and the pair of wings I made out of regular stoneware and applied an oxide on them. Oh, wait! The winds I made them twice, as well. The thing is that my first pair of wings were laid flat in the kiln so they flattened. The second pair came out just perfect... but I think they are too fragile for transportation. Yes, I have to always think about transportation when I make my sculptures, otherwise they won't make it to their destinations.

Therefore, after giving it a lot of thought I came up with the idea of making them out of copper. It's the perfect color and it would add some light to my firefly, don't you think?

I started by tracing my wings into the copper, using my stoneware wings as pattern.

Then, I cut the copper sheet... oh, how I wish I would have worn globes! ...and filed the borders all around, to get rid of sharp edges.

Ready  for some action?

It's time to apply heat to my new copper wings in order to shape them. I've never worked with a torch before, but I take my Mixed Media title very seriously, so here it goes!!!

...and my wings are done!

Thanks to my friend Lilian who stopped by to guide me through...

Finish sculpture coming soon!!!

I've been tagged! In Memory of Grace Lee Korbel

Dear Friends,

When I first started blogging I had the pleasure to meet a wonderful artist and an amazing human being, Grace Lee Korbel. She was the first cyber friend I made through blogging and she was always encouraging me through her comments to my posts.

Once, she tagged me, and at that time I didn't have much time to understand what this tagging was all about... I new very little of the blogging world. Well, I just found out Grace Lee had passed away last year...  I knew her health was not great, though every time she felt well she went back to creating wonderful art. So, to honor her creative life I'm passing along her tag for it to continue bringing bloggers together, and please, take a look at Grace Lee's legacy by visiting her blog at http://korbelfinearts.blogspot.com/  and her Flickr gallery at http://www.flickr.com/photos/grace_lee_korbel/

Here are the Rules of this game:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write 6 (or more) random things about yourself.
4. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

But you also have to write something about yourself, something most people think they don’t know about you. If you don’t want to expose your darkest sides – show only the sunny side of yourself, maybe they’ll never find out the other stuff.

Six random things about me:
1. I've been married for the past 22 years and we have three wonderful children.
2. We had a Golden Retriever who passed away last summer and we missed him a lot. We now have 4 Teddy Bear hamsters, mommy and 3 of her babies, one of which is special needs. They were born Dec 30th, 2009 and we love them all!
3. I enjoy working along with friend/artists, sharing our experiences and building friendships.
4. I also enjoy looking at other artists' works, visiting galleries and museums, whenever I can.
5. I am currently working on getting better with the social media.
6. My dear husband is building me a new and improved studio where I'll be able to create and showcase my artworks. Can't hardly wait!!!

Here are the people and blogs I am tagging:

Sikiu Perez http://www.sikiublog.com/
Jan Blencowe  http://www.thepaintingadayproject.com/
Aaron Caycedo-Kimura  http://aaroncaycedokimura.wordpress.com/
Melody Lamb hhttp://melodylamb.blogspot.com/
Lori McNee  http://www.finearttips.com/

Mixed Media Artworks in a little coffee table book...

I'm so excited to share with you a book I have published. It contains a compilation of images of my mixed media artworks and it makes for a nice coffee table book. I hope you enjoy browsing through its pages and would like to take it home...just click here:

MIXED MEDIA ARTWORKS by Corina S. Alvarezdelugo

...and leave your comments, Thanks!

Interview and more... Awareness!

<< PLEASE, VISIT MY NEW BLOG DEDICATED SOLELY TO THIS ISSUE >> 

Ann Nyberg,  a Connecticut TV anchor and a beautiful person, came to my home/studio last week to interview me for her fresh and uplifting blog, Annie Mame.com. She had read my last blog entry about my desire to donate my sculpture "Awareness" (read more here), and she wanted to write about it in her blog.

Ann's blog is dedicated to showcase all the extraordinary people and places in our beautiful nutmeg state of Connecticut. So, it was an honor for me to be interviewed by her, and much more... it helps me to spread my message further to find the right foundation to donate "Awareness" to. Here is a link to her blog post:

Art and Philanthropy, It’s a Beautiful Thing.

art, dense breast tissue and breast cancer

<< PLEASE, VISIT MY NEW BLOG DEDICATED SOLELY TO THIS ISSUE >>

My dear readers, I've made a sculpture with the idea not only to raise awareness about breast cancer - women cancer - but also to give it away, to donate it to a foundation that researches for a cure to breast cancer or women cancer.

So, after having it shown in several venues around Connecticut and in NYC, and viewed internationally through web-based galleries, it's time for me to part from it, and for this I NEED YOUR HELP.

I've tried to find the right foundation but there are so many out there that it's hard to choose from... I do know, however, that many, many women, like me, have dense breast tissue which makes it harder for mammograms to detect abnormalities in the breast. You see, dense areas in the breast show up as white in the mammograms, as well as tumors that also show up as white. To make it even worse for us, in a recent study they have found that the cells that make up dense breast tissue may be a more fertile ground for cancer cells to grow in. The studies even suggested that the cancer cells found in women with dense breast tissue tend to be more aggressive that in women with normal breast tissue.

Therefore, since women with dense breast tissue seem to be more likely to get breast cancer and it's harder to be detected early, I would like to donate my sculpture AWARENESS to a foundation researching for a better way to diagnose and prevent Breast Cancer in women with Dense Breast Tissue. So, if you know of a foundation that would benefit on using my work as a fundraiser for their research efforts, as well as to serve as a reminder that we all women need to be aware of the risks and that we need to take prevention into our hands, please let me know. I would really appreciate it.

AWARENESS
stoneware on cedar wood
10"h x 8"w x 8"d
Best in Sculpture at the Manhattan Arts International HerStory online Competition, NYC, 2009
(c) Corina S. Alvarezdelugo

Using the image of this sculpture I have made pocket mirrors that I sell through my Etsy store. 50% of the profits from the sales of this little mirrors will be also donated to the same foundation. So please HELP me find the right one to give it to!!

NOTE: Since the best medicine is prevention, please women out there do your monthly breast self-exam and have your mammogram done once a year, at least until we know of something better.

V is for...Happy Valentine's Day!

I made this little mixed media collage in the name of LOVE...hence it's name, AMORE!

Once again, I looked into my bag of treasures and found these very old pieces of photographs that depicted red roses on them. They were scraps from a photo class I took while in college; just bad prints that my friend didn't want and she was so nice as to let me keep them. So, this roses where just right as focal point for this piece.

I glued the ripped photographs into a piece of watercolor paper measuring 8.5"h x 10.5"w. I added pieces of hand-made paper and a ripped piece from a pastel drawing. I also added a few pieces of paper here and there from different sources, to add a complementary color and texture. To finish my piece I wrote the word AMORE on silk paper, using India ink in a golden yellow and in red. Then, I ripped the borders by hand and glued the words down around my piece, in a way that you can't read the whole word at once.... Like love, it needs a little effort from both sides to be complete! Enjoy!

 

Amore

mixed media collage

8.5"h x 10.5"w

(c) Corina S. Alvarezdelugo

This piece, as well as cards made out of prints from this artwork are for sale at my Etsy Store

V is for Victory!

I had to house-sit for friends the other day. They needed someone to be there to receive some furniture they had bought and I really wanted to work on my art. So, I went there armed with my bag of treasures (it's a bag I have been filling up with things I find with "possibilities"...) and two pieces of wood, measuring 20" x 8" each.

When I got there, to my friends' house, I extended all my "treasures" on their kitchen table and started assembling two collages with the scraps I was finding in my bag. One of them I really liked, so I began gluing the pieces together.

I started by layering a piece of a material I found when workers were taking down the siding in my house. It's like thin brown paper in the back and has a very fine layer of something that looks like aluminum paper, and it probably is! So, as you can imagine it has a vintage feeling to it, besides the texture that it adds to my work...Loved it!

I also found in my bag a tag with four numbers that looked like the ones runners use at marathons... so there was my theme for this piece!

I had ripped pieces from a pastel drawing that I placed here and there to add some needed color. I then drew, with graphite, hands raised up as celebrating the victory of my runner and then glued over a transferred image of hands to add more dimension. Stamped irregular lines here and there with a green mixture of acrylic paint...and the furniture arrived, it was now time to get back home...

NOTE: When making a collage, it's very important to put in layers of materials as you work your way around your piece, this way you'll add depth to your work. It will give it dimension, to an otherwise flat surface.

At home, I felt it still needed something else... so I printed on vellum the outlined image of a runner, and glued it down...VOILA! my piece is done! here is the finished result... Enjoy!

Victory

mixed media collage

20" x 8"

(c) 2010 Corina S. Alvarezdelugo

My little token in appreciation to all those runners out there!!! Keep on running!!!