I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great-grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific, Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then, going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Bluetooth phone [it's red] I am supposed to use when I drive.
I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.
The GPS looked pretty smart on my dashboard, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-la-ting". You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.
When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and, while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 5 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose 3 phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.
I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, "No, but I do toot a lot."
Then I thought about the business I ran for 30 years with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos and pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter. *sigh*
This Hibiscus tutorial shows you how to make a Hibiscus flower with Hearty Clay. Many other brands of air-dry clay would work, as well as cold porcelain. A set of flower-shaping tools are recommended to make this flower but you might be able to substitute tools you already have.
This flower is a bit challenging to make and is probably not a good choice for your first clay flower! ;-)
Cold porcelain is a great air-dry clay that is very strong and durable when dry. Great for making flowers and small to large sculptures. You can create your own cold porcelain paste at home from simple ingredients. Here we have a clear, instructional video demonstration by our Yahoo Group member, Sangeeta, showing her easy microwave recipe (with the help of her son, the young, but talented producer, director and host of the video).
There are many recipes for making cold porcelain paste being adapted according to the project to be made. This is just one of the recipes and relatively easy to accomplish. Happens to be my favorite!!
The stunningly detailed sculpture shown above and in the video below may only be made from paper - but they are being snapped up by art fans for equally stunning prices!
Husband and wife team Allen and Patty Eckman create clay molds and then put a specially formulated paper pulp into their molds and pressurize it to remove the water. Allen explained their technique: "It should not be confused with papier mache. The two mediums are completely different. I call what we do 'cast paper sculpture'."
The pieces depict traditional scenes from Native American history along with some wildlife vignettes and commissioned subjects. The artists write: ..."Some of them we create are lifesize and some we scale down to 1/6 lifesize" ... sometimes taking up to 11 months to make each piece.
In 1987 Allen Eckman stumbled onto cast paper as a fine art medium and instantly recognized the beauty and possibilities for creating high detail, strong, acid free, pure, fine art sculpture. It took the Eckmans many years to unlock the secrets to the medium. Discoveries included paper formulation, equipment and tool innovations and their unique paper processing methods. You cannot get where Patty and Allen Eckman are by pulping cotton linters in your kitchen blender.
However!....if you're interested in trying this exciting new technique, you'll be glad to know you can purchase a booklet from Eckman Fine Art where you can see an overview of exactly how the artists create their work at a master level or buy one of their DIY kits "Patty's Flowers".
Patty's Flowers are a series of beginning level products for creating beautiful life-size fine art cast paper sculpted flowers taught in the Eckman Method® program. They are the first level introduction to the Eckman Method. Read more about these products at Eckman Fine Art.
Also in development is the complete Eckman Method® Program in a dowloadable format. The process taught through the Eckman Method® includes working with museum quality hand made Eckman paper and bonding agents, using casts from Eckman paper pulp, then altering and transforming them into finished works of art using Eckman techniques such as forms, templates, other casts and freehand sculpting with various hand made paper products and tools manufactured by Eckman Fine Art.
