Archive for the tag 'pattern'

Awesome: papercraft Ceiling Cat

ceilingcat

Yes, I know now that this has been all over the web, but I only saw it today: Tubbypaws’s papercraft Ceiling Cat.

Purse frame bags

Purse frame bags

These two bags are theatre props I made yesterday. They still need some handles and some special things happening inside them, but I am pleased with how they are coming on. There is some relief, too, as I had intended to buy a couple of bags and modify them, but couldn’t find any that were right. I also had trouble finding the purse frames here in Canberra. I resent the fact that most craft shops here now just have scrapbooking supplies.

I hadn’t made bags like this before, but looked up patterns online, and I am indebted to u-handbag for her purse frame demystified tutorial. Isn’t the web great?

Million Puppet Project

It’s a bit crazy, even scary, to imagine a million puppets of all sorts in one place, but that’s the object of the Million Puppet Project which was launched yesterday (on World Puppetry Day) by Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in Western Australia. Under the project, people from around the world are invited to make and send a puppet to Perth, WA, to participate in a new Guinness World Record: The World’s Largest Puppet Display! This will be part of the UNIMA 2008 :: 20th UNIMA Congress and World Puppetry Festival, which is being held in the southern hemisphere for the first time.

If you need a jumpstart to make a puppet, there are various simple puppet design templates ready to dowload, or you can strike out on a design all your own. Let your imagination run free! Puppets will not be able to be returned to you, but they will be donated to charities afterwards. And when the display is being finalized in April 2008, you will be able to see the installation in progress via a web cam linked to the site.

Sand Circles

SandAnalogia has a lovely gallery of large scale sand circle patterns, made on the beaches of San Fransisco. The patterns are made by raking the sand , exposing the wetter, and therefore darker, sand underneath. Phidelity has other images of the same circles, and includes some designs to be considered for future circles. Glen Tregurtha in New Zealand is also a sand artist, and his gallery is here. I can understand liking the impermanence, seeing it washed away, rather like the Tibetan monks that spend days making intricate sand mandalas, and then brush it all up in minutes.

Japanese Manhole Cover Patterns

Manhole_1Frangipani has a gallery of some beautiful manhole covers in Japan. Some of them are very colourful.

Japanese Design Motifs

ButterflyMeggiecat is a constant source of interesting art-craft-image-related notes. Her link to Japanese Free Clip Art the other day provided this lovely swallowtail butterfly image, for instance.

The designs reminded me of a book called ‘Snow, Wave, Pine:Traditional patterns in Japanese Design’ by Motoji Niwa and Sadao Hibi, which I sometimes page through in the bookshop. Its a beautiful collection of photographs of classic decorative patterns on a wide variety of objects (for example robes, laquerware, swords and ceramics), and many drawings of family crests and stylized motifs.