Skulls

My husband, glass artist Jess Caudill, has become an expert on glass mosaics involving skulls.  Here is a collection of his work.

This is a piece Jess made for his friend Jason Kahler of Solera Brewery.  It is hanging behind the bar at Solera in Parkdale, Oregon.

This shows the work in progress.  Jess will use a recycled old window as his background.

This piece is hanging in Discover Bikes in Hood River, Oregon.  Can you find the bike chains and gears in this piece?

This skulls was commission for Nella Knives.  Jess was given some knife blades to incorporate in the piece.  Look closely in the flames and you will see the blades.

This is just a concept piece for Tallgrass Brewing.  Jess made 7 mosaics that are installed in their pub, Tallgrass Tap House, but this was made to show them an idea of what he could make.  No skulls ended up in the work at the pub, but this piece is amazing just the same.

This was made for a Dia de los Muertos show at The Remains in Hood River, Oregon.  Jess sliced Negro Modelo bottles in half to include in this piece.

This was Jess's first mosaic skull.  He always looks for a chance to include pieces other than glass in his work.

Although this is not a glass mosaic by Jess, this was a gift given to him for his birthday.   My dad, Bill Oyen, created this acrylic on wood sugar skull.

Art on Oak

There is a new artists cooperative shop in Hood River called Art on Oak.  This is a morph of Kids in the Hood (a shop where I used to sell my ReThink Crafts items) and the Hood River Holiday Pop-up Shop.  There are about 20 artists from the Columbia Gorge that sell their work there.  I am excited to have a space to sell my work.

Recycled VooDoo Donut Box notebooks

PDX carpet coasters

Oregon themed pillows and trivets

Reclaimed billboard and windsurf sail lunch bags

PDX carpet trivet

Recycled game board notebooks

Recycled Oil cloth and Windsurf sail boxed zipper pouches

 Reusable sandwich bags and wraps

Oregon Themed items

Did you notice that the carpet is recycled from the Portland airport?

More Mosaic at Chenowith Elementary

Chenowith Elementary School in The Dalles, Oregon has the goal of decorating the front of their school with mosaics.  I started this project with the school during the 2013-2014 school year.  The entire student body was involved in creating 6 mosaics.  They decided to continue making more mosaics the following school year.  I designed 12 more mosaics, but only 6 were finished by the end of the year.  Next year, the plan is to continue making them until eventually every other section below the front windows will have mosaic.

I spent a lot of time researching the history of the Columbia Gorge and The Dalles.  I decided to design the mosaics based on the local wildflowers, the fish in the Columbia Gorge, petroglyphs found in the area and the Oregon Trail. Here are the designs that will be made into the mosaics.

(I realized I did not take a picture of one of the wildflowers that I designed.  Also, there is a special mosaic that was designed for a teacher that suddenly passed away during the school year.  I don't have a picture of that design either, but you will see the mosaics as you scroll down.)

Here are a couple pictures that show part of the process I go through when the mosaics are made.

Once the designs were done, I came into the school to transfer the designs to the board on which the mosaics would be made.  Individual classes worked on the mosaics in their spare time.  A family art night was scheduled for the school where parents came in to learn more about art that was being done at the school.  Two of the mosaics were available for the families to work on together.

These are the mosaics that were finished this year.  Some of these photos show the pieces grouted and some still need the grout.

Magazine Mosaics with 4th graders

The 4th graders at Westside Elementary spent 5 days working on animal magazine mosaics.  I read a handful of books by Jan Brett and we studied her illustrations.  The 4th graders chose an animal to study then drew it on a recycled book page.  Once the animals were drawn in pencil, they were traced with Sharpie and watercolored.

They painted the outline for the animal's habitat in black paint with a brown paper grocery bag cut into a rectangle and then started filling in the spaces with cut out magazine pages.

 Here are some of their finished projects.