Monday Spotlight On: Shelley Kommers of Oiseaux

Oiseaux means "birds" in French and with her shop of the same name, Shelley Kommers has managed to create something as equally beautiful to the eye and with as many flights of fancy as bright songbirds in flight.  I stumbled across her bookplates through an Etsy Taste Test and fell in love with the way she has taken vintage illustrations that might have been lost to most people and made them something new and beautiful.  Shelley lives in a woodland cottage (I imagine to be something out of a fairytale, personally) with her husband, five year old daughter and a baby on the way.  She had an extensive collection of vintage children's books (most inherited from her grandparents). When she isn't runnin Oiseaux, she is "making art and being happy." (At sometime in the future, I may have to re-interview her about her stunning original works).

Vintage Castle Personalized Bookplate

Tell us three random things about yourself.
1. I love peonies so much I could eat them.
2. I didn't like my first name until I was twenty-seven.
3. I make an amazing margarita.

You make vintage children's book art into beautiful bookplates. How did you get into that?
I made my first set of bookplates for a friend's daughter as a birthday present. She was one of these children who already had everything, so I was trying to come up with something unique. I've always loved bookplates and vintage children's art, so combining them seemed natural. The bookplates were such a hit at the party that I decided to go into business several months later.

What's your favorite thing you've made? 
My favorite bookplate is also my shop's best selling image: the Blue Bird bookplate. The image comes from the end papers of a children's hymn book that my mother used to sing from when she was a child, and the book was extremely worn and water-stained.  The design took a long time to create, but it was well worth the effort.

Personalized Vintage Bluebird Bookplate

As a bookplate maker, are you a big reader as well? 
I love to read. I have piles of books around the house and a well-loved Kindle. My favorite thing to read is fiction, but I also love poetry, art books, blogs, magazines, and reading children's books to my daughter.

Name one piece of art you wish you'd created and why? 
The interior and facade of "It's a Small World" at Disneyland.  I once saw a museum show about Mary Blair's concept art for the ride, and it blew my mind. Mary Blair was a master of color and magic. My cheeks hurt when I look at her work because I can't stop smiling.

What do you spend your time doing when you're not reimagining beautiful illustrations into bookplates? Making art, puttering in the garden, hanging out with my husband and daughter, cooking a little bit. I've challenged myself to "create something every day" this month, so most of June has been spent making art!

You paint and create these plates.  What would you pursue if you had to give up those mediums and pursue another? I'd like to try great, big silkscreens. My bookplates and art all tend to be small; I think it would be fun to go huge.

Does your art tends toward the same vintage look as the bookplates? Where do you get your ideas from there? My art uses a lot of vintage elements, especially in my collage work, but it looks nothing like my bookplates. My ideas come from nature, and my daydreams (which are colorful and many) and my life in general.

Vintage Mermaids Personalized Bookplates

What’s your favorite part of the process?
It's receiving feedback from folks who love their items, and emails from people who have found my shop and have been transported back to their own childhood through looking at the images. For me, those things are the best.

What modern children's book would you love to use the images from to make bookplates (or what children's illustrator) if you could get away with it? Oh gosh: the work of Mary Blair, certainly, and the wonderful art of Leonard Weisgard.

One random thing you think people should know.
If I had waited to be "inspired," three-quarters of what I've made wouldn't exist.

Your shop, blog, Facebook and all that good stuff.
Shop. oiseaux.etsy.com
Blog. oiseaux.typepad.com
Art shop. oiseauxnoir.etsy.com
Website: shelleykommers.com

Mr. Fancy Fox Personalized Bookplates

If you could be a character in fiction, who would you be?
Alice in Wonderland, when she's singing with the flowers.

Illustration Friday #4(.2)

I know, I know, I know.  I already did this and I said I didn't believe in using something made for another purpose for the Illustration Friday thing....but this particular painting was done after I received this week's theme and it just seemed to fit so well.  (Reminder: the theme is launch.)

I haven't named it yet.  I was going to call is "Escape" but I have to admit, I'm liking "Launch" better.  It's done technically a mixed media piece (the sailboat was hand drawn and collaged in) but it's mostly acrylics.

I love this painting because it was so unintentional and came out so well.  I started painting on the panel, fully intending to paint some of my usual trees and weird plants, and there I was spackling blue and white paint on with a filbert (my most favorite of brush shapes), when suddenly I just knew it had to be a seascape instead.  Then I started painting the sea and knew there had to be an island looming. I painted the island and knew there had to be a boat (and that the boat needed to be paper, not painted on).  It was a painting that just felt right to do from start to finish so I had to share.

The whole reason I did this painting by the way is for the upcoming Community Mosaic at Seed Gallery in Winston-Salem, by the way, so if you live up that way, you should go when it opens.  There'll be more on that later.

Illustration Friday #4

This week's theme for Illustration Friday is 'launch.'  The first thing I thought of upon reading this was a watercolor and ink painting I did several years ago of several people in flight on great wings over the ocean.  However, the painting is long sold (or given away, perhaps), and also, I don't believe in using old work for a challenge like this, feeling the whole point is to make something new, so I did a little sketch of just one person, on great wings.

'Launch'

 You'll be pleased to note, this week, that I waited until good light to photograph the illustration, and so it's not all yellowy.  It actually took a lot longer to draw than I expected, because it had been so long since I've done much figure drawing, but I think it turned out decently for something done at 1 am while I was lying in bed (which, so far, is how I've done all my Illustration Friday stuff...but I'm hoping to move past that soon enough, because it would be hard to use paint in bed).

Stuff I Love (And My In-laws Love More): My Dog, Luca

I though I would do something a little different and rather than writing about art or cards or marketing or Etsy today, write about a little adventure I had yesterday. 


My in-laws live just a street over from us and my dude-in-law has grown an amazing garden this summer in his front yard (not enough sunlight in the back).  It's barely gotten going and already they spent all spring eating fresh lettuce and are just getting started on squash on just-ripening tomatoes.   He just discovered his green beans are going wild, so heavy on the plant there's no way he and my mother-in-law can eat them all before they rot off the vine.  So around three yesterday I walked over there to go pick some with my fluffy little puppy, Luca.

This is Luca's super-hungry-cute face.

 As soon as I arrive over there, pup-in-tow, they spend their usual ten minutes oohing and aaahing over how adorable their grandpuppy is, and then announce we're going to SuperBigChainMart.  For what?  A kiddie pool for Luca, who is apparently just so hot in her fur coat that she is begging to go for a swim.  (She tells her grandparents a lot of things she neglects to tell me and my husband, like that she needs steak, pork, treats and even more toys than she already has).   So we went to the store and bought her a ten dollar kiddie pool (Luca is, very conveniently toddler-sized).

She loved it...sort of.

It was more the hose spraying in it, she really loved.

It was worth the cost to see her running in circles around the pool, trying to get the hose, occasionally splashing through it.  My dude-in-law remarked that if they had a full size pool, he knows she'd swim in it.  I wonder how long before they build one for the dog.

If this is how they spoil our dog, I wonder what's going to happen when we have children.

Thursday Spotlight On: Eric Young of Tangled Metal

Eric is a metal smith and April's Army team member, who I see everywhere in the team forums. He's continually commenting, being active and supportive toward the other team members. After reading 'The Lord of the Rings' series, at thirteen, he decided he wanted to make himself a set of chainmail for himself. Twenty five years later, he's made dozens of suits of armor for other people, all kinds of cool chainmail items and has expanded into the all-too-awesome territory of steampunk items and still has yet to make a suit of chainmail for himself.

Mechanical Crow Pendant

Tell us three things about yourself.
1. I come from a long line of metal smiths and stone masons. My ancestry is mostly Irish and Scottish but I was born in America.
2. I am a Master Stone Mason and Master Armorer. I hope to one day be a Master Metal Smith.
3. I am a professional stage technician. I have worked with touring Broadway shows to Heavy Metal concerts. I can run sound, video, stage curtains, and hand set pieces.

What’s your medium and how did you get into it?
I am primarily a chainmail artist. I started when I was 13 by taking coat hangers out of my closet and making rings and linking them together. That was how it started. Over the years I have worked for museums, movies, stage plays, reenactors and plenty of other people making chainmail from armor to jewelry. I recently started making Steampunk jewelry and am having a lot of fun creating things from recycled antique and vintage clocks, pocket watches and hand watches.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve made?
I like my 3D chainmail items the best. I do not have any of them in my shop at the moment, but I have made all kinds of creatures and such. I am working on a line of 3D chainmail to add to my shop soon.

From where do you take inspiration?
I am inspired from many things from nature to movies. I like to be challenged. It is great when someone asks if something can be made in chainmail. I say yes, then I create it.

Name one piece of art you wish you’d created and why?
Cher wore a chainmail dress once. I really wish it had been mine. I would be a lot more famous and probably a little better off had that happened.

Birdcage Chainmail Bracelet

What are you doing when you’re not crafting?
Well, up until the beginning of April I was working a 9 to 5 job that was more like 7 to 7. It paid the bills. After the layoff, I have been making as much as possible and hoping that it will start to pay the bills before I run out of money.

If you had to give up your medium and pursue another, what would it be and why?
I am not sure what I would do. I did take a break from my art for a while and did a few other things. I learned how to run sound equipment and worked with stage and such. I am not really interested in trying to learn anything from scratch. My father is a silver/gold smith. I guess I would start apprenticing with him and learn more about how to make things with torches and precious metals.

Tell us about a time you were making something that came out better than expected and how it happened.
That would be tough. I have made so many things. I guess my first full chainmail shirt came out quite a lot better than I expected. It was also one of my very first pieces. Coat-hanger-mail! The shirt sold before it was even finished. That was pretty shocking.

Who is one person living or dead, famous or not, who you wish owned one of your creations and why?
See the above answer about Cher.

How would you explain how to do what you do to an eight year old?
Funny enough, 8 year olds understand what I do better than adults. For them learning is just a part of who they are so it is easy for them to understand. I have shown several young kids how to make chainmail and they pick it up quick.

Chainmail Dice bag

What’s your favorite part of the process?
The end result is always my favorite part. Taking a pile of rings and organizing them into a piece of jewelry or armor is quite satisfying.

One random thing you think people should know.
Though compliments are very nice they do not pay the bills. :)

Your shop address/facebook/Twitter/blog/website. Etc.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/TangledMetal
http://www.artfire.com/users/TangledMetal
http://www.facebook.com/TangledMetal
http://www.twitter.com/TangledMetal
http://TangledMetal.blogspot.com
http://www.TangledMetal.com

If you could go anywhere in the world, at any era in time, for one week, where and when would you go and why?
I would have to say sometime during the Victorian or  Edwardian era. I have always loved those time periods and would love to get more inspiration for my Steampunk jewelry.