Art & Soul Portland September-October, 2009

I took 3 days of class with Misty Mawn at Art & Soul. This makes 9 classes I have taken with Misty. I used to think I wouldn't like to take so many days in a row in the same class with the same teacher. But I was Wrong. This is the 2nd time I've taken 3 days in a row with Misty and I just find myself completely enjoying learning something different Every time I take a class, not to speak of the Time to be able to work on the techniques and faces. As much as I Hope to, at home, life seems to take over. So I Thoroughly enjoy continuing to take Misty's classes. My faces still need work, and I Hope this time to get to practice some in some spare time I plan to find somewhere. LOL

The first class was "Polaroids". We cut matboard and covered it with scrapbook paper. Then we taped off watercolor paper with a little larger space covered at the bottom to resemble a polaroid picture. THEN came the face painting. LOL Again, I need work here. As Misty pointed out........people do not Have black lines running down the sides of their noses and around their eyes. LOL By the end of the 3 days, my faces were actually getting Better. I started getting the feel of Shading instead of outlining. That shows a little in the next project (I hope)

The next 2 days were a long & tall hanging book. I got some backgrounds done which I love. I got to practice again on a face but didn't get further on the page. I took a step on the wilder side with the redhead in the black jacket. This was a picture from a magazine that was painted over. I worked on the face but didn't get further on the rest of her body or collaging the rest of the page. I enjoyed this! I was intimidated by the size of the paper, but that went away quickly once we started working.

And here is my cover. I trully think I made some progress on her face. This again was an image from a magazine. The faces I try myself........I Get the theory, but they all look exactly the same! Practice, Practice, Practice! LOL I am very happy with this page. I want to do a bit more shading & blending, but probably won't add much more. I like her as she is. :-) I just hope I work more on the other background pages in the future! Misty is a Very Sweet, Talented artist. I would Highly Recommend taking classes from her. Even if you don't Want to work on faces, her background techniques are wonderful and some people in class did Not do faces. Some did animals or just collage over the backgrounds. I find myself feeling very peaceful in Misty's class. It's a nice feeling. :-)

My final 2 days were a fabric journal class with DJ Pettit. I have wanted to take a class from her for Years and Finally was able to do that. :-) DJ is a Wonderful artist and teacher. Her journals are Absolutely Amazing. I Enjoyed this class Completely. Unfortunately, the images below on the front & back of my book were not done by me. ;-) These are DJ's images. Since I have loved her work for several years, I decided to use her images. A book done by me, dedicated to her. :-) I have not finished the front, back, Or any of the inside pages. But the pages are ready to start collaging and to sew into a book. Again.........I will Hope for the time to get to work on this! I have ordered a handmade book from DJ & can't Wait to own a piece of her artwork. I do have 2 Misty Mawn prints. Now hopefully a DJ book and I NEARLY bought an original painting. I am Still thinking about it. Where to put it is the question...........maybe I can find a perfect place for her. :-)

And This, yet Again, is a duplicate picture! LOL Somehow I can get 2 of the same picture Into my blog, but without starting all over...................I can't seem to delete it. Someday I'll Also find the time to really figure out what I'm Doing with the blog! Meanwhile, I'll just call this "Back to square One". ;-)

Finally Posting!

I can't Believe it has been since June that I have posted to my blog. What a Hectic summer it turned out to be.

Our kitchen construction continued for about 6 weeks. We LOVE the outcome. There are still a few things pending, mostly cosmetic. We had the outside of the house painted, a new roof put on & new french doors put into a small room off our dining room and our bedroom. We still have a deck going on outside the bedroom. I needed a construction break, so that won't start for a couple more week. I'll post before & after pictures at some point.

Meanwhile, I went with my friend Debbie to Art & Soul in Portland for 7 days. I came home for 4 days during which time I had to finish my extension income tax returns. Quite a rush there! And the most Fun thing was that Friday, Debbie & I picked Jessie up from the San Francisco airport, brought her back to Debbie's house in Castro Valley, then my house in Oakland so she could see where we live. We played with fantasy film that Jessie brought for us. The time went So Quickly. :-( How we Wish Jessie could have been here for a few Days instead of a few hours!

The next day I flew to LA & went on a Tim Holtz cruise to Mexico! My first cruise & I Loved it! What Fun we had! Pictures of all of these events will follow soon. When I returned I found we had lost a Dear Friend of ours for nearly 40 years to cancer. That was trully a shock as it progressed so Quickly, and so very sad. I will miss him Dearly.

Today is my birthday and although work is still stacked up after nearly 3 weeks away from home & my office, I decided to take an hour here & post some projects from Art & Soul. Our visit with Jessie & pictures And pictures of the cruise and projects will follow as soon as I can get them organized. :-)

May It Girl for Maggie

May was Maggi's IT girl month. Her topic was something related to Literature/movie/song. I had always wanted to keep a journal of some of my favorite movies, who was in them, the year. So I went with the Movie topic and made this little book of favorite movies. I admit that I made myself one too. LOL I never did start that project, so Maggi's topic got me motivated. I am still enjoying making these little books & hope people didn't get horribly tired of receiving little books! My Bind It All has had a nice workout this past year. :-)

Mystery Swap May 2009 CC Swaps

These are various pieces I am sending to Carol Sweeney today for the CC Swaps "Mystery Swap". These are polymer clay "Brocade" technique. The hearts are magnets and the others are buttons. Debbie Reid & I (And Debbies daughter Sarah) got together on Saturday and worked on these. They were Much Fun! So much I ended up making clay heart magnets as trades for Art & Soul Asilomar this coming weekend. :-) Much Thanks to Adrienne for coming up with this swap!

Below is Debbie top working in my dining room, then Two pictures of me (accident! And I'm rusing off to Pismo Beach for 4 days before Asilomar so I'm not going to redo this post yet. If Anyone can tell me how to delete a picture without completely redoing the post, that would be Great!). The last picture is of Sarah, Debbie's daughter. We might try to get together more Often to work on techniques. :-)

April 2009 IT girl for Debbie

April was Debbie's IT girl month in our Art Venture group. She had seen an Envelope book I made for Carol Sweeney in another swap & commented that she would like something like that for her IT month. :-) I Loved making that envelope book & was Thrilled to make another. I do hope she likes it.

I really Enjoy working with Lutradur. It uses a LOT of paint......it seems to suck it up, then leave an interesting pattern of extra paint underneath. Next time I want to pick that up with some blank paper as a new type of background. I want to try some of the other things that can be done with Lutradur such as burn holes for additional texture. I'm really just getting started playing with it.

IT girl for Karen Wright - Shrines

This is the first time I've been able to update my blog in quite some time. Tax season sidetracked me with work. As well as ending up being Very Late with this IT girl book for Karen Wright who was quite understanding when I emailed her. I appreciated that!

Karen's topic was "Shrines". Staying with my book direction, I embedded a shrine in the cover of the book. I glued pages together until the front cover was thick enough to hold the metal box I used for the shrine. Then I traced around the box & with a mat knife, cut out a niche to hold the box. I wanted to use the lid of the box since it just was part of it, so I made a hidden shrine. The lid slides off to reveal the ???? angel girl?? inside. I thought she fit in a shrine.

Now off to work on 3 ATC swaps due April 30 along with a chunky book page due in Florida on April 30. Lot's of artwork ahead of me now that my busy Job season is over. :-)

February 2009 IT Girl book for Pea

This is the book I made for Pea who's topic for February was Black & White & Bold. Not sure how Bold it got, but the metal Is Shiny. Is Shiny Bold? ;-) I did a black & white ATC swap in February also and this bird image with the checkerboard around it just wouldn't leave my brain. There are 9 ATC's out there similar to this cover. It was fun to take it a little further with the back, then play with the metal! I Love Ten Seconds molds & metals. Although..........this turquoise color I got somewhere else online. And I can't remember where now...... I Loved the color though!