Artful Journey - Los Gatos CA - July 2010

I spent 4 days at The Artful Journey last week. This was held at The Presentation Center in the hills above Los Gatos, California. I took a 3 day class with DJ Pettitt which was Amazing! The location was Beautiful. It was quite rustic, yet very comfortable. The one thing I was tentative about was the bathrooms are down the hall, not in the rooms. It didn't take long to find that really didn't make a difference. It was dimly lit in the night & no problem getting there, back & right back to sleep. In the mornings, if I Did encounter anyone else having just crawled out of bed, sleepily brushing their teeth......it was actually fun to just say Hi & carry on. Felt kind of like a family in that way. There are no phones, tvs, etc. in the rooms. Although I did have my Ipad & laptop just in case. LOL But we tended to keep working on our projects into the night at times, or walk around the grounds (Bev & I saw a shooting star our first evening, sitting outside). We made & stripped our own beds which I found a nice thing. I have always felt it is such a waste to change bed linens in hotels every day as well as the towels. So this was good to me. And I found my bed very comfortable & slept well each night. :-) I can't Quite seem to concentrate even yet on work & home. I'm still living the memories of a wonderful 4 days.

This is Pueblo, the building many of us stayed in. There are also some cottages where some of our group also stayed.

This is a moss covered pond nearby with a trail going around it. Often there was a great blue heron on the water as well as a family of 4 deer wandering around the grounds.

These are views of our classroom from the back & the front. I'm sure the nuns have never seen quite such a Mess (although a Creative one!) in these rooms. LOL

I thought this was a beautiful cross. Very artistic.

This was a courtyard area where we had coffee in the morning, had the artists sale on Monday night and often just gathered there.

Bev (my roommate) and I did the Labyrinth one evening.

This was a cairn at the center of the labyrinth. I might toy around with using it as a background layer in Photoshop if I ever get back to catching up with my online class!

I am not Catholic, so I thought this picture was interesting! The thought of the nuns marrying just never occurred to me. It's a fun picture.

Here is Peggy, Melissa and Beth. Peggy & Beth are both in our local CaliforniaArtGirls yahoo group and Beth & I were table mates for the 3 days. I enjoyed working with you Beth! I had met Beth & Peggy before at Asilomar. Melissa was a wonderful surprise to see walking down the hall the first afternoon I got there! She and I shared a room at Art & Soul Virginia 4 years ago. We set it up on the online yahoo group, had never met each other & spent 6 or 7 nights & days as roommates. We have kept in touch every now & then, but what a Surprise to see her. And we were in the same class! We got along great in Virginia and I was thrilled to see her. We will most likely keep in touch more Often now. :-)

Here is DJ, binding MY Book. :-) Not the book I made in class. But a book I bought from her. :-) She used the cover to this book as a demo last October in Portland. I Loved it so much, I kept asking her if she would sell it. LOL She wouldn't just sell a cover, so we worked out what type of book and how involved I wanted and a price & she has been working on it. She had it Nearly done & brought it for me to see. It is trully Beautiful!!! I had to leave after class on Wednesday however to get back to work (which I really didn't quite do........I couldn't get motivated for work after 3 days of artistic creativity & being with friends!), and she didn't have it quite bound yet. So it is now on the road with DJ who is driving back the coast route & taking Spectacular pictures I'm sure along the way! It's kind of fun to be looking forward to receiving it when it comes. :-) She referred to it as "Margaret's Book" the whole time as she used it for demo. I loved that. :-)

These are just a few pix of demos and a great group of us students working hard on our wonderful books!

This is the final evening with show & tell, thank you's from Cindy and the teachers (who were DJ, Stephanie Lee, Richard Salley and Katie Kendrick who All were so very Available & Friendly......we really all were one big Happy Group!). The silent auction raised over $700 which was donated to the Center. I am sending off a donation to the center this week myself. They exist by donations only & it really was quite an impressive place. I did read the brochure and they are as I recall, nearly 100% green (or a Very high percentage) and one of the first places getting there. I noticed the first day I walked up, a rooftop garden over the huge building housing the dining hall, bookstore, etc. I didn't realize gardens like that attract different bird species, butterflies, etc.

And here is my book in progress. Many people did get theirs bound. I was having so much fun working on the covers & pages, I decided early on I would bind it later & just relax & enjoy creating the covers & signatures for it. I Do Hope I eventually finish it. But I also look forward to just working on it now & then. The first pictures is the Front (the bird which most of us used.......it was a picture DJ provided for us & for me, although I wanted to have pictures & make this my Own......working on the same picture & learning the layering, etc. was much easier I think than venturing out on my own.) By the time I got to the back cover (the tree & pole), I Did use a picture I took myself & had Much Fun trying to recreate layers like we did on the front. I ended up very happy with it!

And the rest of the pictures are pages I worked on in various stages of completeness. And I have several signatures I didn't even start on yet. I Thoroughly Loved this class and project! I plan to keep an eye on DJ's blog & take an online class in the future. Not that I didn't Learn in the class. But my creativeness seems to come either with a teacher & class or with other people. And this group in class was a Great Group! I hope to see everyone again at one retreat or another. Maybe even next February here again. :-)

Paperbag book swaps

In the past few months I have been in 2 paper bag book swaps. The first theme was "Nature". There were 12 people and we all did 2 sets of 12 pages. These are my pages for that swap. I haven't yet bound my book, but just recently bought a paper bag book from "Pages In Time" in Lincoln Nebraska. The owner, Karen has made several and they are beautiful. This gave me many ideas of how to bind the book and tidbits to add in pockets, in the bag opening itself. I hope to find time to get that bound soon!

The second book theme was "Da Vinci". There were 8 of us in this swap so we all did 2 sets of 8 pages. Mine is late. :-( But is now winging its way to the UK so all pages can be mailed out to the players. These are my pages for this swap.

I couldn't let go of the idea of using the Mona Lisa in a different way. I have recently been playing with a "Teleidescope" which is like a kaleidescope, but without wheels.....the images are in whatever direction you are looking, so they are real images, not patterns of whatever is in the scope. I bought a program that would do the same thing with pictures. I played & played with Mona Lisa images and these are the ones I used. It was lots of fun, although maybe now the Mona Lisa has been done More than Enough times. LOL


I transferred printed images onto muslin using Leslie Rileys transparency transfer technique and then sewed them onto cardstock & embellished.

One more Sepia Aged photo

I am Loving this project!!! I should Probably move on to the next video, but I've wanted to know how to do this Forever. :-)

Online Photoshop class with Marie Otero

I just started an online Photoshop class with Marie Otero. I think this class is going to be Wonderful! We have 4 projects in Week 1, each has a video And a pdf file with pictures and instructions. Everything is very clear & well presented. I'm Excited to finally do something like this.

The first project I attempted is to take a photo, and age it. These are 3 pictures I did in order. By the 3rd, I think I'm getting a bit better at it. The first 2 look like I was trying to make them old. The third I think, works better.

Art & Soul Las Vegas Feb 2010 - Stephanie Lee Class

My 3rd class at Art & Soul was with Stephanie Lee. I had never taken a class from her before & am so Happy I finally did. She is a really good teacher. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these projects as I'm out of wall space completely......maybe make a large book. ?? But they were fun to work on.

Basically, we brought photos we wanted to work on. These are 2 of about 6 I brought. The pictures are of my mother in law as a child. We had black & white copies made of the photos & enlarged. Then glued them onto heavy (very heavy) watercolor paper. Then we painted out items, leaving only a portion of the actual picture left to work with. From there, we started adding some texture, and that is as far as I got. Stephanie's work then paints back in items, totally changing the picture, using very little of the original image. Again, I hope I get a chance to work on these further & add more color, images, etc.

I really enjoyed the retreat in Las Vegas. The smoke however, added with the allergies I already had, was hard to live with. I coughed, sneezed, eyes watered for the whole trip. I've been to Las Vegas several times in the past, even after I quit smoking 9 years ago.......newer casinos like Paris always had very good ventilation and it really didn't bother me. This time it was like there was no ventilation at All. Makes me wonder if they are cutting back on utilities in the economy. It would make me think hard about going to Las Vegas again any time soon. I love going to Las Vegas too, so I was very disappointed in this. Caesars was the same. It would be nice to Hope they will up the ventilation again in the future.

I have to add......Marian & I had fun playing poker machines (me) and slots (Marian) every evening. One evening however, it was a bit later and we heard music playing. We ventured on over & found it was a DJ, playing very current younger music and many 20 somethings dancing. We watched for awhile, enjoying ourselves, then decided to go on it, sit down & have a drink. Not long after we sat down, a young man and a young woman came from the dance floor, held their hands out to us & drew us out to dance with them all. ALL I can Say IS..........I had the Time of my Life!!! After midnight, in Las Vegas, at 60 years old, shaking my bootie on the dance floor with a bunch of 20 something's. :-) They were all Very Nice & we thanked them for inviting us out. I don't think either of us would have gotten up on our own. Much FUN! Marian, I'm Still smiling about that evening! :-)

Art & Soul Las Vegas February 2010

I went to the first Art & Soul in Las Vegas in February. Classes were held in Bally's. We stayed in the Paris hotel. I roomed with Marian McBryde & we had a Wonderful Time! Here is the view from our room (after an upgrade)


Here is Marian in Caesar's and me in the mirror in our room.

I took 2 Sally Jean Alexander Classes, a Bird Necklace and Totally Tiara. I LOVE her classes. I continue to learn more about soldering & Love it. Have joined several charm swaps since taking her first class in 2008 and am still learning but getting better at it.

This is the Bird Neckace which I did not finish. I got all of the pieces soldered, but didn't get jump rings on or chain. I do hope I will finish it someday. In my defense.....our classroom was rained out, so we lost some time being moved. Right in the middle of class, water started pouring down from a light fixture. Dangerous maybe? Someone had apparently left a bath running upstairs & it ended up in our room. Fortunately nothing was ruined & we moved out into the dining area which was actually Great. We had much more light and Windows! :-) Sally Jean dealt with the situation Amazingly. We regrouped & got to work in a much nicer area the rest of the day And the next day. :-)

This is the Totally Tiara class. I didn't get this finished either. The large piece of glass at the top (as of yet, until I add More wire), was wrapped with a different type of foil. This piece was heavy & the foil just didn't want to stick. I worked & worked with it, but at the end of the day, it was still basically falling off. I was quite Pleased with myself however, as when I got home, I Did remove it, rewrapped it with stronger foil and did get it soldered on. I am going to add more coiled wire and a couple of crystals. I Loved this class. Years ago when I heard about it, I wondered, Who would want to take a class like This!?? Well, that same year, I Saw what people had done & thought.........ME!!!! I would Love to take a class like this!! It was 3 years later before I saw her offer the class again & I was able to get in it. A Fun, Fun class! And as always, Sally Jean is charming, helpful and thoroughly enjoyable.

Part 2 to come. I haven't Yet started the art room cleaning project & if I don't at least get Started.............I won't get Anywhere today. ;-)

January & February ATC Swaps 2010

It's hard to Believe it is June 2010 already! I have not posted to my blog since December! It was a long, hard, busy tax season & I never got the time to post. Then I've been running off to art retreats every since. :-) This weekend I'm going to periodically post projects I have done since the beginning of the year and updates on the retreats I've been to.

I typically post only pix of projects I have done to my blog......a lot for a record of them for myself. :-) I'm going to try to post pictures of retreats, etc. this year too.

These are the ATC swaps I did in January (1) and February (4). The first is "Brocade". I used white brocade fabric, colored it with alcohol inks, sewed with a decorative stitch & then added a "brocade" polymer clay button I had made some time back.

Next is "Doors or Windows". I used a window. ;-)

3rd is "What's New). I used several new items on this.....the off white background is card stock sprayed with Homax Heavy Formula Knockdown Texture. Fun Stuff! I will use That again! I found it in the paint store when picking up paint for our living room. I sprayed that with "Smooch Spritz" which I saw at CHA & bought. It gives it just a bit of sparkle which you can't really see in the picture. The mesh is sticky back drywall tape. It's FUN to paruse the hardware store! :-) And the main new item is the flowers. I made these using a reporduction of antique flower making molds which I bought at CHA. Since I bought them, I thought this would be a Great time to use them. Hopefully I will use them Again someday as they were Quite Expensive.

4th is ATC trades I made for Art & Soul in Las Vegas. The theme this year was Alice in Wonderland.

5th is a "Metallic" ATC for DreamCreateInspire group.

Next up......after a couple of hours cleaning in my art room.....will be Art & Soul Las Vegas. If I can Find my projects in that unfortunate "hoarder" room! LOL