Day 58 - Zoe's Turn

I have been meaning to paint Zoe for a while but shes usually sleeping right next to me if she's not in my lap so she's a little difficult to draw!!

I start with a light sketch of her.  I try to show where the highlights are going to be and draw in the major shapes.

Zoe

Here she is painted.  I really like the way she turned out. Guess I won't have to give her two tries like I did my cat and Honey.  Zoe is fond of lying on quilts and pillows...anything besides the sofa which is feather...you would think that was soft enough wouldn't you??

The paper on the left side is the one thats in the moleskine when you buy it.  I rip it up and glue it down.  Then I write over it.

Here's a close up of her eye.  I actually managed to reserve the whites in and over her eye where her brows are.

John C Campbell Folks School - Warm and Cool Class

Keith House

Just back from a most wonderful week at John C Campbell Folks School in Brasstown NC near Murphy. Fun times with several new BFFs...my dear Lorraine and Joann and funny Steve and dear Cindy and so many other wonderful people from all over the country and Canada....

Best food...we ate alot but I actually lost weight...hmm portion control and healthy food...Music and nite or paint your heart out...

A great class with such knowledgeable teachers

Ken and Bobbi Umbach

Mixed Media Painting and glass...warm and cool...I am now plotting return trip for his watercolor class...he reminds me of my favorite professor Freeman Schoolcraft. So knowledgeable and skilled at all things painting and collaging. His wife Bobbi the queen of glass!

Opening Doors

Ken got us off to a great start. They had five easels set up with a different color canvas on each one. Each of us rotated painting something different on each of the five canvases. Two diagonals one time, a cross another time, whatever we wanted for example. This was mine. It looked like doors so I enhanced it. I thought doors were kind of an appropriate symbol for the week that followed...odd how things happen.

I still want to go back and add some words to it but so far not quite done!

Spring on the River

Next we folded crumpled and glued down tissue paper on canvas and then had to paint it...this is what i came up playing with the transparency of my golden paints.

Blue Ridge I

Around lunch time I got the bright idea to fold the paper as mountains...this was my first attempt...still playing with the transparency of the Golden acrylics Thalo Blue, Hansa Yellow, Pyrrole Red, Quin Magenta and Quin Nickel Azo Gold.

Blue Ridge II

My second attempt at the mountains. I like this one better because they dont line up vertically. I think i took off more paint while doing these than i left on...mopping with a paper towel the whole time.

Moon Over the Blue Ridge

My next bright idea...we were supposed to be combining the glass with the pictures which i was not getting...then i realized i could add a moon to a nite scene and I was off down the adding glass trail. Bobbi was sweet enough to make the moon for me at home with some silver on the back. It really glows.

Spring trees II

If you know me you know that I have an ongoing romance with all the all oaks in my neighborhood...and spring is blooming along the rivah...I just love the leafless tree skeletons...and the soft reds and greens of early spring.

Coral Reef

Next on tap was citrasolve...spraying national geographics with citrasolve...WHAT fun and WHAT fantastic papers it produces....Mine had a lot of triple and double spreads. This is one of the doubles with another page attached as the reef...I lightly painted it with Golden iridescent gold and some micaceous iron oxide...and of course painted the reef quin magenta mixed with the gold for more underwater glimmer.

Next i added the jellies to it..and a school of fish. The jellies are strings of glass that Bobbi kindly provided with a little help from our class glass queen Martha Vann who had the pile of light purple ones...hours of gluing with E 6000 later...it was done.

Angel

The angel was made from another citrasolve double spread. The pages had stuck together and when i pulled them apart...it looked like angel wings...even had a space for the angel in the middle...I lifted color for the hair in the middle with more citrasolve...enhanced it with iridescent gold and purple some pit pens and then some gorgeous deep purple by golden. Next came the drips...LOVE those drips ...iridescent gold, micaceous iron oxide...Golden of course!!

I had squirreled away a lovely piece of glass nugget that was pale purple iridescent...just the thing for my angel to hold.

My favorite piece of glass...actually about 2" square!

Fish

You will never guess what the water is made from. I had been saving all my paint rags aka old paper towels all week...my table was a wreck with bits of saved papers and towels and tea bags...but as i was cleaning up I found this fabulous paper towel. I glued it down just as i found it...added a couple of extr

a fish leftover from the coral reef...VOILA a great fusion of paint and glass!

Oak Leaves from Keith House Parking Lot

I picked up 6 oak leaves one rainy morning and flattened them in a JCC class listing book. When old dried leaves are wet they can be reflattened to glue onto things. I have a whole telephone book of leaves that i collage on to art work. The background of this is on a wood cradle. I glued two sheets of citrasolved National Geo down...then added some more citrasolved Geo to make the cruciform. Then added 6 leaves...a nice remembrance of a wonderful place!

Hmm more leftover glass bits ...love the big squares and the smaller dicroic glass on black and clear glass...I do have some ideas on what to do with some of them...stay tuned!!

Our class Show N Tell on Friday

Bobbi and Ken

Blue Ridge III

More tissue paper glued down to form mountains. OOPS I forgot to use the transparent golden paints...i may have to veil this one

with more tissue paper and have another go at it...

Mixed Media Tags

My dear friend Ille got me hooked on making tags at Christmas when she generously gifted me with 15 - 20 Christmas tags which I still have hanging on a tree...I know its February BUT...they are too pretty to hide away in a drawer.

Refusing to pay $5 for 20 manila tags at Michaels I ordered a box of 1000 from Amazon for $37...woohooo....I knew my friends would split it with me at $4 per 100! And they did...now down to about 250 tags which should keep me busy for a while!

The ribbon on this card was dyed with my Tsunieko Inks

Then i made ten Valentine tags for my family and friends...and decided that I was going to do a monthly holiday tag to add to my tree. The same day Ille told me that Tim Holtz was doing monthly tags...great minds right??

Here is my Valentine tag...i know its late but you can start now and make it for next year!! Sorry not to have taken pics of the other ten...what was i thinking...I will do better next time right?!!

The heart was coated with crackle medium.

I stamped it with a flourish and with 1 Corinthians 13 stamp before I started collaging the card. I used some of our 36 Tsunieko inks on the flourish. The color was Cherry red I think. And the inks are the kind in the bottle that we bought for coloring on fabric. I just used the brush marker to spread the ink instead of coloring with them. I used the tea Tim Holtz stamp pad on the 1 Corinthians 13 stamp.

I used my fabulous Martha Stewart glitter pens to glitter the flourish.

Then I collaged the tag with music and old dictionary pages. BYTW be careful what dictionary pages you choose...some of mine said things like lunatic and moron...oops...not too nice for a valentine...all the music were from love songs.

The small heart was cut out and glued on ...and of course Valentine words!

I pleat folded a strip of pink crepe paper from Target on the bottom edge and glued it UNDER the dictionary page.

I used the marker to spread some more of the cherry red Tsunieko ink with the marker to tint the card pink. Next i sewed around it with brown. While i was upstairs sewing i noticed a piece of brown batik on the sewing table...i shredded that by ripping 1/4" strips for "ribbons" I love the shreddy look of them tied in a bow on the tag.

Too lazy to dye some of the off white yards and yards of rayon ribbon i bought off ebay with the tsunieko inks i tied bows of crepe paper on the top to finish off the tags....all i can say is PULL GENTLY they will tear!! Ask me how i know lol!!

And last i added a line of glitter on the crepe paper.

A few other things I have made recently.

Puzzle thank you note and envelope

As with everything else I seem to do this thank you note turned into a major project. The photo was mounted on tag board and backed with green paper and stamped before we ran it thru the Sizzix. And of course I had to make an envelope out of the leftovers from the back of the card...But it was alot of fun...I hope my son and his wife like it...should arrive at their house today.

Next blog post...hmm how i made these tags?! We shall see!! Hopefully another blog post in the not too far distant future...just more fun to knit and make art than blog!!

Calligraphy tags

Mixed Media Flowers

The Flower

My mom's birthday present with the flower...she's going to be 86!!!

Well dear reader surprise surprise...I am posting to my blog...I have been so busy making things and dealing with family like my darling youngest sons wedding that my poor little blog has been languishing on the internet...

Just a wee little pic of the joyous occasion!!

SO here's the quick thing I thought i would post a tutorial on...how to make these fun ribbon roses...

I used a roll of THREE inch WIRED ribbon from Hancocks...bought on sale last year...

First you cut a length of the ribbon in half. I used about a yard of ribbon.

I scalloped the edge of the ribbon...no I did NOT use a pattern...be brave...the worst that can happen is you have to start over!! You could also use a pair of pinking shears to do this with.

Third....gather the ribbon by pulling on the wire. BE CAREFUL NOT to pull the wire out at the other end...ask me how i know...so pull on the other end too!!

The back of the flower

Fourth curl the ribbon up in a tight circle. Wrap the ribbon round and round till you get to the end. You can either sew the center together on the back OR you can glue it OR you can wire it together. ...be CrEaTiVe!!!

A close up of the flower on the present...the leaves are made from a champagne bottle wrapper!

Not enough contrast with this flower...hard to take a pic of!!

A tissue paper flower with a center of cheese cloth...leaves are made from a tea wrapper.

But you can also use cheese cloth and tissue paper....you just use a wire or thread to hold the gathers...like those kleenex flowers we all made as kids!!

This is the tag tree I had up for Christmas. My friend Ille started my tags...and I adore them. She also has helped several of us make more...See the Seven Gypsies Blog for how to make these tags...they are ALOT of fun but oh so labor intensive!!

I made about 7 or 8 of them now including this one...with the ribbon rose!!

Blogs and websites of the week

along time ago i was going to try to post weekly blogs and websites i visit during the week...LOVE the eyecandy of the net..lasted ONE week...

so in an effort to do it again...here are some i have visited and frequently forwarded to my friends...i get my own mailbox on alot of their computers so they can go back and check the links later!

Some art sites and blogs

awesome sketch by Kate Johnson author of many North Light books This is her blog

Trumpetvine sketchbook and how she does what she does...and she is really good...

Nina Johnson's terrific sketches from I think its Sweden!

Finally a post from the Danny Gregory - leader of the everydaymatters list...sketching group..and a link to samples of journalers who are going to be in his new book that hes working on...some great journals


Barry Gott's blog- his illos are a hoot...he does a lot of childrens book illos with photoshop..also going to be in Danny Gregory's new book

Laurel Burch's website She passed away this week from osteoporothis ....I have been in love with her art work for years now...since at least 1990 when i saw it at Macys...vivid paintings of animals reproduced on fabric, as earrings, purses, cups and my current fav SOCKS!!

Roger Finch - A local sculptor(Augusta GA) that teaches welding found objects together which is what he bases his art work on

QUILTY and FIBER THINGS

Anji Vissner's great pencil drawings and art quilts

an awesome art quilter Rosemary Claus-Gray

Random Arts STORE BLOG - a very cool mixed media store in the lovely tiny town of Saluda NC

THE original long arm quilting machine and its history...who knew they were so old?

Uncommon threads group - an interesting mixture of traditional and artsy quilts...and the darned cutest picture of a small baby sleeping on a quilt one of the group members made...

Stupid sock creatures website...just because they will make you laff!