Baby Max

Here is baby Max hours after his birth!  I'm in 7th heaven!

Merry Christmas

I'm heading up to Kentucky for the pending arrival of my first grandchild.  I am ever so excited.  I haven't been doing much "art" per say.  I've made a few baby things:  crochet hats, fabric balls and blankets.  I English paper pieced small hexagons for an "I spy" quilt ages ago for a little one (when I was dreaming of grandchildren).
 
I did create a scrappy fabric journal like the one Mary Ann Moss teaches at http://dispatchfromla.typepad.com/ (She's having a December discount for the class).

This journal is "Baby boy" themed.  Imagine that.  I plan to document the fella's arrival and first days with his mommy, daddy, granny and gramps.  Maybe someday the fella will enjoy looking at it with me.  I know I'll enjoy writing my thoughts, adding pictures, etc.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!

A Man and His Dog

"A Man and His Dog"  won third prize at my local Island Art Association's Nouveau Art Show entitled "Best Friends."  I'm so very excited!

Dyeing Experiments

I decided to get into dyeing fabrics again.  I had a bunch of old dye concentrates in my refrigerator, but most were way too old - I'm talking about 12 months or so.  The golden yellow was fine, the blues and the reds were not.  So I mixed some more - just enough concentrate for a few yards of cotton. I did enjoy myself.  I just love opening up the washer after the rinsing part to see the results.  I am working on values.  I dyed yardage for future portraits so these were not very mottled.  I do enjoy "tie dye" effects but not this time around.

Happy Thanksgiving

Bookmaking and Paste Paper Making

Last weekend I had a fabulous time with Eliza Holliday, a marvelous calligrapher, brush letterist, bookmaker and teacher.  She's lives locally and has just begun offering classes on the island, though she's taught across the country.  I am enthralled with her work and her willingness to share her talent.  We dabbled in making paste paper for future book covers and with page coloring with walnut ink, sumi ink and tea.  So much fun and fabulous results.  Eliza shared techniques for a glueless accordion book and caterpillar book along with the main accordion book.  I have spent much time viewing her videos (check her site for the links).  Oh, and go to her main website www.letterist.com to view her many examples of her art. 

Work in Progress

Another portrait in the making.  I dyed and overdyed cottons to try to get good values.  I'm thinking it's a bit on the dark side but i think I'll finish it up for my local Island Art Association's  www.islandart.org new Nouveau Art Challenge "Best Friends."  It's my son, Corey and his dog, Barley.  They have both been previous subjects of mine.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!  It's always fun to pull out the season's decorations and remember!  My mom gave us the big jack-o'lantern and the large ghost, which she glazed.  My children painted the little ghosts and pumpkins when they were wee little.  My son created the small jack-o'lantern in his pottery class in middle school.  The leaf quilt was made by moi while I was in my traditional quilting days.  It's good to remember Halloweens past - the costume creation, the pillow case filled with candy, the laughter... and so on. 

 A tradition  I started awhile back was creating holiday postcards to send to my family.  The following image is this year's.  I spend quite a bit of fun time coming up with a project to teach for the Seniors at our local Senior Center.  I organize art instructors from my local art association, Island Art Association, to teach once a month at the Center.  It's quite rewarding.  I settled on a simple jack-o'lantern pin using fun foam and a Styrofoam printing plate in which we used a pen to imprint a jack-o'lantern and print note cards.  This postcard is made from fun foam as well:  2 stamps:  one being a pumpkin and the other being the face.  ThatI shared with my local fiber group.  Fun!

And this jack-o'lantern I drew in the sand.  How I love my beach walking!

So, folks, enjoy your holiday!

Chinese Baby

"Chinese Baby" - my last portrait I've completed.  I'm still struggling with the skin tones as well as the quilting of the face.  Still, he's cute.  The photo I worked from was by my brother-in-law, Howard Koons.  He and my sister travel the world and he takes oodles of pictures.  You can see his work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/koons/collections/.  I fell in love with his image of this baby and asked his permission to render it in fabric.

Best in Show!!!!!!

Here I am in front of "Wanderlust," the piece that earned me the Best in Show award at the 1st Annual Amelia Island Autumn Art Festival!  I'm so tickled and honored.  Fiber Art rules!!!!!!

Latest Piece of Art

"Kentucky Rose"  23 x 26"  using the double raw applique technique of Ellen Lindner's.  I sure enjoy this method of reproducing an abstract of a photograph.

Scrappy Travel Journal

As promised, here is my travel journal of my trip to the West:  Northern California to Southwest Oregon which includes the Nature Printing Society's Workshop in Charleston, Oregon.  These are just a few pages.  The travel follows Mary Ann Moss's "Remains of the Day" scrappy journal process.  I started off with 80 pages and ended with 80+ I added pages.  I think next time i travel (France river cruise, July 2011) I'll made more signatures and a wider binding.  This journal is tough to close. 

Back Home

I had a fabulous time with my sister, traveling in N. California and SW Oregon.  The Nature Printing Society's Workshop was one of the many highlights of the trip.  Traveling with my lovely, animated sister was best of all.  We sure did have a good time.

The workshop was wonderful.  The printers were grand, ever so sharing with knowledge, expertise, and patience.  My Boot Camp for Beginning Printers on Fabric turned out just fine.  I enjoyed myself as I taught others what I do on fabric.  The other 3 classes I took were:  Composition (paper collage)with Andrew Borloz, printing on silk scarves with Bee Shay, and octopus printing with Sharron Huffman.  The evenings were a time for travel journaling with Bee Shay.  I learned a lot.

I couldn't resist adding an image of the infant onsies I printed up for my very first grandchild (expected to arrive at Christmas Time). 

I'll be posting soon with images of pages from my travel journal.  I really enjoyed printing up several images from my camera with the PoGo Polaroid Printer.  Love that thing.  I kept up with the day's events until the next to last day.  It was a nice way to end the day, recapping my trip.

Off to Nature Printing Society Workshop

Today's the day I head to California then to Oregon for this year's Nature Printing Society's workshop.  I teach leaf printing on fabric the first day the, take classes myself.  Traveling with my sister, Marlene, is a very special treat! 

The image is a t-shirt I printed that will be traded!  Can't wait for the surprise shirt!

Local Fiber show

Just wanted to announce a local fiber show that 5 of my fiber friends and I are putting on at our local art association - Island Art Association, Fernandina Beach, Florida.  The show is September through October. The Opening reception is this coming Saturday.  I'll be missing the fun as I'll be in Oregon!!!!! for the Nature Printing Workshop.  My friends will throw a nice party.  I'll be there in spirit. It's amazing all the different favors of fiber art that are on display.

Nature printed Fabric Accordion Books

I know, I know, so many entries all in one day.  All these projects: the journal, the 4x6's and these books were all going at once.  I've just finished them all.

I redid a past book as I did not like the result.  Much happier now!
The second one makes use of previous monoprinted fabric.  Both with favorite quotes about leaves, trees, and nature - a current obsession.  I'll be taking them to the Nature Printing Society Workshop as well.

I'll be teaching "Boot Camp for Leaf Printing on Fabric."

Scrappy Leaf Printed Journals

I am heading to Oregon for this year's Nature Printing Society's Workshop and wanted to bring some small work to sell.  The previous entry showed the 4x6" pieces I've made.  These images are the Scrappy Journals (Mary Ann Moss's influence) using leaf prints on the cover fabrics and prints on papers.  I used papers I painted while cleaning off my brushes and brayers when I finished my leaf printing.  Fun, fun, fun!

Small Leaf print work

Designed these small pieces, postcard size 4x6" to take to the soon-to-be Nature Printing Society Workshop, Oregon.  I'll be attaching each one to a black cardboard for a good presentation.  Hope they attract attention and buyers.  I am so excited about going West to meet up with my most wonderful sister, Marlene, in California.  We'll be driving to Oregon and sightseeing on the way.  Marlene's traveled there many times.  It'll be my first time.  My experiencing this all with her thrills me.  We have such fun together!  And she is the one who got me printing leaves on fabric besides all the other surface design techniques I've learned and learning still.

Itching to Stitch

I belong to a local group of eclectic fiber lovers, Itching to Stitch.  We get together once a month and share our work, our art, our craft, and friendship.  This month I was the "leader" and introduced (though we've seen the idea before) fun foam stamping. We cut up children's fun foam, adhered the pieces and parts to a piece of transparency, cut it to size, and stamped away on fabric.  I just wanted the gals to get another taste of creating their own personal stamps.  I believe they all had a good time.  I sure did! 

Here's an example of one of my stamps fun foam adhered to a thicker foam I made earlier. We used a piece of transparency cut to size this time.  I got the idea of the transparency from this month's Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine.  I love the fact that the stamps take up less room in storage and that I can see to position the stamp when printing. And perhaps less expensive materials! Simple materials, great results, if I say so myself!