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.