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!