Bombs Away!
This morning my girl went to school, for the last week of finals. An hour later she sent a text that the school had a bomb scare, and that she and the other kids were headed to the gym. We turn on the news. In fact, there is a bomb scare at her school in the headlines. While I know that this kind of thing most often ends up fine, I do not want my beautiful girl huddled with frightened masses of other children, even for one minute. We watched the news, and waited for updates. In the meantime I think, what can I do to balance out this ghastly fear that is creeping up my spine? In these...
Read MorePostcards with Jane
Jane Davies is a popular teacher and I can see why. I finally met her last week, at Art & Soul in Kansas City, where I taught and she did too. She offered a free postcard class one evening, and I went. She told us to make four very distinct designs on one piece of paper. All I had to work with was some pens and a bit of paint, not the roller carts of paper and collage materials most of the others had, so I set about drawing. The first quadrant I did was the marker faces, which I scribbled with a Pitt Big Brush Pen and filled in with neon green Molotow...
Read MoreJournal Challenge for Myself
In October my friend Connie presented me with a journal she made, it is stunning. She made it using a cover of a vintage book. She decorated every single page. Each one is so thoughtful, so full of texture and imagery that she glued, stitched, drew and collaged. Most of you know that I normally work on white pages, so this journal was a bit of a challenge for me, both because it was already so beautiful to look at, and because I was not sure how to approach a page with so much content already on it. I decided to try and work with the pages so what Connie did and what I added looked...
Read MoreSASSY girls and a Good Idea
In November, two months ago, egads how time flies, I invited some enchanting ladies to join me in the mountains for four days to make art and plans for making more art. Carol Sloan, Kim Rae Nugent and Liz Kettle and I rented a cabin and filled it with art and fun. We call ourselves Smarty Artists’ (Sumptuous) Summit, or S.A.S.S. We had an elk head on the wall we named “Bernard.” We dressed him up and drew him. We had a view out our window of the Rocky Mountains, and the forest. The dining room table soon filled up with so many supplies and projects that we had to eat...
Read MoreMini Book Ornament and Haiku
I have been making book ornaments for about 15 years. I love books, love the holidays and what is not to love about combining the two? This year was special because I got to decorated them with papers I made with my new stencils. I started with a saturated piece of paste paper. Added a layer of Silks (acrylic glazes) using my stencils. I kept adding layers until I was satisfied. Love that. Did a few more papers. And a few more. For this project you need: 2 pieces decorative paper 3″ x 3″ 2 pieces mat board 2.5″ x 2.5″ 1 piece colored paper for text block 2.25 x...
Read MoreArtspark Winter Tutorial Blog Hop
Here are all the projects my Artsparks partners have done for you, for free! Dec 4 Lyric Kinard, Snowflake Pinwheel Ornament Dec 5 Tracie Lyn Huskamp, For the Smell of It Dec 6 Judy Perez, Speculatius Cookies Dec 7 Jill Berry, Mini Book Ornament Dec 8 Traci Bunkers, Star Garland Dec 9 – Lisa Engelbrecht, Easy Gilded Letters for...
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