ad libitum

WE ATE, WE PLAYED. WE ATE.

Karen Owen  came up to Michigan to visit from Georgia for the week-end (Thursday through Sunday) and it was a joy to have her here. After I picked her up at the Detroit airport, we stopped at Ann Arbor on our way to Portage and did some serious shopping at Hollander's (and, some serious eating at Zingerman's Roadhouse). When we got home, we met up with Catherine Warner and went out to dinner at Martini's (one of my favorites) in Kalamazoo.

On Friday, Catherine and I took Karen to the Lake. We spent the day in South Haven: eating (great lunch at Clementine's, see photo below); Saugatuck (shopping) and Holland (taking photos). We made it back to Kalamazoo in time to have dinner at Food, Dance (yum!)

Karen and I walked out to the lighthouse at South Haven.

On Saturday, I had planned a day of eating, playing and socializing. I invited people over for show and tell, making paper dolls, sitting around and talking, and constant grazing (everyone brought something to eat and I made curry rice shrimp salad, pea salad and chocolate chip merangues). Not everyone could make it (it is, after all, a holiday week-end), but we had a pretty good turn out. Catherine and her siter Marie came, as did Beth Bricker, Lynn Contos, Brittney Young, and Jeanie Croope , who
drove down from Lansing and spent the night. Nellie Wortman joined us a little later in the day.

Here is a photo of me, Catherine, Karen and Jeanie in front of the food.

Here's Brittney looking at me while Jeanie and Karen admire her show and tell (amazing crazy quilt work, destined to become a purse and two pillows).

Beth's show and tell was outside by her car - she hit quite a few garage sales on her way to my house. Here you can see the back of Marie's head, Catherine's shoulder, Brittney's red hair, Lynn flashing a peace sign, Beth laughing, the side of Karen's head, and Jeanie in profile as we were all admiring the 19th century German album that Beth scored and the really cool rocking chair with the awful orange cushions.

Here's a photo of Jeanie and Karen working on their paper dolls.

Catherine was having her way with paper (such a "cut up").

Nellie and Karen on the sofa.

This morning (Sunday), Jeanie posed with her paper dolls before we went over to Catherine's for brunch.

At Catherine's, Karen demonstrated how to make authentic Mint Juleps...

...and Catherine set a beautiful table and fed us an incredibley delicious egg dish, fresh fruit and wonderful bread.

I had such a greatl time and was very sad to see Karen go back home (darn long distance!) this afternoon. She was a delightful and fun guest and getting art friends together is a great joy. It was all good!

WHAT A GREAT WEEK-END!

For my present for Mother's Day, my daughters conspired and Becky came up from Florida for a surprise visit. We  had a delightful dinner on Saturday night at a fancy local restaurant (Zazios - and, by the way, Matt What's-His-Name, the singer from Kalamazoo who was on American Idol was there for dinner while we were there) and on Sunday we had a fun lunch at Steak & Shake with Catherine and  Annie's friend Tim.

Over this week-end, I worked on finishing the projects I hadn't finished from Art & Soul. I finished the photo of Becky in Tuscany that I started in Stephanie Lee's class. Here is Becky with her picture.

Here is the picture by itself.

Here is one I did of Sunflowers. I'm really liking this technique!

In our class, Stephanie suggested we use the technique on a cabinet door rather than just the 300 pound watercolor paper. Here is a photo of a house from Amalfi and some grapes on a cabinet door I found at a salvage store. I really like that the hinges are still on it and the side piece. When I find a perfect knob (hole for it on left side), I'll add it.

I also finished and hung the paper quilts I made in Diana Trout's class. I really like her idea of using clips as hangers. I put them in my newly painted wall on the way to my laundry room.

 

So, I had my daughters (best Mother's Day present ever) and art time this week-end and some time with my friend Catherine. It was pretty close to perfect!

I'M WORN OUT - LAST DAY AT ART & SOUL

Today's class was Lisa Kaus's "Be Still My Beating Heart." I didn't finish because there are some things at home I want to use to finish it up, but I could have finished it in class. It's a decorated box, using Lisa's technique of making grids on parts of the surface and then painting, collaging and water-coloring in the boxes before adding embellishments, handles and maybe feet and then covering with a layer of wax (I don't like using wax and may skip this last step). Everyone's turned out pretty good looking. Lisa is a supportive and encouraging teacher.

Here is a photo of my box during the intial painting stage.

Here is the front, almost finished.

Here is the side that says Have A Heart in miniature Scrabble tiles.

Here is the side showing some cogs and tacks nailed in for dimension.

The back of this is open and I plan to hang it on a wallo when I finish it up.

I have packed some art supplies in my car (last night I went down to pack some art supplies and found out my bttery was dead because I had forgotten to unplug the Garmen and cell phone chargers - happily, a very nice gentleman from the engineering department of the hotel came and gave me a jump start). Tomorrow, I will head out for Cape Girardeau and then head home on Saturday.

I have really liked all my classes this year and have a lot of respect for the encouragement, preparation and instruction that my teachers provided. I am really worn out from all the things to learn and think about, but it's a very happy type of tired.

DAY 4 AT ART & SOUL

Today I took Katie Kendrick's Poetry in Motion class. It's a process class with an emphasis on going with the flow creative exercises. We made texture rubbings; we drew with our non-dominant hand; we painted with our fingers; we layered, transferred and glued on 9x12 surfaces. Katie lead us into following our artistic instincts to make backgrounds and then to draw or paint on them. When they were finished, we covered them with wax (this is the only part I didn't like; although I admire many pieces of encaustic art, I hate working with wax). Christy and Elizabeth were in class with me and they, too, enjoyed it very much.

Christy and I shared a table. That's Katie at the front table.

My work space - as you can see, my half of the table is a let messier than Christy's.

Here are the 4 paintings I did in class. Painting is NOT my comfort zone, but Katie gave me the confidence to give it a try.

EXHAUSTED, BUT STILL HAPPY AT ART & SOUL

I can't believe how exhausting it is to have such a good time. I had another great class today: Stephanie Lee's "Selective Seeing - Painting In The Mind's Eye View." This is  the class where we paint/pastel/glaze over an enlarged photo, either on a cabinet door or heavy weight (300) watercolor paper. I have one unfinished very large photo that still needs to be burned, sanded, sealed and given a wash; and, my cabinet door photo hasn't even been colored yet (but it is adhered to the door and covered with clear gesso. It was a great class and I'm looking forward finishing my pieces when I get home.

Tonight, Andi, Jerri, Twila, Christy, Elizabeth,Kate and I went out to dinner before the Vendor area opened. We had good food and great conversations and fun at Cracker Barrel (comfort food is very good for tired artists). We got back to the hotel just in time to stand in line to wait for the vendor's to open. I had fun spending money and talking to people. I bought a cool necklace and some of those little German dolls from Kecia Deveney, a few vintage photos from Bee Shay, an incredibly cool packet of treasures from Alma Stoller, vintage goodies, and a bluebird of happiness. I am totally exhausted, but very content.

Here are some photos from the Stephanie Lee class (I will have to post the finished photos at a much later date; I really want to work on my projects from this clas, but won't be able to until I get home).

This is my palette, which had acryic paints, glazing fluid, and powders scraped from pastels.

This is the beginnings of coloring in the photo. You may notice the ugly black line cutting Becky in half. It's from toner spillage and Stephanie told me not to worry about it. I worried (I don't always follow my teacher's directions). However, Stephanie showed me how to try to cover it up.

Here is the photo with the black toner line sort of covered up. As I said before, I still have to burn the edges, sand the whole thing, seal it and then give it a sepia wash.

ANOTHER GREAT DAY AT ART AND SOUL

Today, my class was with Diana Trout, "Beautiful Paper Quilts" - an aptly named class. We learned several methods of preparing (dying, coloring) an array of papers and then made them into quilts. Diana was well prepared and fostered a lot of creativity while teaching us some great techniques. I wish I had thought to take pictures of everyoe's quilts because they all turned out beautifully.

Then, this evening, I met up with Christy Grant and her niece, Elizabeth. Kate and I had a great time chatting with them (need I mention there was some chocolate passed around?); and, I happily discovered that Christy, Elizabeth and I will be in the same class on Sunday.

I took a few photos of my class. Here is my colorful hands (why would I keep it all on the papers?).

Here are the papers I made in class.

This is putting an embellishment on my quilt.

And, here I am, holding my paper quilt.

I enjoyed this class so much, I made two more back in my room tonight. I still have to embellish them some  more, which I will do when I finally get home; but they're close to being finished.

Finally, here is one of the worst pictures ever taken of me (gee, thanks, Elizabeth), and a pretty good photo of Kate and Christy.

FIRST DAY OF ART & SOUL IN HAMPTON VA

Today, I took Cathy Taylor's Anthologies class. I was really looking forward to it and I was not disappointed. Cathy showed us how to fearlessly rip apart books to make collages. There was a palpable creative energy in this class. Everyone made great collages.

Here's a photo of my friend Andi watching Cathy's first demonstration.

The next two photos are of my component pieces ready to be put in collages.

This is the first collage I made.

This is my second one.

This is my third collage - not yet finished, but nearly complete.

ANOTHER POST ABOUT IRELAND

I'm still going through my Irish photos (see previous post) and want to get them [sort of] organized before I attack some chores (haven't listened to messages yet or gone through mail yet and have to whip up 2 journals and send them out this week) and then start to get ready for Art & Soul in Hampton.

Someone mentioned that my photos didn't make Ireland look all that  rainy. We had 4 beautiful days with only hints of rain, but we did have some rain. Here is a photo of the car windshield between wipes.

There were a lot of times when it was cloudy, but still beautiful.

And, to show you something of the roads we drove, here is a photo of the rental car on the road where I pulled us over to take photos (Kate was very patient about me pulling over for photos).

There are parts of The Burren where it looks like they're growing fields of limestone (I called it the rock crop).

Here I am at the Cliffs of Mohr, where the sun came out, but it was a tad windy.

There were charming stone walls all over the southwest part of Ireland.

Many of the walls occasionally kept sheep in (see first Irish post). Most of the sheep were dyed with splotches of neon colors (mostly blue, green or orange) which I'm told are for keeping track of which sheep belong to whom. I did my best to try to take photos not showing the color patches.

In Kenmare, there's a stone circle from the Bronze Age (pretty impressive). There are a lot of these circles all over the place (it was on a very bumpy, unpaved road to a stone circle way out in the country that I popped the hubcap and got my flat tire - and the path was too soggy to make it to the stone circle after all).

There's something charming about the Irish homes, buildings, signs and people.

I can't remember if I posted how much I loved the Book of Kells. It's at Trinity College in Dublin and they don't let you take photos. It's so incredible to see such an ancient and sacred text.

MORE PICTURES FROM IRELAND

HOME: A DAY LATE AND A EURO SHORT

I had an absolutely wonderful time in Ireland. My friend Kate (my trusty trip planner, since she'd been to Ireland a few times before) and I drove from the Dublin airport to the Burren and then to the Beara Peninsula and then back to Dublin. The people were warm and friendly and helpful (a young man helped us change a flat tire to our spare and then the people at the hotel found someone to get us a new wheel and tire on Easter Sunday); the roads were scary (as was driving on the left side); the weather was good for 4 days (it rained on our driving days and on the full day we had in Dublin); and the scenery was incredible.

The trip home took 27 hours instead of 11 (the proverbial mechanical difficulties with the plane in Dublin, but better safe than sorry) and Aer Lingus ended up putting a plane load of people up at a hotel in Chicago and rebooking all our connections. I'm jet lagged and very happy to be home.

I took nearly 1,000 photos  - there were many beautiful scenes.