ad libitum

I GOT IN GEAR

Yesterday's class was called "Get in Gear." it was taught by Lisa Pavelka, who is a very generous teacher with a wealth of information. We made gears out of silver Art Clay and polymer clay and then made steampunk pendants, layering the gears and other elements with her one step resin. I'm very pleased with my necklace. If you look carefully, you can see the black gear and black arrow that I made with polymer clay and the silver gear (with broken spoke) that I made with Art Clay.

WAX ON, WAX OFF - FIRST REPORT FROM ARTUNRAVELED 2011

Today, I took an encaustic class with Patricia Seggebuch. I am a novice at encaustic work, but am very impressed with the art made with this technique. Patricia is very knowledgable about the subject. I haven't decided how interested I am in pursuing working with wax, but, at least I now know what's involved.

I made five pieces.

 

CROWNS AND FRIENDS AND VENDING AT ARTUNRAVELED

ArtUnraveled was a delightful event. Kudos to Linda and Chuck for their great organizational skills; I'm in awe. The good news is that I got together with a lot of friends; the bad news is that I was so busy enjoying people, I forgot to take many pictures. Jennifer and Martha and Maija made large deposits in my Memory Bank, but, sadly, not on my photo card.

Here is a photo of me and Lorri Scott. I am wearing the incredible duster she created for me (I had to provide the basic negligee for her to work from because she couldn't find one in my size). I told her to make something beautiful for me. She did more than that; she made me something that makes me feel beautiful. (In case you're wondering why I'm wearing a crown; I wore one almost every day to advertise my crown class.  And, yes, I painted those shoes).

 

Here's a photo of Angie Platten at lunch at the Phoenix Art Museum (great Cezanne exhibit; and, just as important; great restaurant).

 

I include a photo of me because it looks like I have only two chins in this shot.

 

Friday night, Fran Saperstein helped me set up for the Shopping Extravaganza (Saturday from 10 to 4 - crowded enough that we forgot to take photos during it).

 

The very nice news is that I made more than my booth fee; so I'm in the black from my first big vending experience. Michael bought one of my crowns ("I wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?") and I just had to take a photo of him in it.

 

Monday night was my crown class. I had four delightful students. One of them was Fran and she very nicely took some photos of my class.

Here's a shot of me demonstrating how to wrap fabric around the wire base.

 

Our class wan in a hotel suite (perfect size for a small class) and he're a shot Fran took of people working on their crown.

No crowns were finished during the class; but everyone got to the adding embellishments part, which is the last step and and I'm pretty sure they will be finishing (if they have not already finished) their crowns soon and will be making more.

Here's Marion in her crown of many colors.

 

Here's Andrea showing her intricate crown.

 

Louanne (sorry if I have the spelling wrong) made a beautifully multi-layered crown.

 

Here's a photo of Fran, taken on Wednesday, after she complete her crown.

My students were all jewels in my teaching crown and they made the class a delightful experience.

MAKING JEWELRY AND CHAINS AT ARTUNRAVELED

I played with metal clay (2 classes with Donna Lewis), rebar wire (class with Kieth Lo Bue), and polymer resin  clay (class with Sari Haab) at Art Unraveled. I love dabbling with new materials and techniques in a class; it lets me know what I want to do more of and what I don't want to bother with.

Mixing copper and bronze clay was fun and I was glad to use it, but don't think I'll pursue it. It's hard to tell from the photo below, but there is some copper clay embedded in the bronze clay in the pieces below.

 

Then, there was the mixing copper clay and adding silver in a second firing class. You may notice that there isn't any silver in the pieces below. It may not have been a wise decision on the part of the teacher to try a new firing method for the first time. I will add the silver clay later.

 

In Kieth LoBue's "chain gang" class, I learned I am too wimpy to work easily with rebar wire, although I understand it's appeal (I'm not even going to talk about piano wire here; but I have to admit, it makes great mandrels). I may be looking for easier wire for future projects, but I definitely learned some great techniques in this class and look forward to using them in both jewelry and collage pieces.

 

 

I discovered concrete looking polymer resin clay beads in Shari Haab's class. It's hard to explain the allure of this and the photo below doesn't do the medium justice, but I definitely will be working on more pieces and now need to go out and replenish my supply of chrystals to stick into the concrete.

So, interesting techniques and media, some of which I will pursue and some of which I now know is not for me...another great reason to take classes and go to art retreats.

PYROMANIAC TENDENCIES AND FABRIC

Ruth Rae opened a Pandora's Box when she taught me how to burn fabric in her class I took at ArtUnraveled. We used tea lights and a heat gun to burn synthetic fabric, transparencies and other goodies (bad smells, good results),

Here are some photos:

organza sewn over resin paper image (with cotton thread); then, I cut slits in the channels and then hit them with the heat gun (fabric curls up and gets very cool edges).

 

sewing more stuff onto  first burnt piece (craft felt heart, stamped with text, transparency of an image I photoshopped long ago (edges burnt by using tea light).

 

adding netting to muslin, then slicing and hitting with the heat gun.

 

adding more resin paper, fabric paper, craft felt and transparencies to the bottom part of the muslin (of course, this involved more burning).

 

layered and still working on wire frame.
 

Still working on metal frame, but finished with fabric and image layering and burning. By the way, the image of the mother and children is a photo of my nanna and my uncle and mother (the baby), taken in 1914.

 

I absolutely loved my class with Ruth Rae and would recommend that you take any class you can from her.

FIRST POST FROM 2010 ART UNRAVELED

Well, Tuesday night was Meet The Artists Night; and, this year, I'm one of the artists!

It was a fun evening that started off with an inspirational talk by Cindy Lewton and then people wandering around talking to the teachers. It was social, and light and fun. It was also very cool to meet up with familiar people as well as good friends.

Wednesday was the first day of classes. I took "Play on Faces" with Cynthia Anderson. I need all the help I can get with drawing and painting faces and Cynthia provided a very comfortable and trusting environment. My faces still don't look like anyone else's in the class (no matter how hard I try, I am never tidy nor symmetrical); but, I'm happy with what I did in class. Plus, I had the bonus of sitting next to Martha in this class.

We started out by making several drawings from photos or pieces of art that we had brought along - or from our heads.

 

Then, we prepared canvases (or canvas boards) with paint or collage and started to draw and paint on them.

 

Cynthia also gave each of us a black and white printed face on watercolor paper to use as we wanted to. (in case you can't read my writing, the piece below says, "And, there, in the midst of self-imposed religious contemplations, came the liberating realization that no one would really know what she was thinking. She allowed herself to make up stories about the very self-righteous idiots she had to show respect to. They did not fare well in these visions. She did.

FINISHING, STARTING, AND STILL NEEDS WORK

This past week-end, I worked on several projects. I actually finished a necklace a friend of mine had asked for; I made progress with making embellishments out of the fabric paper I had made with my friends Lori and Chris the week-end before; and I made progress on my 2-D canvas piece.

First, the piece I actually finished: a black and white beaded necklace.

Lori Hutchinson and Chris Gould came over to my house the week-end before last. We ate well (at Martini's, one of my favorite restaurants in Kalamazoo), shopped happily (at Stitching Memories, a great yarn shop in Portage) and played happily in my messy studio (we each made 7 sheets of fabric paper, the technique demonstrated by Beryl Taylor in her book, "Mixed Media Explorations").

 

This past week-end, I started making embellishments by cutting some of my fabric papers and sewing around them. Some, I will leave like this; some I will sew more on; and some I willfurther embellish with baubles and/or beads. Right now, I am just making a stash to use later.

 

 And, I worked on a 2-D canvas that I am trying to get ready for a three person show at the Portage Library in late June and July. I'm putting in some pieces I've made in the last year or so, but I want to do an original canvas for the show, too. I want it to be a mixed-media 2-D piece and I have a lot more to do to it, but here it is (paint, mostly Color Mists by Aileen Roberts,  still drying). I have a lot more to do on it.

I also worked on starting class kits for the Crowning Glory class I'm teaching at ArtUnraveled in August (it's a great art retreat and there's still time to register). I'm also working on things to sell there because I'm going to be one of the vendors at the Shopping Extravaganza (I've already posted about the cuffs I made, I'm currently working on some other things, which I will post when they're further along in production).

STILL WORKING ON CUFFS

I am still making cuffs to sell at the Shopping Extravaganza at ArtUnraveled in August and to maybe sell on my website. I listened to people and am now making them in a variety of sizes (7 inches to 8 1/2 inches). I'm not sure how many to make, but I'm building up inventory. I've decided to use pcv pipe to display them and just bought some at Lowe's. So far, I've just made black ones and ivory ones (more of each partially made, in the pipeline, so to speak). Below are some photos. I do plan to make some in other colors. I do worry about whether they'll sell.

CUFFS

I love fabric cuffs. I love making fabric cuffs. I want to sell some on my web. I want to sell some at the Vendor event at ArtUnraveled in August. And, I want to give some to some friends. I have completed 11. I have 70 more in various stages of being finished (I really do tend to make multiples). So far, I have made two colors sets; the white/off white ones are made with bases of my fabric squares (see my March 13, 2009 posting) and the dark ones started as the vintage kimono I recently bought. I already have ideas for more. Making cuffs is very addictive.

Each cuff is embellished with bits of fabric/lace/resin paper/buttons/beads. I have used vintage buttons, some of my own polymer buttons, bits of vintage or regular lace, papers I have covered with resin, and assorted beads to embellish my cuffs.  Because I have chubby little wrists (if chubby ankles are called cankles, are chubby wrists called wrankles?), some of my cuffs are a tad longer than the standard 8 to 8 1/2 inches (I'm assuming I'm not the only chubby wristed person around).

 

NOT SO SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

I love ArtUnraveled; and in 2010 I will be teaching my first class there. I am going to teach a class in making crowns on Monday evening, August 9 from 6:30 to 9:30. I promise it will be a fun class and you can run with your imagination. Registration opens December 30 and continues through the retreat. I invite you to sign up for my class (and, by the way, the line up of teachers and workshops at AU is great - see previous link - and you'll find a lot you want to sign up for: my problem is that I'd like to take more of the workshops than is humanly possible). I have posted some crowns below; but no one in the class will be limited to these rather traditional designs and the color palette is wide open.

Also, I want to let you know that I have posted albums of my photos from Israel, Egypt and Jordan on my Mobile Me account and have posted links on the sidebar to the right. I invite you to take a look. There are an awful lot of them, but there were so many wonderful things to photograph.