Charms and Journal Backgrounds

Long time no post, I know. Life happened and not in a good way, time to try and get back on track and focus on some art. I have never really been a journaler, but do know the first step is usually just to get something, anything down on paper. Backgrounds are a good place to start, here are a few.

Lots of mixed media here....acrylic paint, spray inks, deli paper, stencils and foam stamps, spray webbing.

Going to make a effort to finish off some old projects that were gathering dust and I mean that literally..... had one that I actually had to get a big dry paintbrush out to get the dustbunnies and their progeny off of it. Off to ArtFest in a couple of weeks so the usual trade making frenzy is in full swing, charms are always a big hit so that is where I went this year. My wrapped loop skills are getting much better after making 75+ of these.

Soon the supply packing for ArtFest will start and Gerry can make his annual snide comments about whether I need a tractor trailor or not.

My posting hiatus was due largely in part to the passing of my dear friend Sherri Angie. She taught me so much and I am forever blessed to have had the time I did with her and wish so much we could have had more. Not a day will goes by that I do not think of her.

Fly free with your Richard, sweet friend.

Ice Queen Art Shoe

The latest shoe is finally done, as usual I started out with one idea (all white) and it morphed into something else, but I am pretty pleased with the result. The curved shapes were made by tracing portions of a french curve, lots of detail work involved with gluing on the silver trim. Plaid's new product, Extreme Glitter and then some Stickles gave the white accents and the blue body that extra sparkle I wanted. Rebuilding the heel's once they are cut off takes some time, you have to balance the shoe just right upside down and they glue on a few elements at a time, let them dry and then do some more. E-6000 is the best glue for non-porous items, once it's dry it's very sturdy. This one will be added to the items for sale on Etsy.

Christmas Eve is tomorrow, my best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season, whatever your faith happens to be. Our holly tree is in full glory right now, it's the only tree we have in the back yard and during the summer I mostly curse it. You really can't get anything to grow underneath it and trying to clean up or garden around it means risking getting lots of sharp holly leaves jammed into your person, but it completely redeems itself this time of year.

I made a quick trip to Jo-Ann's today to get some fabric and check out all the Christmas stuff that is always on sale and came across this great little addition to my holiday village for next year.....and it was 70% off! Now all I need is a Michael's one and I will have the beginnings of a Craft Store Village.

Surface Explorations Class now open!

The Surface Explorations Class at the Sparrow's Nest is now scheduled for January 22, 2011, Saturday, 10:00 to 4:00, a great way to get your creative juices going for the New Year.

Call Sherri Angie at 360-733-9031 or email her at sherangie@comcast.net to sign up. Class fee is $50.00 plus a $5.00 supply fee.

There has been quite a hiatus since my last post, as most of my friends know my father passed away on November 9. When I am ready I will be doing a blog post all about Dad, there are some great pictures I would like to share.

I did attend the Christmas Party for my calligraphy guild on Saturday, thank you Pam for once again being an awesome hostess! For the gift exchange we make a handmade or calligraphic letter of the alphabet, mine was made from craft metal, I embossed the letter "R", colored the metal with Pinata inks, painted the letter with some Extreme Glitter, added a couple of buttons and matted it.

I am working on a winter art shoe, all I can say is there will be much glitter. There will be no handmade Christmas cards this year, time did not allow but maybe a New Year Art Shoe postcard to my friends and family?



Surface Explorations Class

Still time to sign up for the Surface Explorations class on November 13 from 10:00am to 4:00p,. You will learn 15 techniques to enhance your jounalling, mixed media, scrapbook and paper crafts. You get a full day of hands on play with paint, molding paste, stencils, gesso, texture mediums & sprays just to name a few. Here are just a few samples....

Class fee is $50.00 with a $5.00 supply fee. Email sherangie@comcast.net or jody_mcnamara@comcast.net to sign up. Class will be held in Bellingham at the Sparrow's Nest Studio.

Cariboo and Buffalo

We have returned from our trip to see my folks in Dease Lake, B.C., which is about a 100 miles south of the B.C. and Yukon border. We normally take Highway 37 north but this time Gerry wanted a change of scenery so we took the Alaska Highway from Fort St. John to Watson Lake and then cut off onto Highway 37. It was a long drive, took us 2 1/2 days to get there but we did get to see some wildlife along the way, through Summit Pass we were so high we were above the clouds and there were Caribou (or Cariboo as the Canucks spell it) on the road, had to honk at them a couple of times to get them to move. Saw some Stone Sheep and 4 small herds of Buffalo, I guess someone brought some up back in the day and now they wander on their own. Gerry took a dip in the Liard Hot Springs, I don't do enclosed public bathing areas of ANY sort so I just took in the scenery, dousing myself in "people soup" is not my thing...yes, as a matter of fact I am a Princess, but I'm OK with that.

The Alaska Highway itself was not in the greatest shape, there was a fair amount of construction going on & lots of natural gas and oil drilling camps along the way. We had the camper with us, the RV parks were all closed so the stayed in Walmart parking lots there and back, I guess we can consider that training for our senior years when we have a big diesel pusher and do our "Tour of America, Courtesy of Walmart".

The cats fared very well, thanks to the excellent care they received from their Uncle Mike McMullen, I do owe him hugely for the messes I know he had to take care of. They are happy to have the regular wait staff/servants back and have been very clingy.

Spent the day in the studio today, getting more of my CD collection into iTunes, we listened to the entire contents of my iPod on the trip, 2500 miles and 1000 songs, need some fresh tunes. I don't mind country music (Gerry likes it), but I need to listen to something now where the wife comes back and dog doesn't die. Also played around with some new stencils and spray inks I had purchased before we left.

Attention Cat and Dog People!

Check out this amazing site, just answer a trivia question (right or wrong) and these folks will donate free kibble to animal shelters.

Freekibble.com

I put their badge on my blog, if you have a site or blog please help these shelter animals by adding the badge to your page.

Encaustic Collage

The Sparrow's Nest retreat was great fun, many wonderful pieces of art were created and some who thought they were not artist's realized that they actually were. Huge kudo's to Sherri and Tracy, who worked incredibly hard to make that event the success that it was. My teaching portion was making encaustic collage pieces, I had so much fun with them that I came home and made some more! The technique is simple, you collage onto a hard surface, in this case I used panel board. Fortunately Gerry had been covering the inside of his shop walls with panel board and there were lots of end pieces left, he and our good friend Mike were kind enough to cut them into my desired sizes and now I have a huge stack for future encaustic projects.

After collaging you brush encaustic medium (refined beeswax already mixed with damar resin) over the collage and fuse the medium to meld the brush marks together. I put a thin layer of gel medium over the collage to prevent the paper from darkening too much. While the wax is still warm but not mushy you can make a toner transfer of an image of your choice. Finishing touches are buttons, rhinestones, glitter and foil tracings.

I have at least 40 more boards stacked up under the desk ready to be worked with so I foresee more of these coming in the future.

The final major home improvement project of the year has been completed, concreting in front of the shop, garage and pad where the camper sits. It was a major project, but looks great, Gerry says he can't wait to wash his cars on his nice new driveway instead of in the gravel and dirt. Behold the awesomeness of Gerry's New Manly Driveway.....

It is very nice not having all that dirt tracked into the garage and then into the house.

Felines are doing good, Dana had to go the V.E.T this morning to have her butt glands expressed, totally NOT fun. I told her the night before she was going in the Magic Box to the Special Kitty Spa for her Treatment, but she's not stupid and she knew darn well she was going in the Evil Kitty Carrier to the Bad Place, where the Not Nice Man with the Rubber Glove messes around with her Patootie. She was super ticked off when she got home, she kept hissing at me, her brother and imaginary things I could not see. There has been liberal application of cat treats to take the edge off.