Art Chickadee's Reflections

Where to start?!

The raffle for the beautiful art doll to raise money ProjectTiesthatBind for and awareness of ovarian cancer has begun.  Tickets being sold go here! and there is a book in the works on it.  You can purchase a ticket for $5 or 6 of them for $20.  Even Tim Holtz with his busy teaching schedule took time to spotlight it on his blog.

My friend Aileen never ceases to amaze me with her creativity.  I saw some things she has for sale on Zazzle now and they are just wonderful.  She's used her drawing skills to create some funky and fun mugs and t-shirts.  I love the nurse's items check 'em it out here .   

The "In This Studio" round robin is drawing to an end.  I finished Kara Klein's book and mailed it out to her this week.  It is a house-shaped journal and is full of beautiful things.  Here's what I did in her book.

For some reason, movie titles around the theme love kept coming to mind while I was working on this so I had to incorporate them. 

Wishing a satisfying week!

Melody's Pretty Bird

I finished a canvas today that I call "Melody's Pretty Bird."  After I did the face, it occurred to me that she looks like our pastor's middle child! 

She's got a lot of layers of papers and paint.

Studio Re-do

Do we ever get to the point where we stop re-organizing and re-doing our studio or work area?  I know I sure haven't.  Usually the work is worth.  I find things I've forgotten I bought or get excited when I see something and have an idea.

I think I mentioned on some groups or maybe here that my husband gave me the coolest Mother's Day present ever...a large armoire-sized cabinet and two matching pieces to put my things in.  Clutter of any amount bugs him (poor guy, he's married to a collector of all sorts of things) and I know he was trying to help both of us.  I love the pieces.  I'm so used to making do with things to store my paints, stamps, etc. in and don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the things I had, too, and especially an area to call my own even if I share with a train layout and a guinea pig. 

Miss Maria, a.k.a the Princess Pig, is my studio pig and she absolutely loves to run around on the floor out there while I'm working.  You can just see how happy she is and will sneak over to me wanting some attention but just let me try to touch her! Off she goes!

Anyway, enough blathering.  Here's some photos:

This is inside the large cabinet.

I'm thinking these pictures (from Target) will go here:
(they were in our recently re-done bathroom)

I was working on this mixed media canvas last night:

Hope you enjoyed the tour.  Come play!

In the Studio RR

This month I had Susie LaFond's book and it is so much fun to look at and even more fun to work in.  The books are all about 5x7 and that makes it more fun to work in...less ground to cover and easier to mail out, too.  Susie preps her pages by painting them with house paint.  These pages are all a very soothing aqua.  I love the color.

 

 

I like the colors together here.   Spring-y, warm colors playing off the cool colors.  I played with my garnet gel for some texture, some metal number stamps, paper flowers, a few paper flowers, black Pitt pen, Sharpie, etc.  I've been inspired by all the flowers I've been seeing lately.

Junk Journal Fun

On a yahoo group that I'm on, christianpaperartists, we did a cereal box journal swap.  Anna Tremblay got my name and I'm so glad!  I received it yesterday and had the most fun working in it.  She send a goody bag to jump-start my book.  I used just about all of it last night.

Isn't it yummy?!  She'd thoughtfully asked what colors I liked, styles, etc. and really did a wonderful job. The journal covers were made from a Capri Sun box so it's very sturdy.  It's long and narrow.  She put all kinds of papers inside that were leftovers she said.  Scrapbook papers, a vellum piece, transparency page, packaging from art supplies...all were incorporated as pages. 

Today is the National Day of Prayer.  I flipped open my journal and lo and behold, an Artchix image jumped out at me that I'd pulled from my stash and put on a page last night.  I had no thought of what today was...look at how it worked.

 

She looks just like she's getting ready to pray.  How about that?  As you can tell, I'm going to have a good time with this journal!

Junk Journal Fun

On a yahoo group that I'm on, christianpaperartists, we did a cereal box journal swap.  Anna Tremblay got my name and I'm so glad!  I received it yesterday and had the most fun working in it.  She send a goody bag to jump-start my book.  I used just about all of it last night.

Isn't it yummy?!  She'd thoughtfully asked what colors I liked, styles, etc. and really did a wonderful job. The journal covers were made from a Capri Sun box so it's very sturdy.  It's long and narrow.  She put all kinds of papers inside that were leftovers she said.  Scrapbook papers, a vellum piece, transparency page, packaging from art supplies...all were incorporated as pages. 

Today is the National Day of Prayer.  I flipped open my journal and lo and behold, an Artchix image jumped out at me that I'd pulled from my stash and put on a page last night.  I had no thought of what today was...look at how it worked.

 

She looks just like she's getting ready to pray.  How about that?  As you can tell, I'm going to have a good time with this journal!

Vendor Night and My other class with Katie Kendrick

 

Here's Joanne, Kate and me on Friday night.

 

Yep, that's Michael DeMeng's work.  They were great!  He had taught that day, worked the Vendor Show and was leaving for the airport at 4 a.m. the next morning!  *whew*  I know he had to be dragging but never showed it.  Heck, he had posted to Facebook that he was waiting for Goodwill to open as he had a list of things to get and had work to do.  What a guy!

Elizabeth poses by a painting the Hampton Convention Center titled, "Elizabeth's Tree."

 

Here's Joanne in Katie Kendrick's class just working away.

 

Elizabeth painting away.  She did the coolest painting. 

 

sorry about the glare.

 

Katie Kendrick working on a piece to demonstrate on the next step for class.  

 

Katie and Elizabeth look at a picture she just took of student's work.

 

She is a great teacher and if you ever get a chance to take her class "Poetry in Motion" do it!  Here she's taking a picture of Lynn Avedikian's painting:

 

Here's smiling Lynn.

 

Here's a shot of mine.  I'm proud of it.

 

Well, here's a scan of it, but the colors are a bit more yellowed in it.

 

Joanne caught me in class:

 

Hope you enjoyed the trip to ARt & Soul with me.

Art & Soul Hampton 2009 - Checking in and Day 1

 Elizabeth and I had gone to the A&S store for her to register for her second class, gone out for dinner and been back in the room when Joanne called:

She had "show and tell" for us about what she'd done the past few days at Art & Soul.

 '

We visited for a while...I don't think Elizabeth knew quite what to make of us crazy "older" ladies!

 
Some groups shots: (L-R, Elizabeth, Joanne, Kate)

 

 

Joanne, Kate and me.  I have NO idea what kind of stupid face I was making there. ROFL

I took Mini copper journal with Thom Ashman on Saturday.  I always like working with metal and I got to torch some copper for my cover:

 

Andi Hinkle was in class, too, and that made it even more fun!

 

 

 

Thom would stop us to show us the next step along the way:

 

 

Andi gets a bit crazy and is taking a picture of me while I take one of her:

 

My book!

 

 

 

Hanover Arts & Sciences Festival

My son's animal cell project was accepted for the festival so of course we had to go.  I hadn't been to one in years and it was great fun.  Lots of amazing art, projects of all sorts and even saw a friend of ours there.

 

 

Don't ya love this platypus made out of paper mache:

 

 

 

 

There was a diorama about the weather and I loved how the maker used steel wool for the tornado/hurricane!

 

 

 

 

Look at the adorable face on this pup!

 

The shop classes had some incredible work and it was from Oak Knoll Middle School and I was happily surprised to see so many girls with work in the festival:

 

 

Then we ran into Scott who is the father of Parker, one of Joe's best friends.  They're all good friends of our family.  He was working the festival in his "off" hours and had a little fun at Joe's expense:

Book signing and seeing an old classmate

 

At a Barnes & Noble near us, David Baldacci was having a book signing.  I hadn't seen him since I was in high school some, well, 35 years ago.  I decided to go and picked up a copy of his newest novel, "First Family" and got him to sign it.  While waiting I saw four other people I knew, one of which was my sixth grade teacher whom he had, too, Mrs. Genevieve Stevens.  A sweet lady and a good teacher.