Monday, April 29, 2013

Workshop Recap #2

Thanks for joining me as I recap my recent adventures teaching on the east coast. Post #1 can be found here.

The next stop on my journey was "up north" at Ink About It in Westford, Massachusetts. Lisa and Lori, the owners, gave me the warmest welcome and this is what I found when I walked in the door...


I taught my two-day, Mixed Media Memoire workshop and you know that good art is happening when the table gets messy. 




Another amazing group of talented and creative students.


Two weeks later I headed to the "deep south" and taught for a second time in a month at The Queen's Ink in Savage, Maryland. But on my way down, I made a pit stop and met Patti, the owner of The Queen's Ink, in Baltimore at the American Visionary Art Museum.


This is an extraordinary museum that focuses on outsider art. Cameras were not allowed inside but even the outside of this museum is photo worthy!



The outside of The Queen's Ink is also quite photogenic, as it is located in Historic Savage in a refurbished mill.


Inside the shop I taught Mixed Media Memoire one more time. And once again, I was welcomed with open arms!

For those of you who also visit my Facebook page...this is the typewriter I have been highlighting.

I love this venue and the Mixed Media Memoire workshop as well. I continue to be amazed that no two books are ever alike at the end of this class.



Thanks for coming along with me on my east coast tour. Not one to discriminate against coasts, I am about to embark on a 2+ week art adventure on the west coast. Details here. Stay tuned...

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Workshop Recap #1

The last few months has been filled with travel for me, as I went both up and down the east coast to teach a series of mixed media art workshops. With so many stops, I am going to break this into 2 posts.

It began back in early March when Roxanne Evans Stout, Elizabeth Wix and I taught a workshop together called The Need to Tell Stories at Little Bird Creations Studio in NYC. You can read more about this workshop and see many other pictures here.



Later in the month, I headed down to The Queen's Ink in Savage, Maryland where I was treated like a king by the owner Patti and the whole crew.


The Queen's Ink is an incredible shop that has their products set up in mini-displays.





I taught two classes at The Queen's Ink. The first was a one-day workshop called Box of Dreams. The class was a lot of fun and the finished projects were creative and totally unique.






The second class I taught at The Queen's Ink was a two-day workshop Mixed Media Memoire. This was a new workshop and I could not have been any happier with how it all turned out.










Two weekends later I headed out again. I taught my Mixed Media Dossier at the Guilford Art Center in Guilford, Connecticut. What a beautiful place.


I usually take way too many pictures but at Guilford I ended up taking too few. Here are the shots that ended up on my camera roll.




To be continued...

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Explore

This year, Spellbinders has begun to Explore Beyond, encouraging artists to break through their own personal artistic limits and go beyond their usual comfort zone. In the same way, I am encouraging my crew of mixed media artists to also explore beyond and see how products designed primarily for card makers and scrapbookers can become part of their tool chest and used in a way that make them unique and all their own. To this end, today I am showcasing a piece called 'Explore' that reflects the theme of exploration.


I started off with a 6.5 x 6.5 inch piece of hand painted paper that I grabbed from my stash. It was made on watercolor paper using gesso, acrylic paint and acrylic glazes. I mounted it to a piece of book board to make the piece more sturdy. The backside of the book board was painted and the edges were finished off with a gold leafing pen.


Next I decided to find a focal image that echoed the theme of exploring. I found a great image of a plane, which I cut out from a 12 x 12 inch piece of patterned paper from the Off the Wall Collection: Travel from 7 Gypsies.



I have a huge pile of metal hardware, both found and bought/altered and I scooped up a batch of rusty metal washers.


I then die cut circles, cogs and gears using multiple colors of card stock and patterned paper.



Finally I spent some time creating the page, moving the pieces around until I found a composition that I liked. I glued all the paper and hardware to my hand painted background and then added the word 'explore' with rub-on letters.











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Supply List

Spellbinders Paper Art Supplies:

GC-001 SpellbindersTM Grand Calibur® Machine
S4-116 Standard Circles Small Spellbinders Nestabilities ®
S5-048 Sprightly Sprockets Spellbinders Shapeabilities ®
S4-386 Cogs Spellbinders Nestabilities ®

Cross Promotional Partners: 7 Gypsies patterned paper

Other: watercolor paper, card stock, book board, gesso, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, paint brush, adhesive, leafing pen, rub-on letters, found metal washers