Have a Seat

The chairs are done. Whew, I finished them just in time to fly out to the CHA show in Anaheim. I will write about that later, but I wanted you to see the chair pictures. They will serve as some of the centerpieces at ArtFeast this coming Saturday night, where they will also be auctioned off.

The chairs were made with a swimming noodle and carvable foam. I layered Rigid Wrap on top, then coated with Wood Icing. After sanding the surface smooth, I collaged and/or painted the chair. They were really a lot of fun to make.

 Did you notice the book that the bear is reading? Tee, hee, hee......

New Classes, busy, busy

I've been busy finalizing my classes for the year. Samples are due for Art Is.....East Coast and West Coast. I have developed new (never before taught) classes and I am rather excited about them. Here is a sneak preview.

I am really diggin' these pieces. The texture is interesting to me and I was having a lot of fun with the very limited palette and scraping, oh how I love to scrape.
I think I want to take these B-I-G......keep playing and see how big I can go.....

Of magic and hummingbirds

 I first met Jess at Squam a few years ago when she took one of my classes. She is a sweet and gentle soul. We caught up last year at Encausticamp when I was awestruck to watch her capture (and then release) a hummingbird which had flown into a classroom and was completely freaked out. What a magical moment.

I adore this picture and was thrilled to capture it on my phone (!!).

So Jess started this website called Seek Your Course. It is a genius concept whereby she has instructors and classes listed so that students can find courses that match up with their interests. There are individual classes and retreats and the site is growing all the time. Way cool, she is oh-so-smart.
More magic when I saw this review of my book. Oh my sweetness!!! I had no idea this was happening. What a lovely treat!
And I had totally forgotten about this interview I did quite a long time ago. Fun to see these things crop up.
It is Friday. I have had one of those weeks where I feel as though I have accomplishing nothing. Ugh, I hate it when that happens but I am trying to put a better face on it, focusing instead on all the amazing STARTS that I now have in place. Ahem, am I just deluding myself?? Do you guys do that too? Sometimes I wonder if I am just the Queen of Rationalization.
I could use some magic moments right about now so that I can pull it all together.....

Pull up a chair and stay awhile

And what is she doing now, you might ask?

Well, as I said, pull up a chair......

Remember last year it was all about hats. And in 2009, they were heads.  (wow I look young back then, geez.....).

Anyway, it's the time of year when Chesterfield Arts prepares for the annual ArtFeast fundraiser. I like to help with the decorations because it makes me crawl out of my box and stretch my artistic muscles.

And with Chairs as the theme, well how could I resist!! 

Shown is one batch of the Rigid-wrapped chairs awaiting decoration by artists - there are 50 total. We have another Papier-mâché party today. Last week I drank wine through a straw 'cause my hands were so yuck I could never have managed a glass. How pitiful. But, in defense of my own behavior, we had been working for hours and hours and were just slightly slap happy.

The chairs will serve as centerpieces at the ArtFeast event and will then be auctioned off. I have committed (or I should be committed, I can't remember) to decorate 4 of them. I am apparently planning some sort of timewarp experience as I don't know when I thought I would do all this. Ahem. You have heard this before, haven't you, my dear readers?

Somebody slap me in the head already.

And guess what? Art Unraveled is officially OPEN tomorrow.

Master Class

Seth Apter's Master Class is up and you can find my comments over there along with others......I enjoy these features so much. Thank you, Seth for your genius in doing this. I so appreciate your time in organizing and sharing with others!! 

http://thealteredpage.blogspot.com/

 

Saturday means Valley Ridge

Valley Ridge registration starts this Saturday.

I am really rocked about my collaborative class, which opens the 'season' at VR. My studio partner, Julie Snidle and I will be teaching together and it is all about wax. We will start out by making Batik papers, which is something I love to do. And truly, I could probably spend the entire 3 days doing nothing but that, I like it so much. But wait, there's more! Then we move into encaustic paintings and spend a day with that. The third day we step it up one more notch by adding mixed media to our encaustic paintings. Three whole days of waxy wonder. Ah, life is good.

Julie and I really dig the idea of introducing encaustic painting to people. It's hard to 'get' on your own. I tried learning from books and even an online site, but this is one medium where it really really makes a difference to work together. In person. And the intimacy of Valley Ridge is perfect!  

 Just to be clear, you will still get tons from the class if you already know about encaustics. I mean we have soooo many tricks up our sleeves......I just can't wait!

One of the best parts of this workshop is the non-schlep factor. We are bringing nearly everything you need. All sorts of incredible supplies so you can learn and play and decide which parts of the process you like best before you invest in all the stuff. I think you know what I mean about that, huh.
Anyway, I hope you come join us. This one is going to be special.

Playing

 Mixed media on watercolor paper. These are painted with a palette knife which didn't work as well as I hoped on the paper. Then I collaged things onto them - parts - some cut out of my palette paper plates, some are Citrasolve papers. I was mainly having fun with shape.  I think that bottom one, with I am calling "Point Taken" may actually go another direction? But I think it maybe works this way too.

Gifts from me to me

Uh yeah, I guess I bought myself even more than I mentioned here.
I was at Artmart last week, that is our local art store extraordinaire. They have great buyers who stock the place with all the goodies you want. I mean seriously.
Anyhoo, they had this metallic set of encaustic paints from R+F.  This is the set.  I really wanted it, oh did I ever, swoon....... Lucky for me I had a 40% coupon burning a hole in my pocket so poof! They are mine.

I have been playing with encaustics a lot recently. I found that if you use a certain white (sadly, I don't know which one cause the label is missing from mine) plus a metallic, you can get these totally wild effects. I like heating the encaustic paint until it is molten, where it is kind of swimming on the substrate. I love to watch the colors move in and out of each other. There is a certain point where they repel one another, the colors do, and it is just magic. I could watch this all day long. Way cool.

And another thing I got were earrings. For many years I have had double piercings in both ears. I usually wear pearls that John gave me in the top hole, but I wanted another pair, more simple. I found them on this site. I wanted really small and delicate studs. Grace makes them, you can see a few more pairs here.