Success is a Journey not a Destination

I am back from France. We got back Saturday night, late, after a bunch of frustrating airline situations. Once we had started home I was intent on seeing my kitties, could imagine myself cuddling up with them, especially that purr-meister Remington. It was hard to wait....and wait...and wait.
So now we are home and I have jumbled thoughts about my trip. Thinking about it brings tears of joy to my eyes and I find myself without words. How to explain the amazing beauty that is the south of France. How to convey the intimacy of friendship - sharing this charmed time with 8 students, all such incredible human beings. Each person penetrated my soul with memories of a lifetime, thus is the privilege of sharing a trip such as this with like minded people.
And the food, the wonderful fresh and colorful food, so pure and good.
Simply put, the trip restored me.


After the class, John and I went to Paris. We visited museums that I previously only dreamed of seeing. Saw so many world class paintings that I overflow with inspiration. I want to capture my thoughts, but it is like trying to hold sand in my fingers.
The words will come, I know this will happen. And then the paintings. Or maybe it will be the other way around, who knows?
In the meantime, I leave you with this picture of an Organ Grinder, the only thing lacking was a monkey. I hear the tune from our studio apartment, then looked out my window (I was in Paris, oh my!) to see this guy, plucked from central casting, walking down the street. My picture is horrible as there was a delivery van. But I will never forget the sheer joy on that man's face - I leaned out the window and waved in delight.
Such magic is France.

In case you Missed my Webinar

Here is a link so you can watch the free Webinar if you happened to miss it. Lots of good information on creating TEXTURE in Mixed Media artworks.

Yay, the Chair is done!!

And here it is......

I am happy to report the client was very pleased. Not to mention me too. I have to say I had tremendous fun playing with all the patterns to create the look of fabric. Obviously I had a few challenges along the way, but I learned so much and would welcome this kind of project again.
Honestly, I don't think it is necessary for me to wear the client's LOGO color to the unveiling though, huh? Geez........

Progression of the Chair

When I last left you, I was working feverishly to finish the chair before the June 2nd unveiling event. My chair was just one of 23 chairs that would be shown to the public that night and I certainly didn't want to be the 'late' one......no way!

After completing the background on the bottom part of the chair, I decided to look at some of my 'papers' - these being papers I had created from the Client's materials. I considered upholstering (that is how I came to think of this collage - the upper half of the piece. In the end, I determined that I wanted the entire chair to be covered with the background paper I had made, so I finished that portion of the collage.

Whew, I got the background done. The photo above shows my consideration of the Logo pieces as creating a striped design element. And just in the nick of time (before gluing) my eagle eye noticed that the logo had a definite orientation. Thank goodness I saw that! So I made sure the Logos were facing the right way as they moved around the chair.

I call this "audition of the plaid." The pattern was created by repeated use of the QR code and this quickly became my favorite part of the chair - it just looked so cool. You probably also notice that I had to put some circles on the chair, using the StencilGirl Bubble stencil. You know I couldn't do this without using a stencils, ha!!!
Stay tuned for the final result in a couple of days........