It was too damn cold to do anything else so....

This past weekend was my 3rd annual ITDCSWMAWMA Retreat
(It's Too Damn Cold So We Might As Well Make Art)

My sister Cecelia from Chicago flies in - she works in water color and mixed media collage

My friend Shari drives across town- she is also a mixed media artists and right now she is into encaustic

I host the event here in the studio.

Here are a few pieces we worked on:

we experimented with color mixing ( Thank you Mary Beth Shaw  for color mixing 101)

we made some really cool art papers!
(Thinned down gloss medium, tissue paper and string, Golden acrylics)

I purchased some Derwent Artbar crayons and we got to play with them. We used Tattered Angels Pure Mistable Paper Frayed Cotton

I think the Artbars are my new favorite wet/dry material to use. I like them better than watercolor pencils.

Shari Kratoska  played with encaustics- I think I need to just spend one whole day with her and the wax

 

   I revisited an old canvas and added more to it

 

We played, experimented, discovered, laughed, ate, talked and bonded. My daughter Biz was home unexpectedly and spent Saturday with us working on a project for school. I have been after Cecelia for several years to try her hand at an altered book. Last year I got her to start one using an old record album book. She painted the sleeves and did some stenciling on the cover and then abandoned it. This year I showed her an up-cycled book I had made using just a cover and filling it with new pages. She made this beautiful book with recipes in it to give as a gift. I was slightly jealous because hers was way better than mine.

 

 

    I started a new canvas. I am trying to paint faces. I am only brave enough to do this since I bought the Stencil Girl face map stencils. I have a long way to go before this one is finished. It was a great weekend and one we look forward to each winter when it's just too damn cold to do anything else!



 



 

 

 

 

 

Is it over? Really?

I just realized school starts in a little over a week and I haven't DONE anything this summer.

Where does the time go?

375 kids participated in art and craft classes this summer. Some days were pretty wild and crazy but we had a lot of fun. And it doesn't seem like it but this is my last week of summer classes.

 
One of my new classes this summer was Altered Doll Houses. We used cigar boxes to create miniature doll houses. There were two haunted houses, one mermaid house and a couple of wodland fairy houses. Who says kids today don't have an imagination?

Some of the details they put into their houses was amazing. Somer's haunted house has fourtune telling room with a crystal ball and a glow in the dark lantern. Her rocking chair wasade out of balsa wood.


Katie's mermaid house has a bed a mermaid would be proud of. made from two scallop shells and a shiney blue and silver blanket. She also made a sea shell framed mirror with a drift wood shelf and an armoire for all those mermaid accessories. The other room in her house is where her mermaid keeps all her treasures. This one is a work in progress because we keep finding things that would be perfect in the treasure room and keep adding to it.

I like the use of wood slices for tables and chairs in Melissa's woodland fairy house. The window with the half circle at the top in the blue room has a magazine picture behind it of an outdoor woods scene. 

This summer we built sand castles out of sand clay, tree houses out of branches and wove rugs using old t-shirts. We created pictures from broken bits of glass and picture frames from sea shells. We painted t-shirts and decorated canvas tennis shoes and made headbands that anyone would love to wear. We altered books and records and made lanterns from cupcake liners.....

Ahhhh...summertime.....

this is why I do it

Every now and then a person comes into your life who reaffirms why you do what you do. I love working with young people especially when they 'get' it and can step outside the box and run with an idea...

 This is Sam's book filled with poetry and images that mean something to her. It's been a fun process working with this young woman. 

Thanks Sam for 'getting' it'.