layered movement {katie kendrick- seattle}

despite our midwest weather i was able to sneak away and go to seattle last weekend for Katie Kendrick's Layered Movement class. i loved Katie's spirit and it was exactly where my soul had needed to be and what i needed to hear.

the class was held at the Miller School of Art and the pic below was in this school and was done by Mark Miller. i got to meet him on friday when i got into town, and he was so down to earth and even explained a bit about the piece below- how he got the pic and made it. the sheets are metal and are a slippery surface to work on so it was interesting to hear his process.  

i loved the feel of the city- especially where i was at. i was not able to see and do the normal tourist things....and i was totally ok with that.

so on to class.....

we did a meditation to begin with and then a warm up; and then moved to our canvas......we were supposed to find our spirit and after talking about grounding ourselves with roots to the earth and feeling the warmth from above- it seemed so natural to start with green gold for my girl.

and i loved her immediately. and had to move past this love to keep going. and that was part of the process as well....moving past the "like" phase to keep working to find the love.

this is where she ended.....and she would come from the earth.

so my first morning had gone stellar....very hard to keep that flow going all day. so of course, after lunch with the prompts given, i was working and working.....and working. i had worked too wet and didn't have a dryer, so frustration was setting in.

the pink was my selection of frustration as it was a soft pastel that i used to cover all of my sins below.

i did come to terms with this painting and liked what i ended with, but it just had not come as easy as the morning. i actually gave this painting to my family that i stayed with. (that is a whole 'nother story...they are family but we had never met- and yet, they welcomed me into their home like we had grown up together....so very kind).

and sunday morning when my family and i were eating breakfast we were all visiting. i apparently needed to hear the words as the words rang all the way to my core and i knew that this painting would have to stay with my family and hang in their home as part of this seattle journey.

we went for pizza in our neighborhood for supper and a small group of us returned to paint just a bit more..... turned to my art journal and the paper and charcoal would find this sprite.

this would be the start for day 2. colorful messiness with a sprinkle of chaos.

here is Katie....talking, explaining and doing her thing.

and for me....i loved this stage in her work and would have struggled to get past this point; but, Katie kept working.

and working and contemplating paint....

i loved the whole experience this brought.....the city, so industrial and full of interest. trendy and cool, almost addicting. warmer than my home area right now, without being hot; in fact the mornings were chilly. the area i was in was fairly easy to navigate and i would have enjoyed more time there just to look. and the food....omg. so very good- everything was. seafood, pizza, pasta, pastries, coffee and the even the smoothie in a mason jar. good thing i didn't stay longer- i would have needed to stayed on a treadmill for an entire weekend!

thank you katie and lory; and you kind spirits that i met there. i needed all of you. needed to hear the words and stories; feel the canvas and paper, and draw and paint and to be in that seattle-layered moment.

happy friday.

art journal {sprinkled}

i can hardly wait..... tomorrow at this time i will be packing my bags to fly out to Seattle for an art class. i was even able to breathe a sigh of relief as i had gotten a confirmation that my box of supplies i had packed and mailed arrived safety and has been picked up. i owe a special thank you for the help!

and back to the task at hand....art journaling. these pages....gesso'd up. 

layered with vintage collage papers and then, bring on the acrylic and hi-flow paints. 

wet, dry, pick and peel.

and once i had a bit of stuff down, i spied the bag of paper dots trying to hide behind my table light, and knew immediately that these pages needed to be sprinkled with happiness paper dots.

sometimes i wish i could just sprinkle those dots everywhere. they just make me happy. if you do not like finding paper dots almost everywhere though....you shouldn't use these. most will stick to your pages- but, i guarantee you will find paper dots in unlikely places.....just saying.

love the flow of dark on these shots....

vintage paper, paper dots, much happiness....

love the reveal below.

and this corner below....much love.

happy thursday!

wednesday's girl: teabag printing

wednesday's girl: teabag print with pencil and charcoal

art journal

i had this idea floating around in my head after listening to a post by Erin Faith Allen. i posted her video on my FB page. loved her layers and how Erin worked and peeled.

below is my interpretation:

happy monday,

a few of my favorite things

one week from today (but who is counting.....), i will get on a plane and head to Seattle for Layers of Movement art class by Katie Kendrick. i cannot tell you how excited i am go be going! 

so in preparation for class i have been stocking up on a few of my favorite things to ensure i had what i needed for class (at least this is what i told my husband....). we are to be painting big- at least a 30" x 30".....because i am flying and having to mail my stuff, i may paint a bit smaller at 20" x 20" but, i took this opportunity to stock up (for class).

Katie asked that we bring a 1", 1.5", and a 2" foam brush and a couple of rollers. i was snooping around at Dick Blick's and found this whole bag! because who only needs one?!....

and, we were supposed to bring stick charcoal in various sizes- this fit that bill perfectly! (again from Dick Blick's)

Katie specified this Lyra pencil. super excited to used this as i have not had one of these previously. have you used one of these? does it sit and stay on the paper? or will it bloom with water? may have to try it before i pack this one.

grabbed a few more Stabilo pencils. absolutely love these!

these are some of my favorite hi-flow acrylics. if you want a really nice neutral- that is also transparent- it is the shy Shading Grey bottle that is 2nd from the right. it is by far my favorite- hands down.

happy friday!

lesson and a tip

i worked last night to get my permission, contributor info, caption and a great photo of my art work submitted for the book Incite 4. most of it was easy- sign here and there; i am the artist - check, and i own the copyright- check, check. the tricky part was photographing my art work.

i had already put a varnish finish onto the piece so i had one corner was that particularly tricky- as it kept looking "foggy." i must have taken at least 30 photos over 2 hours last night moving the lights in small increments, smoothing my background, moving my camera millimeters to try and get the best photo.

now that i had a great photo- the submission info for the photo stated that i needed to have 300 dpi for my pic. what in the heck does this mean? and how do i verify that i have that? especially after i spent almost 2 hours trying to get a good pic and now my pic info is only showing how many pixels my photo is......

after much googling and reading several articles that really had not been helpful, i found one that explained how to figure this dpi thing out and made it super easy! **so here is the lesson: if you know how many inches are allowed for the photo, you take the 300 (dpi) x the number of inches = the number of pixels that you can have.

i could have a print area for my photo of 9" x 12" so i took the 300 x 9 = 2700 pixels for my height, and 300 x 12 = 3600 for the width; and my actual pixels were 2232 x 2554. i couldn't be beyond that allowable number of pixels i had calculated- so i was able to determine....i was good!

and now the tip.....have you had to send a pic and/ or documents to someone and needed or wanted to know that they had received it for sure? in the past i have used dropbox. and this has worked really well, but, .......

with this process, i was asked to use something called WeTransfer. super impressed with this!! it is free, and allowed me to send the pic, and all of my documents in one folder. it also sent me an email saying what i had put into my folder to send, and will notify me when my recipient has opened and downloaded my stuff. loved this!!

this post is for you. (but, selfishly, it is really for me for next time!)

happy wednesday!

collage {Colette Copeland}

i had been coveting this paper collage piece from Colette Copeland and finally made the purchase. if you are not familiar with her work- click on her name to visit her blog; and here is a link to her etsy store.

(in the photo above- off to the right, Colette included a few postcards for me as well. the heart is part of my stamp set- DreamThicket which is available at PaperBag Studios.)

i love the photo of the mom and baby and the red velvet piece sewn and hanging from the photo. the postcard immediately below is written in french.

 i think part of the charm for me at least is the fact that she had sewn all of the paper together.

happy monday...

in a series {cards}

these started out as thank you cards- and by the time i was finished....i was thinking more that this had been a great lesson of doing a series. all the colors are the same and marks are similar, but, each card is just a bit different of course. 

tell me which ones are your favorites.

i was thinking of posting these to my etsy store?......let me know.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

have a favorite? i think mine is 10- but, i have some very close runners up....happy wednesday!