Prayer Flags for Sandy Hook

Yesterday, a group of art friends got together and created fifty prayer flags for Sandy Hook school children in Newtown CT.  Lieghanna Light started The Hope Flag Project.  You can check out her Facebook page about the project HERE.

It's a little something that we can do to offer hope and best wishes to this community in need.  There's still time to make some hope flags and send them to Lieghanna by January 2nd.

Happy Winter Solstice

Today, we welcome the Winter Solstice and the light.  My calligraphy class exchanged weather grams this week.  The rain stopped and we got a chance to hang them in the tree outside my studio

I like the act of writing a saying for the weather gram, putting pen to paper and sharing thoughts of the season.  This is the one that I created-

Here are the rest of the class weather grams-

Hope you're enjoying the holiday season with family and friends, too.

Bookhand and Gift Wrap

All year, I've studied and practiced calligraphy with my classes at the Multnomah Arts Center.  Our instructor suggested that we use our practice sheets as gift wrap.  I love this idea and everyone who receives a gift wrapped in this paper seems to really appreciate it.

Fall term, I took Humanist Bookhand.  For the final project, I made a card and some bookmarks with this French Proverb-

We also started to learn the Roman Capitals.  Oh how, I need to practice these letters!  I understand that it takes years to master the Imperial Latin alphabet.  I'll have lots more practice sheets for gift wrap.

I decided to practice the Uncial hand to create some Christmas gift wrap.  Here's a look at one practice sheet.

I'm exploring other ways to use my calligraphic skills and have started pinning images on my Pinterest boards.  Do you have any ideas?  All are welcome and thanks for sharing.

Book Cover Made with Silk Remnants

Last week, I showed the sari silk fabric strips that I gleaned from rag rugs and made into needle holders. Today, I want to show you a little five inch square book that I made with this fabric.  The  signatures are made with Stonehenge printing paper.  The inside cover is made of gold-toned fabric and the tie is Dupioni silk.  I really like the colors, textures and patterns of these fabric strips.

Fun with Fabirc Strip Stash

I'm having great fun with my new sari silk fabric strip stash.  The first thing that I made is this needle holder.  The photo doesn't describe how soft the fabric strips feel.

Here are some of the fabric strips and the variety of colors and patterns from my stash.

Tory Brokenshire inspired me to go to Fred Meyers and purchase four cotton rugs made in India.  Check out her blog post about her rag rug project  HERE.  I took the rugs apart, washed the strips in hot water, separated them by color.

Here's a closer look at the label.  They are not 100% cotton but do contain some cotton.  Look closely for bits of metallic threads for a rug that contains sari silk remnants.  Some strips may be junk cotton fabric.  It's the luck of the draw to find lots of sari silk fabric.

Here's a selection of the fabric strips that I used to make a second needle holder.

The finished project.

This is a fun, inexpensive way to collect a great stash of fabric strips.  Stay tuned for the next project that I made with them.  Thank you, Tory, for the inspiration.

Portland Audubon's Wild Art Project This Weekend

A couple months ago, I received a call to artists from the Audubon Society of Portland for their Wild Arts Project.  Check out my 2011 bird here.  I picked up my 6x6 inch canvas from Dick Blick downtown and created "Upon a Perch" with collaged paste and dictionary page papers, ink and acrylic paint.  The card below shows some of last years artwork.  Other Portland Art Collective Members participated and see their birds here.

The Wild Arts Festival starts Saturday, November 17th, at 10am at Montgomery Park.  The 6x6 birds cost $40 and  go on sale at 10:30am.  All proceeds go to the Audubon Society of Portland.

Check out their website for more information and a slide show of last years bird art HERE.

More Pages from Los Angeles Travel Journal

Here it's November and I'm finishing my LA travel journal.  I collaged the cover with a variety of decorative papers, photos and stenciled the letters.  The day after the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens, we visited the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades.  Getty built a replica of a 79AD Pompeii villa overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  His collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities are housed here.

The symmetry and gracefulness of the gardens, water features, statues and mural paintings make the villa a stunning place to visit.

I also enjoyed walking under the grape arbor in the herb garden.

On Friday, we visited a friend in La Habra.  She took us on a tour of the old towns of Fullerton and Whittier.  With 100°F heat, the dunk in the swimming pool felt really good.  I could get used to this California lifestyle.

Saturday, we visited the Getty Center in the hills north of Santa Monica.  The highlight was a Gustav Klimt exhibit featuring his drawings, "The Magic of Line".

The children's store featured large posters highlighting the ABC's of art.  I took photos of the letter posters and then added a few letters of my own in my journal pages.

On Sunday, we spent the day in Long Beach and ate lunch at Parkers' Lighthouse in the Shoreline Village.

The back cover sums up LA and getting around the city-  Freeways.

Los Angeles Travel Journal

I had a wonderful time visiting my friend, Jean, in Los Angeles.  We experienced a cultural whirlwind of activities. Here's a few pages from my journal.

We explored museums, restaurants and the Southern California sunny lifestyle.

One of my favorite places included The Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino just west of Pasadena.  The botanical gardens cover 120 acres and feature several different gardens.

From stately palm trees...

to the incredible desert garden- my favorite...

The Library houses an enormous and varied collection of rare books and manuscripts.  A couple of my favorites included The Battista Agnese Protolan Atlas ca 1540 hand written and drawn on vellum...

and Robert Hooke's book Micrographia written and illustrated in London 1665, first edition.

The Huntington would be top on my list to visit again.  Who could ask for anything more than beautiful gardens, manuscripts and art all housed in one location.  I'll be posting more of my travel journal pages and photos soon.

Moving On...

Members of the Portland Art Collective decided not to continue our Open Doors Art Show and Sale. We celebrated our success with a party.  Each person received a booklet.  Through a guided imagery exercise of our show history, we created our impressions of this journey.  Here's a look at my booklet and experience.  We contributed one-inch squares to have a little piece of art from each person in our book.

My experience is one of evolving into an artist, learning to put my art out in public, market and sell it.  Click onto the photo to enlarge it.

The Open Doors Show offered me a chance to learn about marketing, finance, organizing and hanging a show.  Through this process, I've made good friends, created a body of artwork and took pride in all that we accomplished in the five years that we held the show. 

For the cover, I used some of my new lettering arts skills.

back cover...

Thanks to all of my blog readers who came to the show and supported it.  For now, I want to finish some projects, continue learning how to paint, use color, collage and develop my style - to keep evolving.

Follow me on Pinterest

Friends encouraged me to join the online visual bulletin board, Pinterest.  I finally did it and added a link to my blog.  It's a work in progress, a fun way to get inspiration, keep track of favorite artists, teachers and what's important in my life. Thanks for checking it out.

From My Sketchbook

The past month, we sketched a couple times at Luscher Gardens.  This community garden is one of my favorites.  Late summer flowers bloom -the dahlias and sunflowers- vegetables ripen ready to harvest.

A sketchy, watercolor landscape-

Swiss chard-

 Lots of  brown-eye susans-

 

all planted in large groupings-

and one of my favorite summer flowers- hollyhocks

Hope you're enjoying summer.  I feel Autumn in the air and changes in the season coming.