Join Us For Our Nature Gathered Show

The Nature Gathered artist reception at the Sixth Street Gallery will be on Friday, August 7, 2009 during the Vancouver, Washington Downtown Art Walk, from 5-9 pm. PLEASE join us! We will have live music, food and refreshments at the gallery. In addition, the August Art Walk includes Art in the Heart which features artists demonstrating the creation of their art in front of the various galleries. Our show will be on display at the gallery from August 8 through August 28.
The Sixth Street Gallery celebrates their Fifth Annual Fiber Arts Festival at the same time as the Nature Gathered Show. Both exhibits will display a variety of artwork you don't want to miss. I feel very fortunate to participate in the Nature Gathered Show.

Gem Faire Crocheted Wire Necklace

Before going on vacation, I took a crochet wire class at the Bead Faire from Jade Gunnarson. She's a jewelry designer and offers classes for Gem Faire. The examples of her jewelry designs linked above come from Kazuri- handcrafted beads from Kenya.
My art and craft interests started with beading. I've always wanted to learn how to crochet with wire. The necklace contains tiger eye, crystals and seed beads. It's a fun process and very different than crocheting with fibers. Jade is a great teacher and I highly recommend her Gem Faire classes.

Sawtooth Mountain Experience

Last week, we drove our 1955 Chevy Belair Nomad to Boise for the National Nomad Association Convention. We took a day trip to the Sawtooth Mountains and drove along the Payette River.

stopped in Stanley for lunch

took a boat trip on Redfish Lake

took a little hike in the wilderness area

enjoyed being outdoors in the mountains near this beautiful lake

A Banner Day- How I Created It

Today is our Portland Art Collective picnic and we made banners to exchange. I cannot wait to see what everyone created and to hang them in my studio.
I started with a collage of my drawings and sketches combined in Photoshop.

Added a layer of dyed paper towel sheets (pulled apart, one sheet becomes transparent).

Sewed on a couple strips of fabric

Stenciled a flower (cannot get away from stenciling after Mary Ann's online class).

To embellish the banner, I added a free-motion stitched flower & button, canvas printed 'Blossom' text, 3-D gold fabric paint flower center and sheer ribbon sewn around the edges. Hope you have a banner day, too.

ArtFiberFest Charms and Paverpol

Here's my work from two other ArtFiberFest workshops. Ty and Marcia Schultz taught us how to use the fabric/textile hardener called Paverpol to make sculpted forms. I used it to transform crocheted dollies into little bowls.

To sculpt figures we made armatures of wire and aluminum foil wrapped in Paverpol-wetted strips of cotton T-shirt material. This product can be used with any natural fibers- even bird's nests.

A paper clay face, gauze hair and paint completed her look. She needed something to add more interest and color.The next day, I attended Mary Stanley's Charm School and made the little bird that sits in her hand.

Here's some of the other fabric charms and beads that I made. Mary inspired me to create fabric jewelry and gave many ideas to use in future projects.

Soft Sculpture Elephant from ArtFiberFest

ArtFiberFest exceeded my expectations this year and I came away from this retreat inspired to create more fiber art. Teesha and Tracy Moore organize this art retreat. You can check out Teesha's AFF photo slide show on her blog here. I enjoyed all of my workshops, especially Jen McGahan's soft sculpture class.

I still need to finish this character- add tusks, feet and his Indian magic carpet.

The drawing below inspired me.

Here he is in fiberfill, wrapped muslin before being transformed with fabric.

I was planning to make soft sculpture animals for our PAC Open Doors Show this December but think they are too time consuming- maybe smaller versions. It's fun to work in 3-D for a change.