Fifth Anniversary Blog Giveaway

April marks my blog's fifth anniversary.  To celebrate, I'm giving away a small 2½ x 3½ inch handmade, 26-page book. The single sheet binding I learned at ArtFest in a workshop taught by Brenda Shackleford.
The pages lay flat which makes it easier to use.  Besides the little book, a white gel pen and a journal zine are included in the giveaway.

  Hand-painted, decorative papers grace the right hand pages...

 and black and white pages are on the left hand pages.

Many ask, "why do you publish a blog?"  The blog chronicles my creative journey.  My goal was to post once a week and I've mostly kept this schedule.  I can refer back to artwork created, travels taken, art retreats attended, books read and places where we've sketched.  The blog connects me to other bloggers who are artists.  It's a small community and I've met many fellow artists over the years.

The blog puts my art out into the world for others to see.  At first, this seemed a very scary thing to do.  The process emboldens me to continue.  I show my work at the Friends of the Library Store and at the Portland Art Collective Open Doors Show.  Those who cannot come to these venues can still see my artwork online.

Thank you readers for taking the time to stop by and see what I'm doing.  To win the little book, leave a comment on this post and I'll randomly select a winner on April 30th.  Good luck!

Art Group Outings to Seattle and Oregon Coast

Be with those who help your being. -RUMI

Rumi's quote sums up my feeling about my art group friends. They nurture and support me in so many different ways both as an artist and as a person. The Portland Art Collective took a day trip to Seattle to see the Seattle Art Museum's Gauguin Polynesia exhibit. Polynesian art influenced Gauguin's paintings along with his idealized vision of Tahitian culture. He painted with very thin layers of paint where the canvas often showed through his paint. His use of color impressed me the most. Check out these short videos about his life and art HERE.

We spent a glorious afternoon exploring shops downtown Seattle and Pike Place Market where the tulips filled up the flower booths. It was a sunny, warm day and we didn't even need our jackets. Here's a PAC blog post with more photos of our trip- HERE.


This week, I spent time at Seaside on the Oregon Coast with another group of art friends.

It's great to feel so connected to art friends. They feed my soul. I'm so grateful for each one.

Brenda Shackleford's Book Binding Workshop

Brenda Shackleford taught my last ArtFest workshop entitled "Get Your Sheets Together". It's a book binding method based on Keith Smith's "Single Sheet Sewing". In May, I'm planning a trip to New Mexico and decided to bind my travel journal using this technique.

A highlight of this day was spending it with friends and fellow students- Penelope Harris, Marty Wallace, Jann Sage and Karen Shafer.

This technique is great for binding together all different kinds of materials- heavy paper, metal, wood, canvas, pieces of artwork, artist trading cards, you name it. I took the covers of an old dictionary, attached ribbons to the cover and a NM state map on the inside cover.

The pages are from a box of 3M graphic arts film that someone in my art group gave to me years ago. The heavy paper sheets measure 16x20 inches and are like 300# hotpress watercolor paper. I tested it and it takes water media and ink really well. I think this was the the paper between the sheets of the film in the box. It says use before 2/93 on the label. I cut the pages to size and added some folded file folder pockets that I stitched on the spine side with the cover ribbon.
I'm looking forward to binding other books using this sewing method. I like how the pages lay flat which makes them easier to write text, sketch images and paint. Next month, I'll post photos of my completed travel journal.

Mary Beth Shaw ArtFest Fear No Paint Workshop

Mary Beth Shaw taught my second ArtFest workshop entitled "Fear No Paint". For the first layers, we used a variety of mixed media- inks, pastels, gel pens, brush pens, gesso, texture with stencils.
We painted the next few layers, sanded areas and added some fluid acrylics. I like how this painting turned out.

This one needs more work and I may rotate the position of the canvas.
It's all in the details and is better to see up close.

This is another painting that I want to continue to paint and maybe rotate the orientation.
What I like about Mary Beth's paintings are her textures, contrast in color which you can see in these detail shots of my painting. In the last two paintings, I want to improve their compositions.

For more of Mary Beth's techniques, check out her book "Flavor for Mixed Media- a feast of techniques for texture, color and layers". Her website is located HERE.

A Great ArtFest Experience

My ArtFest journey began with anticipation, excitement and the bittersweet knowledge that this is the last one. I first attended ArtFest in 2002. It opened up a whole new community of creative souls and the realization that I could become an artist, too. Here's a peek at my journal and trip.
First, I drove to Vashon Island to visit my dear friend, Marianne. It gave me a few days of rest and relaxation before driving up to Port Townsend. I read online about Jill Berry's Ultimate ArtFest Journey Map and wanted to receive one.
She had us fold the map for a pop up book which I put in my journal. Check out her blog post about this map HERE.

My housemates made the whole ArtFest experience even better- Cathy Norris, Tory Brokenshire, Dayna Collins and Kelly Zijlstra. Thank you for all of your sharing and fun times. Check out Dayna's ArtFest post HERE.

Lisa Bebi taught my first workshop entitled "Vintage Villages Color book". I like the impressionistic look to her paintings. We worked with a very different color palette for me- creamsicle orange, lavender, bright green and turquoise, hot pink, light blue and cream- all very pastel colors. We sprayed butterscotch color wash yellow tones to warm up the backgrounds. It was a challenge for me to not have yellow, red and black paint. We concentrated on mid tones and shadows. I spent the day with Delorse Lovelady and Stephanie Brockway.







My next post will highlight my second workshop with Mary Beth Shaw.