A Big Thank You to All Who Came to our Open Doors Show and Sale

Thanks to all who stopped by my booth at the Portland Art Collective Open Doors Show and Sale to say hello. It's fun to see friends and family. Your support means a lot. I appreciate all who offered good wishes and were there in spirit, too.

For more photos of the show check out the post by Dayna Collins on our Portland Art Collective blog HERE

and to learn more about the Portland Art Collective listen to an interview with Robin Olsen and Lorraine Jones hosted by Eva Lake that aired on KBOO radio HERE

Journal Kits for Open Doors Art Show and Sale

This year for our Portland Art Collective Open Doors Art Show and Sale, I've made journal kits. Each kit includes a twenty page 5 x 8 inch journal with Vellum Bristol 80# paper, a Pentel water brush and a Coptic Multiliner water proof pigment ink pen and...

a palette with fifteen different Peerless Transparent Water Colors. A "How-to-Journal" Zine completes the kit.
The kit contains everything that one needs to make a travel, garden, art or personal journal.

Wild Arts Festival

Each year, the Portland Audubon Society sponsors a Wild Arts Festival. Local artists create and donate 6x6 inch canvases with a bird theme to benefit Portland's wildlife. My contribution is entitled Frost Moon.

The 2011 Wild Arts Festival is November 19th & 20th at Montgomery Park. It's a wonderful opportunity to see nature-themed work by Northwest and nationally known artists and writers.

Don't Miss Stephanie Brockway's Show

Don't miss Stephanie Brockway's Circus Puppet Theater- Curiosities in Wood at the Guardino Gallery now through May 22nd.
She hand carved these puppets, named them and created stories for each character. She's published all in a book. It's a wonderful exhibit of her artwork.

Rose Garden Sketch with Costa Rican Artistas

Today, we sketched with artists from Costa Rica at Portland's Rose Garden in Washington Park. June is the best time to see the garden in full bloom. Clouds covered Mt. Hood but we got a good view of the city and the roses.

One of my favorite roses-

From left to right- Carolina, Cynthia, Rosmery, Sonia, Jeannette, Raquel and Ana.

Rosmery gave each of us one of her watercolors that she painted while in the garden. I'm going to have to play with using just watercolor with no pen. I love the use of water and paint to get different textures. Muchas gracias Rosmery!
The artists, Rosmery Vega, Sonia Alfaro, Jeanette Trejos and Raquel Mora, will show their artwork Saturday, July 10th from 3-8 pm at Onda Gallery on NE Alberta in an exhibit entitled, "Place and Imagination".
Please come to their artist reception, meet them and see their art. They belong to a woman's art collective called Jadeazul from Grecia, Costa Rica. Their trip to Oregon is hosted by Partners of the Americas.

Friends' Library Store Featured Artist for April

My friend, Lenall, asked if I'd be the feature artist for April at the Friends' Library Store located at the Multnomah Central Library downtown Portland. She manages the store and has featured many Portland Art Collective artists there.

The store displays some Nature Gathered pieces, cards of my artwork, flower sketch button pins, and jewelry- kimono bead and wire crochet necklaces, plus prayer box bracelets.
Please stop by and see what I've been creating.

Lucky Dress Form Find at Monticello Antiques

It's amazing when you put your radar out there to find something, it appears when least expected. I've been looking for a dress form to display my handmade jewelry at our Portland Art Collective 'Open Doors' Show. The perfect dress form found me today. I don't know how old it is but I love all the wing nuts and metal inner workings. It rests on a four claw-footed metal stand that can be floor or table height.

Here's the outer label. Thanks to our sketch date at Monticello Antiques, the discovery is made.

Stairway to Heaven- Last Nature Gathered Piece

Heavens was the last theme for our Nature Gathered art challenge. I made another art quilt using a sketch, fabric, hand and machine stitching and acrylic paint for the clouds and stairs. It's entitled 'Stairway to Heaven". Below is the sketch for this piece.

The Nature Gathered art challenge offered many opportunities to experiment with new techniques, work with my sketches and photos to develop a theme and share ideas and inspiration with other artists in the group. Doing one piece a month sometimes felt like a lot of work- to create a vision and then implement it with an 8x8 inch format. The rewards of doing this challenge are numerous- stretching boundaries, playing with new ideas, being attuned to the natural world, making new friends and creating a body of work. Our show at the Sixth Street Gallery in Vancouver ends tomorrow. I want to thank everyone who participated, especially Jan and Tracie Lyn for getting us all together.

If you want to see the two other art quilts that I made for the show Click Here and Here.

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.

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.

Thanks for Making our Open Doors Show a Success

Thanks to everyone who came to our Portland Art Collective "Open Doors" Art Show & Sale this
past weekend. We had two sunny days. Many friends, family members and art lovers came to see and buy our art. I've posted photos of other Portland Art Collective members' art on the PAC blog. The creativity in this group always amazes me.

Portland Art Collective Show Great Success

Our Portland Art Collective Show was a great success. In three hours, we transformed the Multnomah Arts Center gym into a winter wonderland of open doors. All of our hard work paid off with great art, attendance and response. Everyone enjoyed the hands-on demonstrations and sharing of creative energy.

I showed my monotype prints and three shrines. Below is detail of the shrine window on the right.Showing and selling my art is a new adventure- especially on this scale. I feel so fortunate to have the support of family, friends, and all the members of the Portland Art Collective. Thanks to all of you who came, said hello, bought art and enjoyed the show. A big thank you to Scott Jones for taking the photos.

Colorful Leaves, Value Study & Craft Fair

Playing with leaves and paint creates many different images. Here many layers of leaves were printed, stenciled and traced. To make the lines on the sides, I used a cork wrapped with a rubberband, added paint and rolled it onto the paper. Imagine what you could create with different sized rubberbands. This color palette is one of my favorites- French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and quinacridone gold. I'm going to press & preserve these leaves in a phone book to use during the year.

Using the French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, this value study was fun to make drawing trees one behind the other and painting the negative spaces with progressively darker mixes of watercolor.

The Clackamas County Arts & Craft Fair offered me the opportunity to share and sell some of my art. My Grandma Pearson made the beautiful quilt when she was in her 90's. I felt her presence with me all day. She taught me how to knit and crochet along with many other life lessons. I enjoyed the expereince, seeing former coworkers and meeting other artists. Plus, I met my goal in sales.