Giveaway to Celebrate Three Years Blogging

To celebrate the third anniversary of my blog and say thank you to all of my readers, I'm giving away this collage and stenciled piece that I created in Judy Wise's "Stencil Your Family" class a couple of years ago. It's unified with an encaustic layer of wax. Judy helped me start this blog and gave me lots of encouragement.

The stencil was created from a 1940's photograph of my mother fishing off Florida's east coast. It's called "Gone Fishing". She made a pretty good catch with a fish that size!

Make a comment on this post and I will put your name in a hat. Friday, April 30th, I will pull a name from the hat and post the winner's name. If I do not have your email address, you can contact me at ppmcnamee@gmail.com. Join in the fun and celebrate this anniversary.

Keeping a blog helps me chronicle my artwork, creative adventures and travels. Along the way, I've made friends, learned a lot and enjoy the exchanges and inspiration blog-land offers.

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.

Art Retreat, Kitchen Spirit Doll & Journal Stencils

Each Spring our Portland Art Collective members attend a retreat at Menucha in the Columbia River Gorge. It's a time to create, enhance friendships and enjoy nature. Below is a photo looking west just before sunset.
The sunset on this hot day colored the sky.

I finished a kitchen spirit doll for Mme Corbel Elisabeth, our five star chef at her Keraret Bed & Breakfast in Plouguiel, Brittany. She loves dolls and I promised to make her one.

Then, Cynthia and I got our our spray paint and stenciled in the calm morning. I took my journal that I made (see here) in January and sprayed away. I like how the red paint integrates the cover.

Here is another page with the red paint stenciled on to it. The red paint on the dark yellow on the left really shines.

This page, I sprayed with yellow paint.

Here's a page from my black and white journal.

If you are interested in stenciling, Mary Ann Moss is offering her online Stencilry class this month. I highly recommend it. It's full of resources, interesting videos and lesson plans.

Stencils with Adirondack Color Wash Sprays

This week, I assembled a new sketchbook using decorative paste paper that I'd made last year with stamps and texture tools. The paper needed some pizazz- stencils to the rescue. I sprayed the stencils with Adirondack Color Wash. It's an acid free, non-toxic, water-based dye that comes in a variety of colors. I like to use it because it's indoor safe. The green gold acrylic was stippled through a stencil and the reverse side printed.I treated the back cover with a different stencil and "raisin" Color Wash spray.
I drew these little clay animals this week for our Tuesday sketch date.

"Euphorbia Seasons " for Nature Gathered

Our Nature Gathered group selected seasons for the April challenge. Mine represents a variety of seasonal euphorbia. I discovered this plant last year and began taking photos. I didn't realize that poinsettia also belong in the euphorbia family. The outer edges are stenciled- an inspiration from Mary Ann's online class. I used Photo Shop to arrange and alter my photos.

Color My World- Stencils, Fibers, Paints

Yesterday, I was reminded how much I like color- bright, vibrant colors. A group of us helped a friend sew curtains and drapes for her historic home. The downstairs bedroom's warm marigold yellow and terra-cotta made me feel alive and full of energy- the colors of Mexico and India.

Earlier in the week, I completed a stenciled journal page too large to fit on my scanner. I appears in two parts here. I read another way to write haiku- one word, two words, a sentence, two words, one word.

sing, dawn joy, music comes on early morning breeze, different birdsong, listen

Sunday, I felted with Darlene and Sue and love the fiber colors.

Our Tuesday sketch group went to Monticello Antique Market. It poured down rain outside, but inside the watercolors caught my eye.

How is your world colored?

Stenciled Portfolio Fun to Make

Mary Ann challenged us to make portfolios in her Stencilry class this week. This is the best online class that I've take. Her videos, resources, ideas are wonderful. Plus, it is fun to see how and where she creates her art. I feel like I'm in sunny LA with her videos. Here in the NW we have to spray paint in between the rain showers. Below are the covers-
Here is the inside-

Now, I'm off to make background pages.

New Stencil Online Classs with Mary Ann Moss

Years ago I took a journal workshop from Randi and we spray painted our pages using stencils. Here's one of my pages.
Mary Ann Moss at Dispatch from LA is offering an online stencil class. I really like the layers she gets with her spray painted stencils in her journals and signed up for her class. You can still register and join the fun. It starts this Friday.

Art and Soul 2008 Fond Memories

Art and Soul proved to be a great retreat this year. I enjoyed seeing friends and making new ones plus teaching and taking classes. In Judy Wise's class we learned how to stencil our family photographs. Here is a stencil I cut from a 1940's photo of my mother catching a large fish off the Florida coast. I sprayed the stencil on collaged paper, collaged cut-out swimsuit and fish on top and covered everything with bees wax for a rich, textured look.

Melissa Hackmann taught us how to make accordion books and use them for sketching.

Albie Smith helped us create fabulous decorated papers and this book with multi-colored pages.

Jacqueline Newbold demonstrated how she uses watercolor in her travel sketchbooks. I learned
new watercolor techniques and ideas for keeping a travel journal.

Flora Drawn and Collaged Nature Gathered Challenge

The layering of paint, collage and line drawings interests me lately. Here is my interpretation of our Nature Gathered flora challenge.