Adventures in Paper Marbling

At the end of June, the Milwaukee ATC group had Betsy Rasmussen of Ruth Ross Designs teach us paper marbling, and if you live in the Milwaukee area, we all highly recommend taking a class from Betsy (and you can find some of her upcoming workshops listed here).
 
She had all the workstations, paper, paint and sizing set up ahead of time so we just had to show up and follow directions to get fantastic results! Here's what I made:


Don't ask me what I plan to do with these yet. I haven't been able to bring myself to cut them up!

And thank you to Darlene Hagopian and Riverwest Artist Association for use of the Jazz Gallery space.

September & October workshops & artsy stuff

Life has been busy this fall so it's time to catch up on the bloggin'! Since my last post in mid-September, I took two workshops organized for the Milwaukee Artist Trading Card group by group member Gary). MKE ATC member Lynne taught an ATC background workshop before our September meeting. We had a lot of fun making colorful serendipity collage backgrounds, and as a result I got a lot of ATCs made for our future trades!

These use images from the Ten Two Studios "Tinted Twenties Cuties" image CD. You can see pix from the workshop and complete set of ATCs in my Flickr photostream

In October we met at RedLine Milwaukee, a wonderful non-profit community art studio that includes a print shop and paper making space. Artist Dara Larson showed us how to make ATC-sized papers and carve printing blocks to decorate them. Here's Mel pulling her first set of handmade paper ATCs:

And my paper "wet off the press"!

(I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with them.)
Since Halloween was fast approaching I made a Day of the Dead stamp design, of course, inspired by the figure they had on display in the print shop.

More photos are here. If you live in the Milwaukee area be sure to check out RedLine's upcoming workshops.

"Inspire My Life" Art Retreat - July 2011!

Looking for some mixed media fun this summer? Kim Geiser is organizing Inspire My Life, an art retreat in Manitowoc, Wisconsin from July 28-30, 2011. She hopes to have the full schedule up by early April, but instructors include Kim Rae Nugent, author of Interactive Art Workshop, and my fellow Milwaukee ATC buddies, Mel Kolstad and Kathi Pecor, among others.
UPDATE: Workshop Schedule is now up! (Scroll down that page for registration info.)

I'll be teaching "Colorful Faux Tintype Artist Trading Cards" on Saturday, July 30, 2011.  Hope you can make it!

Art Journal: Fantastic Faces Workshop

I'm taking the Fantastic Faces on-line workshop at ArtTrader Magazine taught by Annie Melione, aka Eraser Queen. So this past week, I worked on a journal spread where I sketched a few faces each day and then inked and colored. Here are some starting pencil sketches, fiddling with proportions and seeing where each face might end up.

Here is the finished spread the folding flap on the right side closed and opened. You can click on the images to see a larger version on Flickr.



February 21-23 & 26-28, 2011

Hinged Copper Locket Workshop

Happy Halloween! We just survived our first Halloween in our new neighborhood where we had about 200 trick-or-treaters come to our door (compared to less than 20 at our old place). We ran out of candy, and the last two kids got granola bars! (Peanut butter chocolate chip granola bars, so they're almost candy ;o)

So here's the final installment from Raevn's Nest Art Retreat. Last Saturday, I took an all-day workshop with Richard Salley, learning how to make this copper locket. (If you click on the tutorial sidebar on his website, you'll find a very similar project.)

I don't have a lot of experience in working with metal and wire beyond making a few charms, reading a bunch of books and watching Jewelry Making on the DIY network, so I was excited to learn some basic things, like using a jewelry saw (broke 3 blades cutting that heart shape out of the rusty washer that forms the image frame), making rivets and staples, and shaping copper and then aging it in liver of sulphur. My wire work still needs a lot of practice (those S- and C- scrolls are supposed to be symmetrical), but I learned a lot from the class and went home excited to make more! Now I just need to find the time....

You can click on my images to see a larger view on Flickr. And check out what other folks made:
Kathi took Richard's two workshops on Friday. Fabulous!
Carmi was in the same class as me - I love her take on this project!
Jill sat in front of me, and I was in awe of her skill. She also reassured me that it was normal to break saw blades. (Scroll down to see her work from the Friday & Saturday Salley workshops)

Making a (Watchmaker Tin) Scene

Here's the second installment of my Raevn's Nest Art Retreat experience. On Friday night I took the "Make A Scene" workshop with Jill K. Berry, where we spent two crafty hours constructing mini-dioramas in watchmaker tins. Jill provided all the materials including images sized to fit the little metal tins. The garden scene above is about 2-3/4" while the haunted mansion below is 2" in diameter.

We staggered the layers with hidden beads, head pins trimmed to size, and the power of a high-heat glue gun! It was a little tricky getting everything into place before the glue cooled, but the results are so much fun! The tins do have clear glass lids, but they didn't photograph well with the lids on.

You can see some of Jill's samples on her blog. My friend Mel also took this workshop and made a great George of the Jungle tin, which I hope she'll post a photo of! :D

Making 3-D ATCs

I'll be blogging my Raevn's Nest Art Retreat experience in installments. Last Friday, I took the "3-D ATC" workshop taught by Laurie Mika. I've never used polymer clay before (having vowed I was not going to take up any more crafts that involved buying even more supplies), and I was surprised how simple Laurie's technique is.

We rolled out Sculpey III or Premo by hand, stamped it with rubber stamps to create texture and then embellished with acrylic paints, mica powders and doodads, cutting and stacking shapes to make these three-dimensional ATC-sized works of art. My layers were only about 1/8" thick with my thickest ATC being about 3/4" but some of folks in my class made pieces over an inch thick! These were all baked at 275F for about 20-25 minutes or thereabouts. The temperature is low enough that we could include paper images in our pieces, so I used a Rossetti faux postage stamp and some tiny Victorian faces from Ten Two Studios. Laurie provided all these fabulous rubber stamps with words and textures for us to use. And no, these are not available for trade! :D

Here are some other folks who took the class and posted pix of what they made:
Carmi Cimicata
Gary Warren Niebuhr