Jacqueline Sullivan Workshop at The Artist's Nook

This was a workshop where we painted plain white art tissue with acrylic washes and added different inclusions, such as metallic powders, chalk pastel powders, coffee grounds, etc. The papers were beautiful in and of themselves and the translucency of them was amazing. We then used the different papers we had painted along with images to create a collage on canvas. Here my efforts are in the making.

Next Stage Mini Quilt Collage

Here it is with all the sewing done. I will be adding embellishments now, such as buttons, embroidery, charms.

Mini Quilt Collage

Here are some photos from the process of putting together a mini quilt collage. I started with a large piece of wool felt, pinked around the edges. Then I added a piece of natural canvas which had been painted with acrylic inks and some acrylic paints used with stencils. I have also added some closeups of parts of the piece so you can get an idea of how it went together.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Here is Hannah, appropriately dressed for celebrating my 65th birthday at Gladstone's in Malibu. My nephews, niece, grandnieces, daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law all joined to celebrate!

12 Days of Christmas, 2008

I forget to post in chronological order! This was my contribution to the 12 Days of Christmas swap on my Altered Art Reliquiary Yahoo group. I wish the bird showed better. I made a mold of the bird in rubber stamp material, then made the birds from PMC silver. I used my new kiln for the first time to fire them! Yea! It worked! After polishing I added resin with silver or turquoise Perfect Pearls to the resin. I added the potato freshwater pearl danglie and tied with hand dyed silk ribbon. I hope the Diva's enjoy hanging them on their trees each year as much as I enjoyed making them. The beautiful things I got in this exchange will be treasured.

Don't you just love Rust!

Don't you just love rust? And I had been listening to Joan Baez' "Diamonds and Rust" on the way down to Albuquerque. Juliana had this incredible old, let me say ancient, pickups in her backyard. Couldn't resist memoralizing this rust!

Nest Necklace

I wore my Nest necklace all weekend at the Xtreme Journaling workshop for good energy. I love this thing. I have been inspired by the instructors at Art and Soul in Portland in 2008. I think I saw something similar around Nina Bagley's neck. Anyway, I have seen these wire nests on several artist's blogs, etc. I had to have one. While I was at the annual Craft at the Beach Week in October, 2008 I made this copper wire next and added a gorgeous glass egg from "Ellen's Eggs" on Etsy. She makes beautiful lampwork beads, but I am especially taken by the eggs as I have a current addiction to anything bird related. Eggs are the best! I used whatever beads I had left from my week of crafting. I'd like to make more, when I get the time! Thanks Nina and thanks Ellen (who just happens to be Nina's sister)