Busy, Busy, Busy!!!!!!!!

Some things tend to get pushed off the plate when one gets super busy and I have found that computer time and writing blog posts and visiting all of my glorious friends blogs has been one f those things!!  I have truly missed the blog hopping and visiting and as I sat down today to finally write a new post I was a bit shocked to see that I have not updated you since April 6!!  That is inexcusable!!
So as evidence to show that I have been truly busy I am going to share a quick photo tour of what I have been doing art wise. Of course there has also been family stuff, house stuff, the garden, taking care of all the PR for our gallery- Artful Dimensions.  BTW we would love it if you would check out the gallery on FB and "Friend us" if you are so inclined!! Here is the link.
As many of you know I have been experimenting with felting and combining harvested silk gauze and wool roving to make unique wraps of wearable art.  Here are a few of my latest creations!!

( Click on any picture to enlarge.)

 This is my latest piece.  I am calling this wrap Peaches and Cream.  I put it all together using ultra soft merino top roving , silk fibers, and some Rusty Nail Angelina fibers sprinkled in for a bit of sparkle.

As part of the felting process I have added in clusters of silk flower "blossoms", made from some of the fabric and rolled and attached solely through the magic of the wool fibers.

Some of the silk fabrics have shots of metallic gold threads running through them, perhaps you can see the shimmer in the upper left.  This will be on display and for sale at Artful Dimensions Gallery of Art and Fine Craft.

I have finished  a new free form beaded collage bracelet as a commission for a good friend who owns a wonderful knitting shop on Cape Cod.  ( If any of you vacation on the Cape and are out on the Outer Cape- Orleans area- plan on stopping by and checking out the wonderful offerings of yarn and great hospitality at A Stitch In Thyme.)

 My friend wears lots of soft blues and green tones, quiet earth tones you might say.  So I had a grand time sorting through my bead stash to find the perfect beads for her bracelet.  the closure is made using a loop of seed beads and a vintage mother of pearl button.

 In this bead soup you can see beads made from porcelain, some Picasso Jasper dagger shaped beads ( a bit left of center with the brown veins), a glass face bead, several recycled glass beads from Tanzania, and lots of different seed beads.

She should have received the bracelet by now and I hope that she likes it!!

Here are some other felting projects that are on their way to becoming pillows.  Each will have a flange around the outside- kind of like a ruffle but NOT ruffled, so as not to loose the wonderful organic edge of each piece.

 After taking a wonderful class with the AMAZING Margo Duke, I learned how to add fabric roses, ruffled and pleated silks and gauze fabrics and how to incorporate some of my hand dyed vintage crochet pieces into the felt work.

         After the felting process comes the even more fun part, the beading and hand stitch work!!!

This purple piece is on it's way to becoming a very special pillow for a special friend.  The others will become part of my first ever Featured Artist Show to be held during the month of September at Artful Dimensions.

I made this quick little bracelet for a special visitor who will be coming very soon!!! This specific pattern is called Tapestry and was created by the amazing Carol Cavanaugh of Beads On Parade a wonderful bead store in Fredericksburg, VA.  The pattern calls for using two different colors in several sizes of beads but, as you can see, I modified it just a bit!!

          I have also been working on curriculum development for a new Class that we are offering as a camp this summer at ADG. (Artful Dimensions Gallery)  A good friend Barb Posey, and I are offering a Fairy and Troll camp for all ages 10 and up.  We will be creating our own fairies and trolls and then working with found and natural objects to make environments for those little people to live in.  We are very excited about it and I have really gotten into making little accouterments for the fairies!

 This little baby fairy is based on instructions offered in a wonderful book by artist Sally Mayvor.  I discovered Sally's wonderful work from a listing on Pinterest.  I have since learned that she lives on Cape Cod- where I used to live and where I still have family.  She is a very gifted artist and shares all of her techniques.  If you are at all interested in crafting your won fairies with very simple supplies check out her book Felted Wee Folk.

 Here is the little guy hanging out with his new pal Mr. Cicada.  We are currently in the midst of a 17 year swarm hatch and the buggers are everywhere!!

                       This is our sample of a troll for those who do not wish to create fairies.

 Here is baby fairy with his Momma seated in their little moss and bark floored environment, in front of her mosaic table and serving up a polymer clay strawberry cream cake and tea in blue ceramic mugs!!

A better shot f Mr. Troll with his bones and his fish bone stool.  I\did his dreads  ( hair do) with brown wool roving and twisted it quite a bit to get the right look.

Here is a detail shot of the mosaic table- I used molding paste and little broken shell bits to craft the table and polymer clay for the other bits!!
 We have had quite a few adults inquire about the camp and we have decided to offer some classes for adults as well.  We had a nice write up in the local paper last week about our classes so hopefully folks will really follow through and sign up!!

So as you can see I have been working very hard and I will try more diligently to keep you up to date on my creative projects in a more timely manner! I hope that wherever you are the cicadas are not driving you nuts, the tornadoes have avoided you and you can find cool or warm place to create beautiful works of art of whatever type you choose!! ART ON!!!

"Put A Lid On It" First Friday Opening

The new show opening at Artful Dimensions Gallery, where I have my studio and am a member, is titled" Put a Lid on It".  Each of us ahs embellished a finished box that was fitted with a bed for a 4 inch tile.  As each member works in a different medium, there are many different kinds of boxes. On the First Friday of each month all of the galleries in town have evening hours, the artists who show at each venue are present to meet the public and wine and nibbles are served. It is a wonderful evening to spend in Fredericksburg, especialy if the weather cooperates!

Here are the boxes that I created for the show.

 

 

"Bouquet"

 

 These roses were made with my hand dyed vintage damask linen tablecloth strips.  I stitched them onto a piece of velvet wrapped around a piece of heavy interfacing that was glued down into the cover.  i also added in bits of dyed vintage doily and leaves stitched from the same linen strips.

 

"Butterfly's Dream"

 

 This box is covered with Ice Resin over a sheet of my fabric /paper .  I did it in several layers and trapped the butterfly in the final layer of resin.

 

"Red Streamers"

 

 

 This box is covered with a bit of the felted piece from this post. Before the beading was done I had color copies made of each fiber piece, lined each box with the paper and then coated the interiors with Ice Resin as well.

 

"Circle Dance"

 

The orange box is from a piece that I needle felted quite awhile ago.  I then free motion stitched with circles in orange, yellow and bringt pink thread.  It is difficult to see in this picture but I did some extra stitch work and some beading on this box as well.

 

 

Here is an example of the itnerior treatment with the photocopied faber piece covered with Ice Resin. Each box except Bouquet was finished int his manner.  I  think customers might enjoy discovering the wonderful and  colorful surprise inside!!



 

This is a smaple shot of the display in my new studio!! On December 27th , my wonderful husband and kids helped me move studios from #7 to #5.  The advantages of #5 are many fold!  I am located immediately off the amin gallery floor, the space is larger and i am much closer to my art pals in this new location.    Here are a few pictures of my new setup!

 

 

This is the view from the back of my studio looking out onto the gallery floor.

 

 

 

Here is the new glass shelved display with the neato pencil sized LED lights that Tom installed for me.  The wonderful light makes all of my beaded pieces dance and sparkle!! Love the sparklies!! In the foreground of this picture you can see my new aquisition of a iron dress form.  I have skirted her with pieces of silk fabric, some silk scarves but mostly pieces of clothes harvested form thrift shop finds.  I will use these pieces in my textile collage work but I will use the  lovely colors and patterns of the fabric as a studio embellishment in the meantime.  On top of the dress form you can see the felted vest that I spoke of in this post.

 

I will be back for another post with more gallery pictures after our upcoming First Friday opening!  I hope everyone had a very Happy New Year"s celebration and your year is off to a very creatvie start!!  Be back soon!

Art Journaling Workshop-From Cereal Box to Amazing Journals!!

On December 5th, I had the great pleasure of holding an Art Journaling Workshop for art students from Dominion High School in Loudon County, Virginia.  The students traveled down to Fredericksburg from Loudon County  by bus and met me at Artful Dimensions Gallery for our creative adventure.

15 students,2 teachers and 4 large tables filled the main gallery of Artful Dimensions with creative and colorful construction and learning.

 We used recycled cereal boxes to create unique art journals and covered them with papers created with varnish, mica powders, acrylic paint, spray inks and matte medium.

This beautiful cover is ready for some time on the floor to dry.

Watching the ink drip along the crumpled paper.

 After the morning spent creating various papers for the journals the ladies traveled down the street- all of 200 yrds to Castiglia's  Italian  for some delectable pizza.  The proprietor, Luigi  had the pizza's ready and waiting for the girls as they walked in!!

After lunch we constructed the journals and discussed the many options for journaling and use of the books.

The girls did a fabulous job with their journals, don't you think? They are well on their way to exploring all of the wonderful possibilities that the routine of Journaling can add to their creative lives.

At 3pm the girls had to be on the bus and ready for their trek back to Dominion High .  We could have gone on for at least several more hours and reconvened the next day for more!!!   Plans are in the works for me to travel up to northern VA , during the spring semester, to spend some more creative time with this wonderful class!!

*****The idea to create these journals from cereal boxes came from artist Jennibellie and her fabulous tutorials!! She has some amazing ideas and you can see her tutorial for this basic idea here.  I started with her idea and have made the technique my own.*******