3 DAY "IN STUDIO" WORKSHOP

WEAVING 101 and JOURNAL MAKING

Just finished up a 3 day workshop in my studio with 2 great gals from Iowa I met when they took my workshop in Kansas City last year with Art and Soul! Mary and Cathy.

These two are best friends and in fact, this trip was Mary's gift to Cathy for her birthday which will remain unknown :)

Two entirely different women who love to do artsy "stuff" together but daylight and dark in their knowledge and approach.

I liked that!!

Mary is very proficient in all things paper, stencil, stamp, paint, glue, retreats, workshops, you name it! She was way ahead of me most of the time! I did manage to teach her a couple of things! This girl goes 90 to nothing!

Cathy is more methodical in her approach and learns mostly from Mary when they get together in Mary's studio.

And the difference really showed up in their work!

I really had a great time teaching these two.

So here are some photos of our time together and their work.

Click on the images to enlarge.

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DAY ONE: Weaving 101

I did get to teach Mary here on this day because this was pretty new to both of them. 

I think they really enjoyed learning this ancient craft because they kept coming back everyday with new weavings they had done the evening before!

And here are the days end results.

You will see some of these again in their journals.

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Which brings us to DAY TWO: Preparing to make a journal

All 3 days the weather was cool but beautiful! 

Great weather for hanging our papers outside to dry.

We spent the day creating painted papers (all kinds) and fabrics 

 for the journals and preparing the covers and backs.

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DAY THREE: Putting the journals together.

Finishing up!

Spent this day taking all those wonderful papers (and they did create some awesome papers) and putting them together to create their very own handmade journals and two more different journals you could not see anywhere!!

Mary's was full of wonderful color and Cathy did an awesome black and white journal.

And here are the proud creators with their wonderful creations!

What a great time we had!

Thanks for coming ladies!

and thank you all for stopping by,

Suzi

VALENTINE GIVE-A-WAY!!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

Hope you all are having a wonderful Valentines Day!

To show my appreciation for your

loyalty to my little blog

I want to do a

Give-a-Way!

So for this day of Love I am giving away your choice of one of my prints!!

so here is the basket of names

from my list of members of this site.....

and the winner is......

drum roll please........

KAREN BLAKE!!!

Congrats Karen!!

All you have to do is go to my PRINT site

pick out the print you want

and EMAIL me with your choice and address!!

You have 3 weeks to respond

so if I have not heard from you by March 6th

I will draw another name!!

Hope to hear from you soon!

So Happy Valentines day everyone!!

And there will be more give-a-ways in the future :)

I love sharing my art with you all.

Thanks for stopping by,

Suzi

A NEW APPROACH

The other morning I was laying in bed, awake, and the sun was just coming up and as I lay there I heard the first bird song of the day and my immediate thought was "There's the opening hymn".

It stuck...

So as soon as I could get awake and get my bearings, I grabbed my sketch book and made this little sketch.

My main objective was to get what was in my mind on paper and select my colors. 

Now that is something new for me. 

For years I have chosen colors as I went but I'm turning over a new leaf and thinking about my colors ahead of time and using the color wheel to make those decisions. In this case I wanted the broad scope of the painting to be yellow and derivaties of yellow and across the wheel to the complimentary color as the focal point. In this case, the morning bird with the opening hymn :) Even though I didn't actually paint the bird, the idea was to locate the area. 

Also not to forget black and white always.

"THE OPENING HYMN"

And this is the final result. I had a lot of fun with this because I started out abstract and built on that.

The other thing that was a challenge for me is that I had to really work hard not to fill up every single space on the paper which is my usual M.O. - Now that was hard but I was able to stop myself before it got out of control.

I am using a lot of what I am learning as a new way to teach collage in my studio and on the road. 

I'm very excited about it and still learning.

Hope you like it :) 

I enjoyed doing this piece 

and learning as I went.

THAT, after all, is the goal.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzi

TAKING A RISK

Okay...now I know your guys are going to think I am nuts.........(Don't answer that)

But I just wanted to share this "risk" 

I took to with my latest piece of art.

This is my piece....almost done...

just needed to put a few leaves on and done

BUT.....

 I realize that it looked very much 

like these 3 other paintings I have done!

SO......

I made a radical decision to make it an early morning painting!

As I prayed and chewed on my fingernails

I laid down the first coat of paint in the background.

SCARY....VERY SCARY...!!!!

But once I did it I knew there was no turning back so off I went

Then I started adding the details and working with the new color

And here is the final result!

I'm good with it! 

And what is even more interesting 

is that the title changed....

What I had on the previous piece just did not fit...

This one is 

"Keep Silence Before Me"

So what do you think??

I know, I know..."I loved it before"....

so did I, but a change was in order

and I do believe it was a good change.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Suzi

A VIDEO BY THE WINNER!!

YAY DEB PACKWOOD!!

Deb was the winner of my painted papers give a-way and here is a Video she did on You Tube showing her prize!!

The Video also goes through a lot of wonderful art supply finds she found!

That is always fun!!

I plan to have another give-a-way.

I noticed 6 people un-joined my blog....not sure why. 

I guess they were bored BUT guess what that means???

MORE CHANCES FOR MY TRUE BLUE SUBSCRIBERS!!

So here is Deb's Video!

Enjoy and thanks Deb!

PAINTING WITH A GELLI PLATE

I'm always looking for new and different ways to create my papers. 

Recently I took a look at my gelli plate and thought "hmmmm...what can I do with that"
so....
here is what a came up with.
"what if" I just paint with it....no stencils (which is not easy for me to say since I do have my own line of them on Stencilgirl)
or stamps. Just paint.
So here is what I did:

First you need a gelli plate (of course) and I like to use a 

1" or wider brush to spread the paint with

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Pick a few colors and spread them around on the plate

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I'm using Deli Paper here to work with. I like it cause you can see through it and can tell if you are getting a good transfer, plus it is a great collage weight paper.

 Lay it over the paint on the plate and smooth out with your hands then peel it off

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So here is the first transfer. Let it get almost dry...I take a hair dryer and help is along.

My Mom always said "Patience patience little girl" :)

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I'm not cleaning my plate in between. That adds to the "mystery"

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For my next layer I just laid down some blue in the form of a cross. 

You see I am using some water with the paint and that causes the separation which I like.

Gives it more texture. 

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And here it is transferred to the paper. Layer two.

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This time I added some beads of black paint and used a credit card (old one mind you)

and created some interesting shapes with that.

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Here it is added to the paper. Love this effect!

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A fun thing to do is turn your paper different directions as you transfer the 

layers. Adds some interest to the paper.

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For this last layer I just squirted some fluid acrylic paint in a spiral and transferred that.

NOW....you could leave it here or add more layers. I like what I have and don't want to lose the other layers by adding more at this point. That decision is based on how yours looks and how you feel about it.....

AS FOR ME......

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Any of you who know me knows I can't stop there!!

So now for some finishing touches...just doodling really...with a brush.

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Wha-La! Here is my final piece.

Give this a try! I had a good time with it.

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Now it's time to let it all dry!

Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings,

Suzi