30 December 2007

Art Homework

As promised, here are the results of the art homework project I gave my family for our holiday dinner party. At each place at the table there was a miniature easel for each guest to display their mini canvas. After dinner we cleared the table and lined up all of the easels to take pictures. It was really fun to see what everyone made.

These were made by my daughter Sam and her boyfriend Jesse. As a wonderful bonus, Sam told us during dinner that she made the Dean's List at college this semester. I'm so proud of her! And I think their canvases are very cool too.

My parents made theirs at their vacation home in the Adirondacks. My dad loves to kayak and he cut that little kayak in half and affixed it to his canvas. Mom used fabric, of course, and a little bit of metallic foil for the water.

My sister's family all created self-portraits. My brother-in-law Chris loves to cook so his portrait is made of food items - cloves for hair, pasta for a nose and a manly stubble of spices. Linda's is hand and machine sewn on fabric with some twigs as found objects, it's very her.

Five-year-old Sage created an abstracted watercolor version of herself - with a rainbow, she said. And twelve-year-old Whitman showed his drawing skill and love of anime and manga.

Carlos and I went with an insect theme and I had a hard time dragging him away from his current, very, very large abstract oil painting long enough to complete this miniscule-by-comparison project. His colored pencil and wax pastel butterfly and my printed and collaged beetle are very congenial.

I would definitely do something like this again. Watch out if you're invited to dinner at my house! There might be homework...

26 December 2007

Art for Boxing Day

Boxing Day has typically been an art/craft day in my family. We all go off in our own directions to work on our art, meeting for meals of leftovers and to check out what the others are working on. A nice way to relax after the holiday...

A fiber postcard made in the theme of Maps. I found a paper at Papyrus that's printed with an old map of Paris and chopped it up. The gear is a carved stamp.


I gave my extended family a "homework" assignment for our holiday get-together on Sunday. I passed out 2" square canvases and told them that they each must fill their canvas with their choice of subject in their choice of medium. There will be 10 for dinner from kindergartner to grandparents - I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! I worked on mine today and it has everything I love on it, an insect, text in several languages, fabric, paper and printing.

24 December 2007

Merry & Bright


May everyone's holiday be merry and bright.

¡Salud, amor y pesetas, y tiempo para disfrutarlos!

Illustration Friday - horizon


cotton fabric, printed mulberry paper, acrylic paint, acrylic inks, stamped letters and postage stamp on 6" x 6" stretched canvas

19 December 2007

Starry Night


I finally got our tree up and decorated this evening. I strew (is that a word?) our Moravian stars on the mantel and wound some white lights among them. You can see the tree reflected in the glass on the little print.


Then I made an ornament for my friend Carrie with some beautiful handmade paper I found in Papyrus a while ago. I tried it out on my tree first and now I'm thinking I should make myself a few of these.

15 December 2007

Illustration Friday - backwards



cotton fabric, printed mulberry and rice paper, acrylic paint, water-soluble pastels, image transfer, cotton thread, dyed raffia on 6" x 6" stretched canvas

13 December 2007

Snow Day Butterflies

The weather outside is frightful! (wait, isn't that a song?) So I'm home working in my studio, waiting for the snow and freezing rain to stop. There's a cozy fire going and supper smells are wafting from the kitchen - neither is my doing - not a bad afternoon, all in all.


Imprima - Mariposa


Imprima - Polilla


block prints with acrylic paint on cotton fabric, printed rice paper, nori paste, cotton thread