HappyDayArt!

I'm in an Etsy Treasury!

Lora Hart made one and I'm on it.  It is the first one I am on that I am aware of.  Everybody likes a few days of fame and I am no exception.  Thanks Lora!  It is all about Metal Clay.  Here is the link.  They do expire and this one does Saturday, July 5th at 3:37 so here is my snapshot to mark a memorable moment.

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Life is good when you have friends who like what you make!

Picture Show!

Here's the 1st place winner of the PMC category of the Saul Bell Design Competition.  WOW.  

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I really like it.  Nice work isn't it?   My favorite parts are the intricate pattern details, the extra loop on the key so it hangs on the chain from the side and the chain links themselves with the figure eight cut out.  Fancy footwork.  You can see that it was made by Dina Alexander.  Yeah I am envious. 

Hmmm.  Maybe someday...

Anyway, I wanted to show you that. 

Next I'm going to show you some pictures of my little credit card sized prints.  This was such a fun class.  Each student made 18 copies of their print and we made ourselves a small accordion book to hold them all.  The cover

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My pink print I used for my first page

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The next spread is my flower print and another student's little volcano print.  I 

L-O-V-E-D carving this little thing.  It is the size of a credit card. 

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I have so many ideas and went out and ordered some of the coolest carving linoleum and some printing ink colors.

A week later I got an email from the Utrecht Art Stores in Berkeley about a 2 hour demo on carving and printing with printing blocks.  The timing was great and I filled in my supplies with some cardboard to use as a frame so I can go a little bigger and do multiple layers in different colors. I also got a couple more hard brayers.  Now I have 3 inch and 4 inch for my plan to go bigger.

I have to think of some pattern to carve now and I have to doctor my credit card imprinter.  More on that later.

Here are a couple of photos of a pretty dahlia a friend gave me, oh and some more close-ups of flowers also in the vase.  I so enjoy flowers.  The shapes and the colors.  Enjoy. 

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Now here is a small peek at something I'll bet everyone has forgotten about lately.  These are for "Project 8".

April's theme was "Ancestors" decided upon by Diane Havnen-Smith.

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May's theme was "Animal Dreams", idea by Judy Wise.  Go see what is up.

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The next theme is called "Lay Me Down" which is Stephanie Lee's idea.  This idea has been incubating for a couple of weeks.  I am going to carve something and make a print.  But my idea has to gel a little more.

Have you noticed all the flurry of art classes springing up every where?  It is almost mind boggling.  Pretty soon all of us are going to have many places available to us maybe just a short plane flight or a reasonable drive away.  It is a serious movement gaining steadily for all of our benefit.  I know it seems like I am getting more than my fair share of exposure, but it really is happening in more places than you think.  Keep your eyes open.  Put your feelers out.  I am because I think there is a big value in getting together with other artists and making something you are interested in, learning new skills and renewing your artistic energy.

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Now go make something!

I get to do Artfest again!

Teesha Moore has invited me back to teach again next year.  I'm happy and excited to tell you that I'll be teaching two classes on PMC again.  The first one is called    "PMC Frameworks"

Here is a teaser photo.  

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Do you feel teased?  I hope so.

The second class is called   "Precious PMC Collage"

Here are a few pics of my experiments:

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A collaged bird

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A heart made with collaged stamps.

In these photos I am showing some of the many stages in the coloration process that I will talk about in class.

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This is the next stage.  Aren't the colors gorgeous?  The piece on the left has patina only on the small spot shown.  The rest of it I left patina free.

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The details on this batch have been accomplished with the pieces in the patina bath for the full amount of time, and then I polished off the high spots.  This has been my favorite method for the longest time, but I am finding that with different things I like the colors too.  And I am going to figure out how to get the best pink.  Don't you think a heart with a pink patina would be sweet?

So stay tuned to the website, the class list goes live in August.

And thank you to all my students from last year - you know who you are - who put in a good word for me and my classes.  It means a great deal to me to get to teach there again.  It is my favorite place to make art and learn new things.

I hope I will get to meet you there.

  

Art as a way of life, well for me anyway.

Are things ever really back to normal?

Maybe, maybe not, but I think that since we are always changing, maybe normal changes too.  I'm older, my kids are older, the duties have changed and so have our minds grown because we are all letting in new things at an ever expanding rate.  My daughter who is 14 seems like she is all grown up and my 13 year old son is following in his fashion.  I get to do more of the things I enjoy because I don't have to follow them around so much and just have to "hold the space" as parent, safety net, money dole-er and occasional taxi.  I do my share of talking and yelling too but well, let's not go there now.

I get to do more of the things I love and one of those things is learning.  I have signed up for a bunch of classes this summer and fall and I am excited.  I just finished three classes over the last 2 weeks:

"21 Cards, 21 Techniques" - that one was action packed with C.J. Grossman, a bookmaker, at the San Francisco Center for the Book, my new haunt.  We made a nice box construction to fit 21 (at least) pages made with different layering, stamping, glueing, cutting, weaving activities to name only a few.  I almost managed to keep up.

Then I took another class at the Center called "Board Book with Layering Techniques" from Marsha Shaw.  Here are a few photos of my book so far.  Here is where I used my PMC bookplate and charm I made a couple of weeks ago with the colorful patina.  The book is pretty small and very nice, don't you think?

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I found out in the meantime that my bead shop Beadissimo is closing and I was really surprised.  My PMC class went so well there and I was thinking I had found my spot and would get to be a regular there as a teacher and well, they just closed because they were having a hard time surviving financially at this time of "internet dominated shopping".  I made that term up, doesn't it sound ominous?  Well, it was for my bead shop.  I will really miss it.

SO, because I have my priorities, I took a class at Baubles and Beads in Berkeley, another great shop.  The class was called "Herringbone Ring", taught by a smart and creative woman named Kriss Silva.  I found out she lives in Hawaii and I felt very lucky to get to take this class so close to where I live.  Here are my rings I made in class:

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and also some I made right after class when I got home.  

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Now I could make one with ease and no instructions.  I really recommend this class.  I had seen pictures of these rings and wanted to learn how to do it.  I tried to make one, but realized that the easiest way was to go right to the source of the idea because I didn't want to waste any wire.  I'm just like that.  I hate wasting metal, wire, gems, PMC, unless they are broken or messed up for some reason and I really can't use them.

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 .Please bear with me, I am experimenting with Typepad's layout options.

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The next day I took Kelly Kilmer's class called "Fukuro Toji:  Little Bound Book".  What a fun day!  Here are some pictures of my sweet little construction:

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LOOK!  It's Dori in black and white!

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I've been tagged - twice for the same game!

so maybe that means I can do it twice.

I got tagged by Marie and Shirley !  I'm so happy about it too!  This one is really fun!  I'm going to write two!

The first title if I wrote my memoirs is:  

 Plates Are Spinning;  Oops, Dropped One!  

and then the sequel:  

Shut Up, I'm Trying to Work!       Ha, ha, ha, hee, ha, ha!

I am in an exclamation point mood today.  Things are just so great all around.

Here are the rules:

1. Write the title to your own memoir using 6 words.

2. Post it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who tagged you.

4. Tag 5 more blogs. 

I am tagging:  Lisa (because she is so funny I can hardly wait to read what she comes up with)  Sherri (because she needs to be reminded to write in her blog)  Deryn (I get to be first to tag her for this and that is SO unusual)  Lora (my new and very accomplished PMC art buddy) and Carla (because I want to know what the title of the story of her life will be when she gets back from Seattle!)

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I woke up, I drew, I posted!

I did 3...

a blind contour self portrait

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a design in gold sharpie on rice paper

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and last night I did this digital drawing and dropped some colors on it with my tiny paint bucket

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We are having so much fun doing this together.  My daughter gave me permission to upload one, but only one of her drawings. It was so hard to choose.  I love so many of her drawings.

Here is one

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She is uploading hers to deviantART and I just did mine in flickr. Now I want to draw some more.  That was very satisfying.

You can still do it too, there's plenty of time left in the day!

drawing day

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About Drawing Day - 1 million drawings in one day Upload a drawing you create on Drawing Day to Flickr.  Be included so we reach 1 million drawings created on the web this day? If we all work together for the sake of art we can make some noise and inject the world with our creativity.  Even more than we already do.  And that's a lot! You can also upload to YouTube, deviantART, Rate my Drawings, facebook and many others. My daughter and I are going to do it.  We have a date to draw tonight!   Spread the word

Paris, all of it or just some of it.

It has been a big job sorting through all these pictures and re-living the Paris part of my trip.  I will post some of my favorite ones here and if you have some time you can go to my flickr and see them all.  

As a courtesy, as that is how I intended, I also made smaller sets for Sainte Chapelle, the Eiffel Tower, and Versailles.  Enjoy the parts you want and leave the rest aside.  

This was "the" vacation, the one I always wanted to take with the person I share my life with and isn't he awesome?  He took me because he knew I would enjoy it.  Wow!  I don't profess to be anything but a tourist.  I love the places we visited, and I do enjoy seeing the foreign and the things that are different than what I run across in my day to day lifestyle... and I don't even mind a bit of blurriness here and there.

I'll have a caption over each photo but I'll keep it short.  Click on anything for the larger view.

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the Arc de Triomphe

inside the arch - beautiful

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detail on the side of it - drama

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view of the Champs Elysees from the top of the Arc - vastness

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he bought me muguet des bois on May Day - romantic

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The Louvre - It was closed and so I walked around.

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outside the Louvre 

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flowers in the Tuilleries gardens

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ornate column

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weathervane

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detail on the Louvre building

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view of the river Seine

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Sainte Chapelle

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shadow of a tree on the side of the building

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gargoyles

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big stained glass window

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fountain at the Hotel de Ville on the Ile de la Cite - the little island in the river

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the Marais - my favorite neighborhood and not so touristy

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one of Picasso's sculptures

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a sphinx outside the Picasso Museum

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pastries

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chocolate - big ones

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the serene Place de Vosges

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light play of the sun through the tree

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Versailles

gilded fence around it

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window detail ornament

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Louis XiV as a young boy

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a wall covering

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part of a painted ceiling

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another painted ceiling detail and there were many

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painting of Napoleon Crowning Josephine

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one of the fountains outside at Versailles

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Eiffel Tower

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in motion!   (to see this at the best size, drag it to your desktop and then open it, otherwise it is too big and if I use a smaller version, it is too small)

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Near our hotel

a trompe l'oeil

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detail on the wall of the George V metro station where posters have been attached and removed so many times

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I know how much you like to see what I bought

Perles de Soie

These are called 'pearls of silk'.  They were designed and made by a young woman named Cecile Boccara. 

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She is 29 years old and a fiber artist who trained with Chanel and Christian Dior.  I found these in a little shop of handmade things called  Silvie Guillon  on the Place de Vosge at  16 Rue de Birague.  No website.  Everything was handmade.  So many beautiful things.  

I got this too.  Cecile made it as well.  A small dragonfly pin made of fabric, gold thread, old rhinestones, wire and some kind of glue.  It is precious.  

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I don't remember how much any of them were.  I left without a detailed receipt, just the total.

fabric earrings from the same shop, only one pair

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and one thing that is truly commercial but oh so clever, made by Swatch in the UK, this steel and red resin daisy ring - I love it so much!  They named it FUNANYA.

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and that's the end.