Depth Perception

"Depth Perception" is the name of the fun and lively workshop that LE McCutcheon shared with us this Saturday at the Art Clinic in Solvang. Titled an "Art Journal Layering Class", we spent a whole day printing and layering paper with gelatin printing, making gel transfers, and learned how to make a cool art journal with a duct tape binding.
This is the pan of gelatin with a little acrylic paint rolled on it and then some string placed randomly on top. You then place a piece of paper on top and gently rub the paper to make a print.
Samples of some of the gelatin printed papers we made....we had so much fun we didn't want to stop. LE had set up a pan of gelatin for each one of us and gave great demos of all the processes for us to follow.
This is a print made using a doily, black and red acrylic paint . More layering of paint and printing followed. These papers make great pages for art journals- so you don't have to stare at a blank white page!
LE (at right) is showing us how she puts together her portable art journals. From left, Nora, Angela, Syd, and Penny all made lot of cool printed pages using string, yarns, leaves and photos.

Jill and Maddie painted and worked on their journals, too. Maddie is checking her paintbrush to make sure she has enough paint on it.

Art Clinic News!
I plan to teach a beginning rug hooking workshop Feb.21, Sunday 11 am to 4pm at the
Art Clinic in Solvang, CA.
Email me if you are interested in attending.
Intermediate rug hookers are welcome...come finish up that first project you started!

Oh, and here is a wooly heart garland I made for MUSE for Valentine's Day for the store window.
I may add a few more touches before sending it off. That one "X" has a little ribbon ladybug that Colleen gave me the other day. I pinned the garland to the side of our house that has the original cedar shingles-dark and weathered and close to 100 years old.

Creative Females meeting

Our Monday night meeting at Maren's was our first get together of 2010 and there were lots of new projects going on. Maren made us quiche, triple chocolate cookies and date bars...all delicious! Maren had attended a local Kaffe Fassett workshop and was working on a new quilt top using many of his fabics...we all loved how she put it together.
Great colors and fabrics...sorry it's a bit fuzzy...taken at night.

And Katie is going strong on a new rug using up leftover wool strips...close up...

And here's most of the rug in progress...
and here is Katie with her first hand felted hat!
Penny has completed 11 of her circle series!
And these fun crocheted rocks were made by Jeanette, our Yarn Tagger and knitter.
I started work on these two houses...
And now, after our week of rain, a beautiful sunshiney day at the beach for my morning walk.
There is one lone pelican in the bunch of seagulls below.
And every morning I drive my son to his bus stop atop our mountains on this road. It drops off a
1000 feet in places and I have to keep my eyes on the road and look out for rabbits and deer and try not to look at the ocean too much. I enjoy seeing the sun rise and seeing the whole coast for miles at the start of the day. Then back home for my cup of tea!

Another Monday...

I finished up these cupcakes for a friend. The directions for these are from the book "Warm fuzzies" by Betz White. She has great felted wool projects and nice color photos and directions.
Highly reccomended if you like working with wool.
and the little squirrel is almost finished....I see a few places that I want to re-do. It helps to take a photo now and then and step back to see if anything needs more work. The part that is bothering me is the foot area and back tail. I will rip out a bit and re-hook it tonight. We have our monthly rug hooking meeting tonight and if all goes well we will have a new secretary!
And a few of you have asked me a good place for rug hooking supplies and I have bought my backing and Townsend cutter from Jane Olson in Calif. She has been hooking all her life and knows all there is to know and ships quickly. Her number is 310-643-5902.
Also for a list of lots of suppliers you can check out www.rughookingonline.com ...there are so many different hooks and frames available, it's good to check out photos and talk to your fellow rug hookers if possible.
I love this little calendar that I got for half price on our trip to Calistoga. It makes me want to create my own calendar with rug hooked creatures for each month.

Snow Day!

We are having snow, hail, sleet and rain up here on our mountain! And in between it will clear up and the sun comes out! The big snowflakes this morning were so beautiful floating down and covering up everything in white. I woke up my son Jason, who turned 20 yesterday, and he made a snowball and got me in the back! I will get him later....
Made hot chocolate and am working on about 3 different fiber projects....want to finish up the hooked squirrel and the funny linen creature below. And I have an order for cupcakes and have to pull out the felted wool sweater boxes again... and then there's the applique projects I've started! And all the cool blogs to look at! Not enough time for all the things I want to do...
Still working on this little one...just pins for eyes right now and needs
a mouth...
Two owls I made before Christmas....
Our front yard with snow! Can't see the ocean today....

Hope you are staying cozy and being creative!

Hooking, stitching and cookin'...

It's been a busy week here at the homestead~boys home from school, rainy weather, birthdays coming up. I decided to stay home and get some organizing done...managed to clean out my closet and recycle shoes and clothing I no longer needed and that felt good. Not quite brave enough to tackle the Art Room yet...so many things that I "might" need some day. But I had fun finishing up these hooked pins for Charlotte Lyons and got the little sheep no. 2 done and ready to be framed. Then after looking at a book on Japanese embroidery from Syd I got inspired to do some cuffs and that led to finishing up some fiber bracelets that needed embellishing.
So the rainy weather has been a good time for staying inside, sewing, building a fire and doing a little cooking for the boys. I try and make something yummy and creative, like enchiladas or lasagna about every other night, and then there are left overs in between and Dennis likes to cook too, so that's always nice. We are supposed to have rain all week here, which is rare, but it will give me a chance to do more stitching and maybe clean out that Art room!

Our rug hooking group is donating as a group to the Red Cross for Haiti and so is our plumbing store. And along with everyone I am sending prayers to those in Haiti and wish I could do more.
Little hooked sheep no.2
Kimono fabric stitched and made into cuffs.


Cuff no. 1
Cuff no. 2
Cloth and felt bracelets with a bit of embroidery

A Little stitching...

A couple of little stitcheries that I am working on. I find frames at Art from Scrap and the thrift store and make the pieces fit the frame. I also buy new frames from time to time when I see a size I like. I have been collecting vintage embroideries and now will use some of them if I can part with them!

Sheep, circles and a heart

Michele at "Muse" Yarn store asked me hook some sheep for her shop since she sells lots of wool yarn. I can't believe that I haven't hooked any sheep before now, but these are my first try. I really love working with wool and appreciate all the wonderful different fibers and textures that all the various breeds of sheep provide for us fiber people so I came up with these 2 little sheep pictures. Not sure if they will be pillows or just wall hangings yet. Also working on some fabric applique wall pieces for "Muse" and will show those soon.
Here's the sheep above before his got his background.
Drawing for sheep no. 2.
Hooked and still need to do the background...hopefully tonight!
Made a bunch of hooked circles that will soon be made into pins. Going off to my friend, Charlotte in New York.
And finally got the Milagro Heart no.2 sewn and stuffed and ready to send off.

My son, Justin helped me get my photos downloaded somehow and I am so grateful...Grace helped too! Thanks for your patience while I get my act together! I still need a new camera and hope to find just the right one tomorrow.

dolls

some painted muslin dolls from the archives....think I might make some more of these!

Little houses wall piece

This is a little collaged wall piece I made for a class sample. Might try and teach it at the Art Clinic in Solvang some day.
I am still having trouble downloading my photos, so I had to dig into my archives for something new.

Beach walk

It's strange, but we have some of our nicest beach weather in January! I took these photos earlier in the week when I went down for my beach walk.

I have some hooked things to show you but I am having technical difficulties. My regular camera quit just before Christmas as well as my laptop. I am using my little "back up" camera but things won't download easily....I tried for hours to get some new photos to download and no luck. I am hoping that my son, Jason can help me when he gets home. Until then, keep making stuff!

Sampler, another heart and acorns...

While on our vacation I got a little more work done on my fabric sampler. It is getting so bright I may need to tone it down a bit. Still a work in progress...
And this is Milagro heart no. 2 that still needs to be sewn up.
On our hike to the Bale Grist Mill I found these nice, big acorn caps- just perfect for stuffing with felt or fabric!

Home again...

Just before we left on our trip I got these little owls finished up.
This is the second owl I made, a solo portrait.
I made this "Milagro Heart" for Michele at MUSE in St. Helena. Somehow I forgot to get a photo of the finished product...sewn up and stuffed. I delivered it on our way home and got to see her delightful store before heading to San Francisco.
We took a family hike on Christmas Day to these wonderful rocks in the pines near our home. The boys used to hide in the rocks and climb all over them when they were little.
This is a night time photo of our hot springs pool where we stayed in Calistoga. On New Years Eve they let us stay in the pools until 12 midnight. If you look closely you can see the bathers in the pool...most with wine glasses!
Checkers still is our favorite restaurant. I think I had one of their fresh greens salads every time we visited-boys like their pizza.
The Model Bakery in St. Helena always makes a great gingerbread house for their window. Even after Christmas it still looked good!
Had to go take a quick look at Vintage Home's windows. I did buy a couple of mushroom ornaments at $2. each and looked at all the cool things inside. They have quite a collection of Steiff animals and Elsa Beskow books...both things I loved from my childhood. My father used to buy me Steiff animals for Christmas every year and I had quite a collection. I loved opening their special boxes and being surprised to see what was inside. I still have a few that have survived all my many moves over the years.


New Years Day was rainy but perfect for a visit with my pal Susan Duquette at the CIA headquarters..that's the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena. Once the Christian Brothers Winery it houses classrooms, a gift shop and wonderful restaurant where Susan and I had a delicious lunch. It helped that Susan works there and we got some special treats including the best grape juice I've ever had in my life!
As we were leaving Calistoga I had to get a shot of this ART CAR! Covered in every imaginable figurine including cootie bugs, buddhas, lobsters and angels...even the inside was decorated with flowers and vegetables.
The front hood...
Heading for home over the Golden Gate bridge......and back to life in Santa Barbara...sunny and warm-75 degrees and folks swimming in the ocean when I went for my beach walk yesterday!