This and That

I've been trying to switch a lot of my computer files over the past few days

so I don't have much artwork to show for my time...

I do have a small (~4" x 6") painting that I finished at a ballgame this past weekend.

This is reminiscent of my "Sisters At The Beach" that I did last year, As well as the series "It Takes A Village" that was so popular at the West Greenville Arts Festival last fall.
One lady told me that they made her happy when she looked at them.
Cool...
What more could an artist ask for than to make people happy?
(other than to make sure "they" buy your artwork that you're worked so hard on and spent so much time on...)

But I mean emotionally - I want to make people feel some emotion when they see my work.
Happy is a good emotion to feel.

Well, I never intended for the blog post to go that way but it did, didn't it?

Yesterday I had a Wonderful Day.
I drove to Asheville (via Fairview) to spend the day with Judy Coates Perez .
She is there for a lecture & classes with the Asheville Quilt Guild.
I met Judy online several years ago and we struck up a conversation and subsequent friendship.
I have taken two (in person) classes from her - "Whole Cloth Painting" and "Mixed Media Painting".
Both are wonderful! If you want to learn how to paint, whether whole cloth quilts, or small fiber pieces or even on canvas - Judy is THE teacher for that! She teaches you color mixing, glazing, background painting...tons of wonderful information.
I highly recommend her classes! She is SUCH a great teacher.
I also took the very first "Color Theory" online class from her.
Another excellent class! If you are unsure of what colors to use, what combinations to use or color mixing with painting - then Judy's class will definitely help you!
I learned so much about mixing paint colors in that class it was unbelievable!

Now, I don't make any money from Judy
if you take her classes but you could tell her that I sent you...maybe she would love me more!

All jokes aside, if you have a chance to take any of her classes - you will not be sorry!

We spent the day just messing around in downtown Asheville NC-
except for that two hour shoe store visit...
I NEVER shoe/clothes shop but this store (Discount Shoes) was AWESOME!
They had a bazillion pairs of really cute (and comfy) shoes!
Highly recommend this shop...
We had a great lunch at Roman's, ate some sinful chocolate at Chocolate Fetish (OMG!), did some girlie clothes shopping at Virtue's, met Gwen Dien for tea at Dobras, then topped the day off at Bookworks in West Asheville.

My.
Oh.
My.
What more could a girl ask for?
(well, except money for another pair of shoes in that seriously awesome shoe store).

Denise from UNC

Denise Henderson is my buddy from western North Carolina. We met a couple of years ago at Random Arts shop when she came to take one of my drawing classes. Since then she has taken more of my classes (always doing Most Awesome work!), joined in the Upstate Sketch In joy and caught the book making bug!
She was one of the artists that attended the mixed media book making class that I had in Asheville NC a couple of weeks ago.
She is allowing me to post photos (from her Flickr site) of her fantastic book - I am just in love with her book!

Enjoy, feast your eyes...sign up for the next class so you can make your own~

More books!

Here is more eye candy from the students that took my book making class in Asheville a couple of weeks ago.

This is one that Deb Brown made.

I just love the natural colors that she used!

I'm really liking the buttons on the side here. It adds such a layered and textured look to the entire book.

A coordinating bookmark...gotta love that!

I really think that the vintage linens and textiles add such a great look and feel to the books - it makes people want to touch them. And what good is a book if you can't touch it?!

I'm in the planning stages of setting up another class in Asheville right now.
After that I'll be doing one in Greenville.  It will be so good to teach close to home!
I'm also working on teaching at the Tryon Arts & Crafts Center as well...
keep your eyes on my schedule - I'll post the dates as soon as they are available.

Book Class

I'm teaching a book making class in Asheville NC on March 22.
It's called "Bound by Heart, Made by Hand" or as I keep referring to it as "The Pink Book".

If you're interested in finding out more, please email me.


I've been working on a different way to attach the covers so
I've had a few samples in the works.
Here's a peek at some of the painted papers that I am using for the covers on one.

The Green Fan (Girl of Toledo Spain)

I had posted earlier about a book that I was working on and forgot to add photos of the completed book.

I will do that today.

I used a photo of one of my favorite paintings (see this this post).

I printed it out on a nubby fabric (some type of poly blend I think) (it was a cheap sheer curtain fabric from my mom's house) and then built the front of the cover around it.

You can see from this picture that I added a bit of hand dyed lace to the sides , to create a spine wrap of sorts.

 Ah, this is where the photo of the front of the book went!
I have changed the template of my blog and am still learning how to work in it,
just when I had gotten so used to the previous template.

repeat -
change is good...
change is good...

 On the inside of the book cover, I placed an old doily that I made.
It really coordinated well with all the other fabrics so I donated it to the cause.
A scrappy "signature wrap" (I learned this from DJ Pettitt) snuggles all the pages of the book together.

 And I just love the back cover of this book!
I've used a combo of several acrylic mediums to create a leather like substance. I then used a mix of water and acrylic mediums to color it.
A series of paint, dry.
Paint, dry.
Repeat until your OCD is soothed...
Or you get distracted by sanding it...

And there you have it, another cool book!
I hope that I can take these books with me to Asheville tomorrow - well, what I really meant to say was that I hope I get to go to Asheville (NC) tomorrow for the monthly Fiber Art Alliance meeting.
The schools are closed there today - snow, black ice - you know that sort of nasty winter weather.
If I get to go tomorrow - I will carry the new books to show and tell. I'm sure that my fiber and book lovin' peeps will like them!
Say creative my friends.

Mountain Views

Once a month, I meet with a group of fantastic women...
Even though my husband calls us "The Fiber Freaks",
we call ourselves "The Fiber Junkies".
We are a bit freaky about fiber though...
We all have varied interests in what we do with the fiber that we work with.
Some bead, some felt, some do all kinds of surface design.
There is a screen printer.
One of the group is a master machine quilter.
I personally do all sorts of mixed media "things" to the fiber that I get hold of.

This month we met at Val's house in Asheville NC.
Here is a photo of us (minus me) sitting on her top deck at the back of her tree house.
Notice the beautiful trees around us.

This isn't a duplicate photo, just a slightly different view of the side of the porch space.

When we look out from the house, this is what we saw.

The most beautiful view that you could imagine!

I can't remember how many mountains that you can see from her house but it was a lot.

We had a fantastic day!

We did some deconstructive screen printing.

I'll show a few photos of our "show and tell" tomorrow.