An Artful Gathering

Gesso Transfers

I've had over 3 months to complete half page tip ins that I'm swapping with others - I am NOT very knowledgeable about transfer, just have never tried it but a few times.  I was chatting with someone and she mentioned the gesso technique as part of teaching a class.  Since it was her class, I did not ask anything about it but a bell went off.  For almost two years now I've used a lot of gesso in my art.  Lots of times I paint my surface with white gesso and add book pages to it.  As it begins to dry I pull the book page away leaving some of the page behind.  I realized with a bit more work I could create a decent transfer.  Here are my first 3 efforts - when rubbing the paper (as luck would have it) it seems to rub away at the very spot you don't want that to happen.  But I do plan to work on this technique some more.

 

 

 

Our Vacation

Wow, I've been in San Antonio with my girlie girls.  We hit the highway last Friday, checked into the El Tropicana around 4:00 pm and then the fun began.  Of course it was extremely HOT every single day we were there - over 100 and up to 107 YIKES.  We visited the Alamo - it's such a beautiful building to me but this time the reverence inside the building became much more obvious to me.  We bought "stuff" at the Alamo Visitors' Center - I have a western Christmas tree and picked up new ornaments to add to my collection.  We rode the boats on the Riverwalk - the kids loved that!  We ate at the Hardrock Cafe on the Riverwalk and the food was extremely yummy!  We bought tee shirts, teddy bears, bandanas!  We went to the Mercado and ate at La Margarita with a seranade by the Mariachi band - again, the kids loved it.  We went to La Villita and spent more money.  We relaxed by the pool every evening.  We learned quickly how to hail a taxi but we also took the trolley and a water taxi.  We came home on Tuesday, exhausted!  But it was a fun fun vacation - a memory maker for sure!

Celebrating Earth Day "Everyday"

Over two months ago I went to the GlueWithUHU website and signed up for a free sample of their glue.  I was sent a bottle of UHU that has a twist top so that various widths of glue can be dispensed.  I have enjoyed using this type of "wet" glue and plan to purchase more.  When I signed up to recieve the free glue, I was also sent a small packet of supplies to create something for Earth Day - yes, I know Earth Day was two months ago!!  And beleive it or not, I promptly created a 4x4 with those received supplies.  There was a bit of blue ribbon, a couple of stick on frogs, and some paper.  It got me to thinking about our earth and preserving as much as we can - "going green" is a relatively new term in our society.

Here is the first 4x4 is from the UHU supplies:

 

Here is the second Earth Day 4x4 made with what was easy to get my hands on:  The corn flakes box is representative of recycling. The flower/plant represents oxygen, the bird - nature - preserve it all!

 

Last Report on This Year's Artful Gathering Retreat

I've report on Saturday - we all went to Arlington, TX to the Great American Scrapbook Convention and a good time was had by all.  By late Saturday afternoon most of us were back together in the art room at the hotel.  We had a late evening ice cream social and even though I looked and looked, I could not find any pictures of it.  Everyone chatted, worked on finishing their projects, and ate ice cream - some of us even made banana splits!

On Sunday after breakfast we once again gathered in the art room to chat more and finish up final little things and pick our art kits.  We left around noon - each and every one of us exclaiming about the wonderful time we had -   I can't wait for next year!

  

This is Diann who likes to stand when she works - we had a hard time keeping her in a chair!

 

Here I am with friend Cher.

More fun!

More on the annual Artful Gathering

As I stated previously all day Friday was devoted to creating the Girlfriends book.  I'll already posted many pictures of the book so will only post the cover.  Everyone loved the spine!

 

There's Renee, Kris, and Joan working on their books!

 

One of our members, Jean, created the most adorable aprons for each of us ~ Don't you love them!

 

Here is a close up  of the apron with each person's name on the front of theirs~

 

After working like wild women all day Friday creating our Girlfriend books we had a slumber party Friday night.  Julie & Susan hosted this "surprise" - Late late Thursday night they went to each of the girls' rooms and slipped invitations under their doors so Friday morning we were all abuze over the party - Around 9pm Friday night we all donned our PJs, brought our "ticket" with us - yes, the tickets were created to be able to get into the slumber party!  We had pizza and cokes and a fun fun time.  Everybody joined in with jammies of some sort.  We had the pillow exchange amid much laughter.  When the party was over and as each "girlfriend" left, they drew another ticket as their keepsake.

On Saturday we all went to the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington, TX - some of us restrained ourselves and only spent about 4 hours there and some of us stayed all day long.  Once we arrived back to our "gathering place" we chatted, arted, and then had an ice cream social.  I'll report more on the ice cream social tomorrow.

More on the annual Artful Gathering Art Retreat

Yesterday I covered Thursday and Friday of my fun art retreat.  Today I am going to share pictures of the small projects we created on Thursday.

 

This is an art bag first aid kit - made from an altoid's tin and covered with decorative paper on the inside and outside - I kept mine simple.  I also punched holes in the tin and added a ribbon handle - the little kit contains various sized bandaides along with cotton pads, q-tips, and alcohol wipes.

 

This is a "hangie danglie" using crepe paper - something our group of ladies doesn't use often - it was fun though!  This is dubbed "Fruit Girls"

 

Another fun fun quick project was the "Girlie Girl" corsage - everyone made these and wore them all weekend.  The corsages are about the size of a saucer.  These are popping up all over the place these days -

 

This sweet piece of art was presented by Kris - some of the attendees added this to their Girlfriends book.  It's made using a blank coaster (these are a must have in the art room!).  Glimmer Mists were sprayed onto a teflon sheet (I think that's the name of it) and the coaster was laid onto the sheet absorbing the various colors - the coaster was flipped over and laid again in the colors still left on the sheet.  Once it was dry, it was decorated and then the butterfly was created.  Below is a close up of the butterfly.  Neat neat project!

 

The butterfly is created by punching 4 hearts and adding more color if wanted - we used chalk ink pads to give some extra color (that's another must have for me).  The hearts were glued onto the coaster and then a metal pen nib was wrapped with the green plastic coated wire to create the body of the butterfly - isn't this sweet!

 

Each attendee brought 20 pieces of art measuring 4.25" x 5.5" leaving the backs blank.  Cher created the front/back cover and brought kits for everyone to make their own covers.  Once the pages were swapped out adn the covered completed, the books were bound, thus creating Girlfriend Autograph books - we all passed them around and individually signed each page with personal sentiments - this was absolutely FUN !

 

Also each attendee was given an enlarged ticket with instructions to decorate it with whatever "stuff" they had in their art bags - This is Linda's tag that now belongs to me.  The attendees were told to hang on to the tickets as they would need them later. 

This covers Thursday's small projects ~ Tomorrow I'll post MORE pictures and also let you know what the tickets were used for.

Reporting on the annual Artful Gathering art retreat

It's been approximately two weeks since I last posted - I've been extremely busy putting the finishing touches on the Artful Gathering retreat, holding the retreat, and then hanging out with one of my friends and also resting from total exhaustion.  I plan to tell all about the art retreat in at least the next two to three postings.

The Artful Gathering began on Thursday, June 4th and ended Sunday, June 7th.  I will post some pictures of the room and the decorations - The room was decorated on Wednesday afternoon and it turned out beautifully.  I used round paper lanterns, lots of butterflys, there was an umbrella and beach chairs - lots of sherbet colors - oranges, limes, pinks, peach, blue - it was really neat looking.  We also had side tables with smaller painted heavy paper umbrellas on them with lots of snacks in colorful sherbet colored containers.  There was also a fun banner spelling out GIRLFRIENDS (our theme) - here are some pictures:

 

picture 1 shows the girlfriend banner along with the umbrella showing in the mirror at the end of the room.  You can see the tables with some of our goodies on them - this is before everyone swarmed in (lol).  Nice and Neat!!!

 

2nd picture, it's still Nice and Neat - only a few arrivals at this time.  The large "hanging" butterflys are there but not really showing up in this photo.

 

This is what is happening around 2:30 pm on the first day - the art tables are FULL of our stuff and we are working on some make & takes - simple little projects.  We created a first aid kit from an Altoid's tin to put into our art bags.  We also created a "fruit girls" hangie danglie.  We made the neatest corsages from silk flowers.  Kris showed us how to wrap a pen nib with wire and add a pearl for the head, paper heart shapes for the wings - voila!  a BUTTERFLY.  I will try to have pictures of all these projects tomorrow.  We also tried our hand at using mineral spirits and stumps along with colored pencils to color images.

 

On Friday we spent the whole day making the Girlfriends book and then around 9pm or thereabouts we had a slumber party and pillow exchange.  You should have seen all of us parading down the hotel hall with our jammies on.  Most of us had jammies that fit in fairly well - Here is Julie showing off her bedroom shoes.  We had pizza and bottled cokes and lots of fun!  We played a special CD (friends/friendship songs) that was created by Jean and she gave each of us a CD of this music to take home!  The pillow exchange worked so that each participant was assigned a number which created the order in which we chose our pillows.  When the first person chose a pillow the second person could choose a pillow from the pile or take the first person's pillow - a pillow had to be retired when the 3rd person chose it.  There were some super neat pillows and it was so much fun - I actually went home with the pillow that I secretly wanted, but then again they were all great pillows so I would have been happy with any of them.

This sums up Thursday and Friday - I'll be back tomorrow to share more news and pictures of the rest of the weekend retreat.

 

The Countdown Has Begun!

On Thursday, the Artful Gathering begins in Grapevine, Texas!  As I'm sure my readers know, this is an annual event that I put together for members of my online group.  This year there are 19 of us signed up to attend.  I've done most of my packing - well, that can't be correct because my dining room table is still piled high with "stuff".  Hubby just walked in the studio door with yet another of those rough totes.  So the countdown really has begun!  Four days until I begin my next art retreat - YES, I'm going a day early and beside myself with excitement!

I'll share some of the 08 Artful Gathering pictures:

This year I hope to be able to fill in that center space with 6' tables running end to end - that way we will be a bit closer together and have a bit more room for our "stuff".

 

It was a western theme and friend Linda had on short pants so she added blue jean "legs" to her outfit just before we went out to eat at a barbeque place - what else to kick off last year's Spirit of the West art retreat.

 

And this cowgirl is definately up to no good - FUN no good that is!

 

In a few more days I'll be telling you all about the fun at Artful Gathering 09 and sharing new pics with you.

What A Time!

I have been trying off & on for a week to get into my Typepad account - "no could do" but I'm finally here!

I have been so very busy for the last 3 months getting ready for this year's Artful Gathering and I'm down to packing two more rough totes with supplies and re-packing my art bag.  WOO HOO in capital letters.  Each year (this is the fourth one) I seem to get more and more excited about this event.  Nine more days in the countdown!  I guess this is the main reason I've not been able to take enough time to get signed into my blog.

Of course as I talk about my Artful Gathering retreat, I'm also working on a "Do Your Own Thing" (Temple, TX) art retreat for August, the Smoky Mountain Art Retreat (Maggie Valley, NC) at the end of October, another "Do Your Own Thing" retreat in early November, and the yet un-named art retreat in Salado, TX (4/10).  I've become quite a busy woman with my art retreats

I'm still trying to set aside a bit of time for ART  - here is a hangie danglie I created a couple of days ago for a club project (butterfly theme):

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day  - It should be a sweet and peaceful day, perhaps a bit of anticipation, a day filled with those little pink sweetheart roses and love and laughter - I wish that for all mothers. 

My rose was more of an orangy-red, the celebration was hectic, not peaceful - well maybe I should say it wasn't quiet, but it was filled with laughter and love!!  

My daughter and SIL were planning to make brunch for me today - My husband went to the grocery store this morning around 10am and he didn't come back and didn't come back.  Finally he appeared and I rush to the back door to help him carry in the groceries.  He did not want me to come outside = I could see a long stemmed rose bobbing around in the back seat of the truck and thought he didn't want me to see my "flowers".  So back inside I went - he was unpacking groceries and my sister Diann phoned me AND the doorbell rang.  Hubby dashed to the door and in walked my girlie girls - one with a card and one with that "bobbing" rose that was in the backseat of the truck - I had to laugh as I never ever suspected that the girls were in the truck.  Hugs and kisses all around.  Then my daughter and SIL and two older grandkids came over.  They brought omelet fixings and other breakfast foods.  My SIL makes the best omelets so we put him to work - oh and there were also chocolate covered strawberries - YUM YUM!   It was a perfect Mother's Day celebration for me.  My son will be coming by later today .  I feel so very blessed to have my children and grandchildren!