tiny snowmen

In the midst of fall festivities there is always at least one Christmas
bazaar and this was my contribution to the local long term care
facility.  These tiny snowmen are less than three inches tall.  They each
have their own knitted hat and are made from cut up tree branches.

Lots of fun to make.

paint as one

In groups of four my students painted together....
the idea was to paint as if one person was doing
all the painting.  Can you see the dividing lines?
There was lots of challenging going on in the
groups. Different brushstrokes, hues, blends and
second layers of colours added.

No one was allowed to cross the paint line and work in their
neighbour's sections.... they had to work together to "paint as one"

pounding out beautiful prints!

This is the easiest transfer of all and you can take out your frustrations
while doing it!  All it took was a beautiful coloured oak leaf, a
piece of muslin and a hammer.  I laid the leaf on the fabric and
hammered the leaf until the colour transferred to the fabric.
Ironing on the wrong side will then heat set the print.  Wow...
so many possibilities with this process!

Hapa-zome is literally “leaf-dye” in Japanese, according to India Flint, 
author of Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles.

Artist trading card stamp

Friends of mine were searching for a stamp for
the back of their ATC cards and had trouble
locating one.  I liked the idea so decided to make
one.  The instructions are as follows......

First trace a trading card and print name
and address in big letters (so they can be carved
out of lino) Reverse the design so it will work
as a stamp. 

Copy this onto a piece of lino and carve it with a lino cutter.

Use a small stamp pad to ink up the carved stamp.

Stamp the back of your Artist Trading Card and fill in your name and date.

flip flop printing

We had a good time at the recent flip flop print workshop at the conference.
First we used pieces of cut up flip flops for a variety of printed ATC cards.
Later we heated the foam and impressed our own designs but I will share this
process in another post.  Here are the results of the flip flop sole prints......

pumpkin lids

I have been fun knitting some little pumpkin lids for

the new additions to the patch!

fall prints

piles of leaves and little people... lots of fun in the fall!

tatting

We had a long journey across country this month and with GPS there is
not much need for my services as navigator!  That left me lots of time
to do some tatting... little flowers were easy and work into nice
greeting cards.  A bit of watercolour added and they are ready!

Freshstart conference

I'm presenting at FreshSTART for the Ontario Art Educators Association on
October 15.  The group has undergone lots of changes and I am excited to
be part of the new roll out this fall.  My workshop FLIP FLOP printing will
involve using all kinds of easily accessible foam and rubber objects to create
moldable stamps.
If you're an Ontario Teacher why not join us??!!
It promises to be a fun and informative day!

http://www.osea.on.ca/home.html

over 1000

Whooee, I just made 1000 hits this week.  It has been a new adventure for me
doing the blog but since my article in Quilting Arts went up I have enjoyed
posting art as I go.  I have lots to share from our trip west to Vancouver Island!