Monday, April 21, 2014

Twice the Fun with Transfers

Gayle's mending tape transfer of ancient text
onto hand painted fabric
I have been having fun with transferred images since I was a little girl playing with Silly Putty and the Sunday comics borrowed from the newspaper my daddy was reading. I learned early on how lighter fluid squirted on the back of a magazine picture would transfer it to another surface. (You might cringe at thinking about lighter fluid, but I grew up in the 1960s when many people smoked, including my parents, and they always had a container of lighter fluid to refill their  lighters.)
I love the layering possibilities, and how personal images and photography can be transformed.

I will be teaching an introductory Image Transfer workshop at Small Studio in May. I hope you can join me to learn these fun techniques!


Thursday, April 3, 2014

Making Shrines at Small Studio

Friends and fellow artists joined Gayle for the Enshrined class.
 As promised, the Enshrined workshop at Small Studio Productions was loads of fun. Gail Crum joined me to co-teach the class, and Ginny at Small Studio has affectionately dubbed us The Gales, and now in her new blog post, Gale Force. That about sums it up! Gail was in the very first Shrines class that I taught some twenty years ago. She says the class changed her life. All I know is that she has been creating shrines, assemblages and collages ever since, and is an amazing artist. It was fun to teach a class together.
There were several long-time friends in the class: Phyllis, Karen and Clare from the "Dye Group", a cadre of women artists who have played together for decades and still keep a journal about what they are doing. Clare just retired from the art department at Malone College, but is teaching her amazing encaustic techniques and other workshops around northeast Ohio and in Columbus at QSDS.
Phyllis, Karen and Clare are "Dye Group" buddies. Gail Crum
co-taught Enshrined with me.
Former studio mate and amazing painter Pam Dills came with two of her friends, neither of whom had done artwork before, but both of whom made amazing pieces. In addition, Zelda, Kim and Denette joined us, and made absolutely stunning shrines with their selected objects and stories.

Enshrined class students working away.
Kim's shrine about her garden-loving grandmother, in progress
More workshops to come, the next on May 17th. Hope to see you there!