Category Archives: paper art

Big Ol’ Sale Saturday and more . . . .

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I’m posting my newsletter info to SHARDS subscribers because there’s so much going on in the next couple of weeks at the Studio – take a look and join us if you’re in the San Antonio area.

BIG SALE – I’m very excited about this – Lesta and Alison and I always have a fantastic time, and Michelle Belto will be joining us on Saturday. Her encaustic work has been shown all over the world – you will love it. This BIG SALE will be fun. Date: This Saturday November 28th, time: 10-4, place: my good ol’ Studio. I’ll have tons of new earthenware shards and gifties and Bee Dishes and faces! Please join us for art and Chef Mike’s snacks.

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Aha! – and speaking of snacks, Lesta and I have decided to have an Art Snacks workshop the afternoon of Saturday, December 5th. So what an Art Snack? It’s a project that you can learn and complete in a short time to give as a gift or to keep. Here are some of the art snacks you will make and take that afternoon:

  • A folding votive candle card
  • A hand-painted collaged luggage tag
  • An origami gift tag ornament
  • A bookmark

It will be a fun way to spend some creative time of your own during a very busy season. You can read more about it and sign up here, tuition is $75, all materials included.

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By the way, there are two spaces left in the Wax and Fiber Talisman workshop the next day, Sunday December 6th. This workshop is a bit quieter and more process-focused – check it out.

The next official Show and Tell will be on Saturday, January 30 – yikes, a long time away, but we will have a LOT to talk about. And there may be a little surprise “pop-up” Show and Tell over the holidays – I’ll send out an email in advance.

Please join us at the BIG SALE this Saturday!!

Lyn

Seth Apter, master of mixed media and a darn nice guy

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Seth Apter had been an Art Hero of mine long before I heard he was coming to Texas from NYC. His work is a fusion of fine art, accessible craft and  mixed media exploration that I so often try to achieve. Only he does it consistently, and seemingly effortlessly. Check out his work and you’ll see what I mean.

On Thursday I got a chance to  work with him in person (woohoo) at his all-day Collage Camp workshop sponsored by Roadhouse Arts. I learned a lot about collage techniques, and even more about approaches to teaching. Seth is a master at constructive critique. All of us appreciated his feedback. I only wish I could have taken the next thresethe days of classes with Seth, but, alas, I needed to be in Bulverde for the opening of my encaustic show, Coeur Samples, with Michelle Belto.

But guess who showed up at our opening at Dan Pfeiffer’s Gallery yesterday evening – Seth! He came with Bulverde friends Lisa and John Meyer. What a treat! I told him that having him there definitely added to the show’s mojo!

One of the things that makes Seth such a fine teacher is the way he organizes his classes, step by step, and in a logical way that helps you internalize the steps and elements. In the Collage Camp, we started with a series of eight small collages, each of which demonstrated one of Seth’s design principals.  These will serve as an informal reference book for future work. Here are some photos from our day together – what a fantastic group with an unforgettable teacher.

You’ll enjoy looking around Seth Apter’s website – he told us that he’s getting ready to launch a new line of mixed media tools and products that will enhance anyone’s mixed media work, info at the link below – I am grateful to have met him – isn’t learning new stuff fun?

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Sunday’s creative Citra-solv collage circle

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That Citra-solv stuff is amazing – it cleans the studio, takes old paint out of brushes, de-greases your tires, and makes amazing art paper from recycled magazines. If you haven’t tried it, perhaps you should – a bit messy, but worth it. Yesterday’s workshop participants got five gold stars for their creative collages. They made some fantastic solvent-altered papers and put together intriguing fantasy worlds. Take a look, and then I’ll give you some sources for the Citra-solve altered paper techniques below the video, You can figure out a million ways to use these cool designs.


I did a post last year on Citra-solv featuring a video by Cathy Taylor, who specializes in workshops using the altered magazine pages. If you want to go a bit further, there’s a new eBook out that I ordered just before this workshop titled “Dissolve It . . Resolve It.” You can download it for $9.95 and I think it’s quite worth it if you’re going to be working with this technique. There are even some directions about using Citra-solv to transfer images. I don’t know the author, but she does a great job laying out the basics and then inspiring experimentation! Fun stuff.

citrabook

eBooks and iCovers

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Back in the olden days, when I first started this blog, I was still making a lot of Kindle reader and iPad covers to sell on my first Etsy shop (Steve Bennett of the Express-News did a story on them in 2010 – “Judge eReader by Its Cover”). One of my buyers from that time wrote last month to ask if I would make a custom cover for her iPad – she likes retro elements but with a bit of whimsy. Here’s the cover I did for her, the first in a long time – she just sent me a note saying how much she liked it. Yay! 

The iPad fits in between elastic cords on the inside front cover. It was fun revisiting this project – these covers are pretty labor intensive depending on how many collage elements you add, but you really can do one for yourself. In fact, I also wrote a post on how to make you own! You will enjoy this mixed-media project – it has both attractive form and useful function. Try it!

 

 

Words on Wings by Lila

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lilaTalented friends – dang – they are such a gift. Lila Walker cracks me up and makes me think, along with about a million other people. Lila came to the Studio on Thursday to do a presentation on her collage cards for the Amigas group, and she had us in stitches.

Lila is a hunter-gather of the best sort. She puts unlikely images with well-chosen quotes and collages them into greeting cards called Words on Wings. Here’s an example:

She cuts out every quote and arranges every image, goes to a local copy service to duplicate the collages in small numbers, then assembles the cards herself. It’s an inspired business of one.
This is Lila in a nutshell (no pun intended, Lila):“Lila Walker is a wife, mother, grandmother, animal rights advocate, loyal friend, good neighbor, retired teacher, artist, reader, gardener and docent at The McNay Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas.”
You can buy her cards in San Antonio at the Twig Bookshop, the McNay, and Viva Bookstore, and you can visit her website for more locations across the country – and to order cards directly from her.. Click through her selections and I guarantee it will brighten this gray winter day.
I’d like to send the one below to Lila herself.

 

 

 

 

Personal adornment – shards and cocoons

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How do I adorn me? Let me count the ways . . .well, the participants at Sunday’s workshop created some fabulous art-to-wear magnetic pins. Their challenge was to use small earthenware faces which they custom-finished and combined with papers and ephemera to create a mini-collage on a 2.5″ base that could be framed or worn. Each one was beautiful, each was different – take a look.

For myself, my new favorite adornment is this art-to-wear neck piece by Turkish artist Ugur Daskan. It came in yesterday’s mail – and I loved it the minute I unwrapped it. Light as a feather, it’s made from silkworm cocoons, paper ribbon, and woven cotton/silk. I photographed it against a lamp so you could see the translucency. You can see more of Ugur’s unique work which combines leather, knitted paper, crochet and fiber at her Etsy shop.

necklace

I am so grateful for the many wonderful artists in this world . . . oh, and one of them is Carol Mylar, who won the Friday Freebie book, Warrior Goddess Training! It’s a little late for your birthday, Carol, but it’s on its way.

 

 

 

 

 

Know when to fold ’em –

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tagPresenting, for your Labor Day holiday folding pleasure, a simple but impressive little origami project. You can make a stack of these pocket-note-tags to use on gifts or even as place cards. You can even drink out of them, as you will see. This Emmy winning (not) short video was produced in my dining room. Awards go to Max the Cat for Best Immovable Object and Chico the Cat for Best Wardrobe Malfunction.

 

Friday Freebie: Rock Paper . . . . .

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Were you gonna say “scissors”? Nope, this is about Rock Paper! I got this email from my uber-talented pal, Sherrill Kahn, right before I went Boston – “You have to try Terra Skin—paper made from stones.  I bought a lot of it. It is really amazing.  I think you would love it.” So I ordered some. It came while I was gone, and I played with it this morning. It’s very cool! The Terra Skin surface reminds me of Yupo, but it’s totally fiber-free and mineral based (no trees were killed). Here are some of my first test scribbles (I labelled them with Photoshop):

stonepaper

You might want to give this stuff a try – it says the surface is appropriate for mixed media, acrylics, graphite and inks, and oils – doesn’t say anything about wax, but hey – why not? And if you need ideas, check out the TerraSkin blog, titled (appropriately), GET STONED. Love it.

OK, so the Friday Freebie is a five-sheet package of TerraSkin paper – I’ll mail it to you if you’re out of town, or you can pick it up at the Studio if you’re nearby. There are two rules for winning the random drawing – ONE, you have to be a SHARDS subscriber by Sunday at midnight (just enter your email on the blog homepage at the top right) and TWO, you have to give us a report on how you like using it and what you did with your very own Terra Skin rock paper. Off to the Studio, happy to be home – happy weekend, everyone!

Stamps R OK – sometimes

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   stamp4I’ve always been slightly rubber-stamp-phobic about using them as a “fine art” tool, and still get a bit twitchy about it. But after seeing some of the beautiful repeat pattern fiber art in the FASA show, I’m coming to realize that stamping can be a great way to explore the kinds of designs found in traditional batik and shibori-like kimono patterns. Therefore, I’ve resurrected those little cat stamps and calligraphy stamps and pattern stamps and am making a little surface design sampler of stamp fragment patterns on paper. It’s simple – just stamp2mask off areas of 5×7″ paper with blue tape (stick it on your jeans first to lint it up for easy removal).

Then stamp portions of a design repeatedly, alternating images. You can do a couple in five minutes and then collect them in a folder with notes on the back about what stamps and inks you used. I’m going to do a series of small paper kimonos soon and will use my favorite pattern for those. Stamping is not rocket science but it’s a lot of fun if you view it as pattern exploration and surface design. Click on the images below to see the detail – it’s pretty interesting and dead-easy.

stamp3 stamp1

Friday Freebie – Pocket Pendant pattern

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Last night I hosted a group of long-time Herb Society friends at the Studio. I wanted to have a project for them that was easy, fun and useful, and not too labor intensive, so I chose Pocket Pendants. These are pretty little folded paper adornments to wear or hang from a twig or give as a small gift. Soooooo – your Friday Freebie is a pattern to make a Pocket Pendant for yourself. You can find it at this link on my website – cut it out, add stuff, and voila! Functional art! The pictures, below, will give you ideas – my friends did a fantastic job on their projects. They are good cooks, too – they brought food for a pre-workshop potluck supper. Yum. The plantains with brown sugar were particularly yummy. Thanks, Y’All!