Sunday, August 27, 2017

Summer Class with Erma Takeda




Another Summer fun with Erma. This summer I pick the MacKintosh hand to study. Every few weeks, each person in the class was to send Erma and another participant, assigned by Erma, a card following a prompt. This year's theme was 'Cut It Out';. Sound familiar? It is also the name of a workshop that I am giving in Los Angeles in October. Anyway, she attached a prompt that we were to adhere to with our cards and lettering. The only one I forgot to photo was the first that I sent out.  Here are the others of mine;

prompt - use decorative edge scissors + 4 lines of chosen leterform and smaller tool. The rose colored area is cut with exacto, white cherry blossoms cut and inserted, all mounted onto stamp edge scissors cut green paper and this all mounted on cardstock.


prompt - use exacto blade..used vellum behind cutout..appears like a cut glass window when opened, may be able to see message under.

prompt - use small scissors and keep practicing. I used painted tissues from another art piece, from a workshop with Este Macloed, and cut out forms and glued down...could not duplicate, so two are different.


cutting out
Wasn't smart enough to cut out two papers at a time. As you see, each one is a little different because they were individually cut.
This was the last page close up of the two quotes and my message.
last prompt - your choice of cutting tool - I made an accordian card with each a silhouette cutout to spell A ROSE and wrote two quotes.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Eco-print 2, Edibles - Paper - Fabric

Carol, Ali, me, Kate, Cheryl and Hannah...
This past full weekend, I gave a workshop at San Francisco Center for the Book. It was on Eco-printing with botanicals. This time I included with leaves and flowers, purple carrots, red cabbage, strawberry tops, onion skins, avocado, black beans, pomegranate and rosemary. I also gave each a piece of cotton, linen, wool and silk. The students did great work. Here are a few photos;
















Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Fibonacci - Sacred Geometry

Belonging to a closed group of scribbler's; the weekly prompt was sacred geometry. So, I decided to try my hand at the Fibonacci nautilus. My attempt to do it by hand, with my engineering tools, was frustrating; trying to make perfect squares. So, I decided to use my Adobe Illustrator and do it with my computer. So here is the one I just finished. I want to try other solutions, but this is my first.


I also designed the letters, using geometric forms.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Eco-Printing

Another great class at the San Francisco Center for the Book I taught this last weekend. I had eight great creative students. I added an additional technique of using a logwood blanket. It turned out to be a great addition.
dried papers with strips of logwood blankets

uses for printed papers

The flowers printed well.

A full piece of logwood blanket...beautiful!

More finished pieces of James.

Me, Julie, Mary, Anne, Melinda, Sherri, Mary, James and another student who did not want her photo taken, Brittany.

waiting for the papers to dry

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Nature's Calling, a workshop I gave for the Friends of Calligraphy. A full weekend with 18 students. I wouldn't have made it if it were not for all the volunteers that help set up. Nancy Noble was my right hand assistant and Elena Caruthers was the coordinator. I had four roasters going and lots of plants to share. Students also brought plants in to share. Here are some photos from the whole weekend.

Inside drying for next days alterations The photos below, chosen randomly, are from students in the class at the end of the final day.





New Altered book for Marin Museum of Contemporary Art show. Visiting the San Francisco Center for the Book, I noticed how books and cards are displayed and how difficult it is if it is not on a pedestal to be able to be seen all around it and opened to see inside of it. I know this display piece I engineered doesn't solve anything more than a few pages of either, but I thought it could work a little. I wasn't sure about what to use as its base or the structures supports. Just checking through my stashes, I noticed the Mexican Amate paper that was left from a class of Jane Dill's and a piece of cork left from a bulletin board I had made. Then, in my storage, I notices the left over dried flowers from a previous work. Here are some photos of my procedures. I did many a sketch and thought about this a lot. The printed papers from my Eco-Printing were altered to make an accordian book. Everything is natural, even the nori glue to the walnut ink, cotton paper and real plants for printing and supports, the amate bark paper and cork base..

Here the base has been readied for the holes made by a awl. You can see the template below that I worked out on Illustrator. I also Eco-Printed the papers to make the accordian folded book.

Here is the back of the piece supporting the book. The pages have already been scribed with walnut ink to identify the plant used in the printing. This view would show a front and back cover of a book.
This is the front with the title of the piece, The Plant Stand.

The finished piece. The dried flower stems can be easily removed..no glue holding them in place, A new card or book can be put in place and then stems can be replaced to hold up the card or book. I placed them strategically so more or less pages can be seen.


Saturday, February 25, 2017

Letters California Style with Marina Soria

picked out one piece that was going to be thrown out by a sewing contractor friend. We were asked to study the colors and pull out no more than 6 colors from it. Mine was easy, it only had 6 colors. The pattern was our inspiration to use the colors and interpret them in various ways.

mixed colors of the print
first study

Empty space study with shape of the paisley
Study with Gilbran quote
letterform inspiration from Benoit Furet - anachropsy.com

using folded pen
Letterform I made up with inspiration from one I found online..no attribution.
study using resist

woven words from two studies
accordian book of printed pages with printed covers of fabric.
The fabric I chose and my study pages



Marina and the classmates. Great bunch of women.
My table mates, Sunny Ba and Kathy Wafer.