Button Up Buttercup

At SCRAP-sf there is a huge assortment of buttons. So I thought to give a button necklace workshop to use some of them. I taught three versions to 12 students. (Knot Again, Hi Wire, and String Along.) Some thought the assortment wasn't very colorful until I had them take time to get themselves a small box full. I first showed them the ones I had made from the bins, gave them some advice and them let them go to it. The first image is the sampling I made. The rest are the students with the Hi Wire technique. They all did a great job.

These three necklaces were made from the bins.

Carol Heard

Nora Chun Oba

Regina Gibson

Dorothy Reinhardt

Dotty Garone

Evelyn Eldridge

Kay Harris

Laura Waterman

Megumi Inouye

Valerie Franco

Buttonhole Bound Books

It has been a while since I had taught this workshop. So, I made a new set of instructions and took out my samples. After so long I almost forgot how to do the stitch. As a seamstress, I made them for my tailored pieces very easily. You would think it would easily translate to a book. Well, I was surprised that I had to practice. Teaching it again June 15, 2019 at San Francisco Center for the Book.

Nametags for the students

Eco Print !!

This second part of Eco Printing at the San Francisco Center for the Book included more info and practice with tannins and blankets and edibles. Everyone seemed to have a great time and a few have already signed up for my next one in May 2019.

Joke Bouden's workshops David Jones and Concertina book

We were so fortunate to have Joke come all the way from Brugge to pass on the David Jones letterforms and also to show us how she produces her wonderful Concertina books. We practiced the letterforms from David Jones pieces and were asked to make a piece using only a few words using gouache or fine tip pens. Mine was Ready, Set, Go. For the Concertina; we had to do our own by picking a theme and researching images and words of that theme. She inspired us by showing her originals from a special box she made. She handled them with cotton gloves and we were not to touch them. They were so wonderful. The intricacies of her work was out of this world. She gets a lot of her images from the internet but makes them her own way. She says she never makes an outline of where her images are going to be placed but adds as she finds them...filling in here and there, balancing the whole.

Daavid Jones workshop piece.

First image I did with fine tip pen and watercolor.

some words from my verse added..I did not like and have since changed this part with a knit image.

Coat of many colors and fringe edge of a rug.

Take It Away

This Sacramento Center for Fiber Arts workshop was really fun. We used bleach on fabric and paper and made some amazing things. Here are some of the pieces my students made;

Kit and her T shirt

bleach on paper

bleach string pull

ready for book covers

Learning Calligraphy never ends.

Rick Paulua, a former White House Calligrapher, gave a great workshop for the Friends of Calligraphy in September. It was called The Truely Flexible Pointed Pen. Here are two that  I produced in the workshop....roughs, first draft;

The first rough. As I finished my pen dropped a blob....guess it was telling me it wasn't good enough and to do over again. I knew it anyway....

This is the second one, losening and less control.  Trying to have some fun with this.

Santa Fe fun with Sharon Sorken

I was so privileged to have a fun get together with Sharon. She is a fantastic botanical printer on fabric artist. Kit Veerkamp and I were lucky to be able to stay with her and Ed at their beautiful Santa Fe home. All together 10 of us had 5 days of fun, sharing and learning from each other. Sharon and Ed were the premier hosts. Here are some of the work that was done there by various participants.
I shared a few hour paper printing class  and these are the examples from my cohorts.

Here is Kit, Sharon Spike and me...afternoon break.