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.

Windows of Opportunity

I have been doing Gelli monoprinting.  I did some to make Chaos Cards for Friends of Calligraphy and had lots of scraps left.  I saw a recent post on the Gelli website about weaving the long scraps.  So I wove them.  I still had some small pieces left and had the idea to make cards and name them all Windows of Opportunity.  So each window is cut out of card stock and a scrap taped to the back and then another piece of paper to hide the back of the scraps.

Woven scraps

cut out windows

a few...

a few more

back of card

Chaos Card packets - not all Gelli prints, some are letterpress, hand stamping, watercolor, acrylic exercises and others.

My Wildflower Cards

Ruth's Table and Etsy are having an event this weekend which I cannot attend.  I thought I would contribute to Ruth's Table these cards I made.  The original pen drawings were done on letterpress cardstock and copied onto letterpress card stock to make mutiples.  I realized that the time I spent on each was too lengthy so I put my copier to good use.  The wildflowers are from my small farm, Um Tanto Bravo (a little wild), in Portugal. Here are a few examples.

Here I have finished them and are packaging them for sale.  I used Sakura Micron pens for all of my drawings.

The only greeting card...all are blank inside.

ArtSeed

ArtSeed is an organization to inspire and empower the young or underprivileged to realize their full potential and embrace diverse communities through participation in the arts.
Because of my Grandson, I became acquainted with ArtSeed and Josefa Vaughan, the Executive Director.  She requested that I may have something of art related to teach to young people.  I chose to teach them how to make their own pens out of printer's discarded litho plates or empty soft drink cans.  I also brought along sumi ink to try the pens out.  I was fortunate to have a friend, Greg Garcia of On Paper Inc, donate litho plates and lots of good paper.

Josefa Vaughan, executive director going over students plein aire work just before my class and mid morning hot chocolate.

The cola pen or soft drink can pen

The litho pen with written instructions I gave to each student.

The students for today's class.

These were the final finished note cards they made with embossed framing (additional lesson). I gave them an envelope so that they could used it to send or give away.  The pen exercise produced wonderful strokes and I think they were all pleased.