Dot's Rainbow

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Artseed Summer Intensive 2015

Workshop at Artseed with 11/12 people. We did bleach art and made a book. The students were so surprised at what they could create with just colored paper and bleach. I had some students who were younger than expected, so it took longer to get things done. The class was to begin at 1PM but they were not ready until 1:45 so we did not finish completely. This workshop was inspired by Susan Longerot. Here are some photos;

Monday, June 15, 2015

Fashion Incubator San Francisco 2014-2015

Finalizing the Spring/Summer collection today with last details for the presentation next Wednesday and then getting prepared for Macy's Glamorama. Here are some of the designers today practicing their presentation as Jeanne Allen, Marc Grant, Lynn Jacobs and I go through it with them.

Put It All Together with Susan Longerot

Friends of Calligraphy's Summer Workshop this year was with Susan Longerot. What a fabulous time we all had learning surface design techniques, books, containers and lettering. Here are some photos from the workshop.

Each of us received a unique surface designed folder, made by Susan, with all instruction sheets. Our first prize of the first day. Each day, twice a day, someone could win something from her box of small surprises too. I was lucky to be the first winner!

Turkish book box opened with signatures, I decided not to add the decorated surface to the outside box corners.

Top of the twist box or Turkish book box closed with finished surface design using masking and watercolors with highlights of copper gel pen.

With other Turkish book boxes..so many different looks and colors.

The finished bronze rod hinged book with bead embellishments. The papers from our day with the bleach, coloring, doodling and lettering.

Opened pages, each made from our section of our bleached papers....

small accordian book with sample swatches from our projects...

Case made with one of Susan's decorated sheets to house our sampler accordian book.

The five exposed bindings.

Slip cover made to hold the five exposed binding books decorated with our watercolor technique and Susan's paper chips.

The five exposed binding stitches and embellished with our own watercolor surfaces and lots of small chips from Susan's paper chips and beads.

Here are all the bronze hinged books made by the class...we were bejeweled!

A photo of all of our bronze hinged books..so many different colors and designs..so many different solutions!

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Name Tags and Carl Rohrs workshop

I always loved the name tags that were given to me at workshops, usually made with care and thought by the makers. Sometimes they are made by the instructor and sometimes made by a student. I particularly like the ones that David Brookes makes.

This time I undertook the task for a Carl Rohr's workshop, Brush and Stilleto. I am also the coordinator for the Friends of Calligraphy for this particular workshop. He will be teaching the use of the brush in making his wonderful brush lettering and using the knife (stilleto) to cut out letterforms.

I cut out letterforms from black paper and placed them on sample papers from Flax and from old watercolor pieces. I then put them in name tag holders.

Cut outs before placing on background paper....


unfinished (wait listed) and finished

The line up of class members...each different.

My cut out 'D'...all flat papers from Carl's workshop

Gia cutout with stripped paper backing...

Emma in high definition colors..green cut out on orange!!!

Carl's gift to me for organizing the workshop...wasn't I lucky?

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.

Marin Museum Of Contemporary Art Altered Book Show

MMOCA has an annual Altered Book Show with around 150 entries. I was fortunate to receive an Honorable Mention this year.
I have always been intrigued about how our minds can translate a portion of a letter and know what it is. I used a discarded book of English verses and collaged them on small squares then placed portions of a Bodoni font that relected the letter in the verse. I framed it with discarded book covers. I designed a new Hanko at the bottom right corner. I called this piece Forms On My Mind.