Art in the Afternoon

I just spent a couple of hours with friend and artist, Destree, doing what we’ve coined: “Art in the Afternoon.” We’ve been trying to get together once a week to work on whatever project has burbled to the surface. Today, I was making some decisions about what embellishments to include on my “By the Sea” inchie swap, as well as what background paper to use for the October “By the Sea” fatbook swap I’m in. Yes, both have sea themes and both are for October. Why? Because that’s when Art and Soul lands in Portland and the theme is (drum roll) “By the Sea.” I made some headway on both swaps (no early peeks, I’ll have an unveiling later . . .).





Destree brought a large canvas project she is doing as a surprise birthday gift for her Dad’s 60th birthday. Since I knew he wouldn’t be reading my blog and spoil his surprise, Destree said it was okay if I wrote about the project. Anyway, Destree arrived with her canvas and a cute little cigar box painted yellow and filled with copies of old black and white photos of her Dad as a child. Her quandary was how to attach the photos but still allow the beautiful paint to show through on the canvas. “Transparencies” I cried! Unfortunately, I had seen them demonstrated but had never done them myself. I remembered enough to know that clear packing tape transparencies are pretty easy peasy, so I jumped online to get more specific directions and googled “packing tape transfer.” Viola! We were in business. I even took a photo of my 2-year old self and and gave the technique a try; it worked! Beautiful little transparencies for use in all kinds of projects and it was just what Destree needed for her canvas. We got a big bowl of water and started floating little miniature photos of her Dad. Here's one of me on the left and Destree's Dad on the right:



While the transfers soaked, we nibbled on a big bowl of freshly picked cherries and three kinds of summer berries: rasp, boysen, and marion. Maybe we should rename our gathering: Art and Berries in the Summer.