Wings for Lisa

Two words that make me smile: Lil' Gypsy. I smile because it means Sam Hart is somewhere close and she really makes me smile. I received the e-mail that those of us who are junk hounds wait to hear: I have a pile of crap for you. I was in the neighborhood today and so I stopped by to say hello and to retrieve my goodies. As I drove up, I found Sam outside setting up a sign announcing a 10% off sale in honor of the Salem Film Festival and the new location of Salem Cinema (it has relocated to block south of Lil Gypsy).

The inside of Sam's store is even better than the outside and Sam posed so I could get a shot of her in her nest.

Sam then pushed my goodies toward me (this is part of them).

When I got home, I spread out the goodies Sam had given me, oohing and ahhing as I waded through the vintage dice holder filled to the brim with little bits and bobs.

Then, I got to play with the wonderful items I purchased while I was in her store. My treasures included:

A very cool vintage chalk mirror.

Tap shoes that almost fit me, well, they sorta do if I don't wear thick socks. I can't wait to go clickety clicking around the block. I told Sam I just might wear them when we all go see Grey Gardens at Portland Center Stage this coming June.

A gaudy mirror perfect for some art work a la Michael deMeng (who said hi to me at Artfest as if he remembered me from the class I took from him last year at Art and Soul . . . ummmmm, I wonder if that could be true or if he just says hi to everyone, knowing they have probably taken a class from him somewhere along the line and he has his bases covered that way!).

And lovely Lisa got wings. I shoulda known that Sam would have wings in her back room . . .

Artful Play - Makin' a Mess

Last night was week two in my six-week series: Artful Play. It is being held at the Salem Art Association, which is nestled in Bush's Pasture Park (I wrote about SAA and the location last week, so click here if you want a direct link to that post). Since Howard is my wonderful art supply schlepper, we arrived early and ate our dinner in the park at a picnic table just outside the studio. After I got the room set up, I played around with my supplies outside.




We started the evening by doing a little blind contour drawing. In blind contour drawing, you keep your eyes on the object you are drawing, never looking down at your paper (oh, and you also can't lift your pen or pencil). It's tricky. We started by drawing the jester featured in the flowerbed above, moved to a self-portrait, then drew each other. All of these ideas were created by Gretchin Lair of Scarlet Star Studios in Portland and I loved them so much, that I have incorporated them into this class. I didn't take photos of the first two rounds of drawings, but did manage a shot of the drawings they did of each other. They are playful and fun.

After our series of blind contour drawings, we moved into Touch Drawing. This is a technique developed by Deborah Koff-Chapin (those are Deborah's Soul Cards sprinkled on the table in the photos showing our work space - Soul Cards were created from Deborah's touch drawings). I had the privilege of taking a one-day workshop with Deborah back in February, so it was fun to teach her methods after having heard her speak directly about the process (and to spend an entire day creating images myself).

One of my favorite things is images of hands doing art. Here are the ladies immersed in the Touch Drawing process.

Beautiful, beautiful pages of drawings, images, and color. This is a very small sampling of their work.

And so it begins again . . . .

I was asked by my friend Destree (she has a blog, but I don't know if she wants me to be linking to it yet - what do you say, Destree?) to participate in another Altered Board Book Round Robin, this time hosted by Destree. Our first rotation was to have occurred on Wednesday, April 1st, right smack dab in the middle of when we were on vacation in Washington and the day before Artfest was to begin. So, I asked Destree if I could get my book to her at the beginning of the following week. Of course, she replied. Little did she know that upon my return, my week would disappear into the void of a series of horrible allergy attacks, a grandson day, a dental appointment, a doctor appointment, and a hair appointment. I didn't end up getting my completed book to her until just this last Saturday, leaving her only four days to get her two pages done in my book. I felt so horrible I delivered my book, Michelle's book (not due until this Wednesday), and a little gift I had purchased while at Artfest Vendor Night (that was my peace offering). The gift I gave her was done by Syd McCutcheon, who sells her art under the name of Sheep Floozy.


Enough babbling. Show us the art! For both my own book (the inside pages) and Michelle's, I used techniques I learned at Artfest from Karen O'Brien in her class, Myth and Mystery. It was fun using the techniques so soon after just learning them. Here is my blank book and the progress I made on the two inside pages:

At the same time that I was doing my pages, I played in Michelle's book. Here is the cover of Michelle's book as she delivered it to me:

And then what I did to my two pages inside of Michelle's book. The bird woman is labelled Gypsy Woman.


For the outside of my book, I used some of the techniques I learned in Lynne Perrella's class, A Face in the Crowd, also at Artfest. The key component here is gesso . . .

The poem at the base of my book by Henry Van Dyke reads:

Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.

Yum Yum

We had a great breakfast on Saturday morning and if you're one of my Portland readers, you might want to check it out: Bumblekiss, located in Beaumont Village, right off of Fremont in N.E. Mini-muffins were served along with the menus to get the taste buds revved up. The food was fabulous and the restaurant was very kid friendly. Here's my family experience chronicled in photos:

And after breakfast, we went to grandson Jackson's very first T-ball game!