The little Blue Moosebug was finally finished.....not a bad little specimen ........and is in it's new home now. More stuff to follow as I finish. However.......Birdboy needs a proper name. Since he may be a part of a series, I am entertaining ideas. Feel free to suggest. I have re-attached his head and it is supported fully now so it shouldn't have any more stress cracks. I have the perfect "place" for him. I will be taking him tomorrow... finished or not ....to the Artist's luncheon to share for a little feedback. So this afternoon will be spent working on him....and cleaning during breaks...and making it to the pool.

Birdboy et al............

This weekend I took a workshop in Avon Lake with Michael deMeng.......It was FABULOUS! The people were FANTASTIC, the Instructor was AMAZING, and the artwork was DIVERSE. I can't say enough about Ginny and John from Small Studios who hosted the two day event. They are wonderful people! Now on to some specifics. ....

The workshop -Island Of Demented toys.......The first day covered the deconstruction and reassemblage of toys. All kinds! Demos included using a dremel, sanding, and how to assemble the pieces using Aves apoxie clay. Great stuff.....not cheap, but excellent. I worked with it some but mainly I used Pearl paperclay. For my classroom and budget, it is cost prohibitive, but without a doubt the better option. It was harder and dried much faster than the paperclay. We also had demo's over Golden Acrylic paints and their uses. Gorgeous, vibrant, colors..fantastic combinations with colors called jelly brains, barnacle blue and gothish black. Day two continued with more demos over the paints and finished with a class critique. DeMeng discussed every single piece that was created. Giving a full review and suggestions for each artist and their work.

I enjoyed his workshop more than any other I have gone to recently and look forward to attending more from DeMeng and from Small Studios in the future! I came away with a lot to use in in my classroom and in my studio.  I highly suggest that if the chance arises, you should go to one and take me  with you:) Now on to the pics! Be warned they are not finished and a little creepy, and as I often tell my students, A little creepy can be a good thing! I think that with this workshop, the summer crow series is going to go in a slightly different direction......

Spring Break has started with snow! What a great way to start off the weekend! I have several projects about to be underway. I found this great old high chair at a local antique store. A little pricier than what I would have wanted to normally spend for an assemblage piece-cause I am cheap-but it really spoke to me. It is going to become a a political response work, but you can derive your own meaning when it is posted. Also have a series of prints that the sketches have been started but the plates are still nonexistant. I am debating betweeen 2 different plate series and don't know which one to start. I will be working on those eventually hopefully tonight!

School has been swamped!! Big classes, big ideas, not enough time it seems and a ton of new obstacles this year. Overall FANTASTIC kids! I Am always so impressed and inspired with what they can do.

But anyways.......................they finally released the name of this years 2010 Musical and it is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!!! YEAH!!!!!! I hate keeping secrets and that one was hard to keep. We made silk screened shirts for the unveiling and they turned out pretty well!

Hand stenciled screen, just used a word program to get the font and manipulated the letters, took about 6 hours to paint the screen, and then a card stock stencil for the foiled silhouette. Speedball inks worked well, they are metallic but it wasn't that noticeable on the t-shirt. The foil is from Laura Murray Designs. Not difficult to do, but we used Alenes Flexible Fabric Glue for the foiling because it eas clear and the Murray adhesive was a dark Gray.

I can't wait until February :)

(sorry for the pic quality)

School is getting ready to start and I am very excited!! Lots of neat ideas, looking forward to meeting new students and seeing the old too! Just wish I had everything in the house done already. Redoing both bedrooms is time consuming. I am refinishing a bedroom set that I bought last month and It isnt finished yet adn I already have the table and chairs for the kitchen in to start the processs on too!

Where did the summer go?

Way back in May I got up off of my butt to participate in the May Show at he Mansfield Art center. I didn't get in to the show but I did give my mother one of the collograph print series that I made. She seems to love or at least like it. These are some of the other prints from that plate while I was experimenting. I don't have the final framed work pictured. The black one is just getting a base of ink to work with and the color unfortunately was damaged in the press. I stopped to talk to someone when the plate wasn't all the way through the rollers.

I was inspired by my friend Sally Tharp who has a daily blog with all of her amazing artwork to get my but in gear and do one of my own. I figured that if I started writing about it, I would have to do it so.........today I am working on organizing my studio. It is the first day that school is out and I have to put all that stuff somewhere that I lugged home. I am probably going to toss Van Helsing into the DVD palyer for some noise and see how far I get. I am hoping to get it all finished by this Friday so that Monday I can really get started doing "stuff". I have a series of prints I want to work on that focus on family and relationships.