Wednesday's paper painting

On Wednesday, I brought lots of paper towels and acrylics to class.  We had a paper towel painting session to get ready to create a springtime collage this session.

I liked these Scott 1-ply paper towels with the nice lines for texture, and with them being 1-ply, they didn't need to be pulled apart.

Making about three small cups of acrylic washes, you just crumple the paper towel (I tore about three sheets together) and dip it into the three different colors...

Then lay it on a piece of freezer paper, let it dry a little, and then stamp, using tools and rubber stamps, with somewhat heavier acrylic paint (very little water added) applied to the stamp/tool with a sponge brush, using a Styrofoam plate as a palette.  This worked well.

When completely dry, iron it flat.  Nice paper for collage!  I think I see those Buttercups!

Monday's class...

Cynthia is recreating a very special scene. 

 



This is her first collage and it's wonderful!

 



 

There's a very special line of poetry hidden among the trees.

 

Mary is doing a wonderful job with recreating a very special place in her winter garden.  A transfer, on the right, will come off soon to reveal a lovely addition to her collage.

 



 Lora Lee came by for a make-up class and is also recreating a beautiful spot in her garden.  The photograph that she took and is working from is beautiful to frame too, but this collage has earned a frame for sure.

 

Start each day with a smile and get it over with.

 

 

W.C. Fields

They're here!

Looking out my window one day last week, here's what I saw in my next-door neighbor's tree.

Big, big Robins, all puffed up weathering the "almost-spring" weather.

Well, we hope almost spring...

Do they know something that we don't?

There were at least ten of them in the tree...

So, this week's poetry homework assignment was to write a "pantoum".  The form is a Malayan one from the fifteenth century, with older roots in Chinese and Persian poetry.  The sound effect is close to chanting, with extensive use of repetition.  The second and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the next stanza.  The pantoum circles back.  It ends where it began.  The last line of the poem repeats the first line.  The second line of the last stanza repeats the third line of stanza 1...and so on.  (Frances Mayes, The Discovery of Poetry) 

The Soldiers

 

I spotted the robins in my tree

There among the icy branches

In the midst of a snow-filled day

The harbingers of spring wait.

 

There among the icy branches

As the winter wind harshly blows

The harbingers of spring wait

Scouting ahead to herald the rest.

 

As the winter wind harshly blows

In the midst of a snow-filled day

Scouting ahead to herald the rest

I spotted the robins in my tree.

 

 

A.Schabes



...and the party!

 

 

Everyone brings 30 valentines to exchange with everyone else, and I have bags with each guest's name on them to serve as "mailboxes", but this year we also made a paper pocket portfolio and then decorated it to save this year's valentines in.

Another fun and easy project was to make cards and bookmarks - drawing hearts or writing on them with white crayon and then applying watercolor washes for the color.  The crayon acts as a resist to the paint, and so the hearts show through.  Thanks to www.happyhooligans.ca  . 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Yesterday's class

Finishing up our winter collages, Barb's has a mystical feeling; a fantasy, surreal feel.

Teri, almost finished; she's considering adding another tree on the right and/or toning down the trees or the sun.

Denise's finished with different textures in the snow piles and that wonderful masking tape paper we made for the tree trunks.

Again, Carolyn's beautiful night time forest, using paper towels and paint.

And, here, Carolyn brought in one of her paintings to show us.  Beautiful and bright!

We saved time after our critique of the collages, for Barb to show us how to make this envelope book.

I had missed a meeting where this was taught, so she kindly showed us in class.  I really like it and it would make a lovely little gift.

Okay, and back to mine.  This one, almost done.

 

Done.

 



 

...and working with painted backgrounds this time, this one is waiting to be started.

 

...and here's my Valentine quilt, ready for it's batting, backing and quilting.  Oh dear...another project unfinished.  Do I start too  many things at one time?  Well, they're all just too much fun!