A fun-filled Tuesday

More art projects were on the agenda for another one of Danielle's Spring Break days with me.  Continuing on with her visit to our Calligraphy Class yesterday, I decided we should just do some fun decorated letters!

She wanted to make a surprise for Kassidy with the letter "K".

Tried a couple of different designs and decided on this one.  Kassidy's favorite color is pink.

And "D" for Danielle.  We put ribbons on them so that they would look pretty  hanging on their bedroom doors.

She was looking at some flower-decorated ones in a book that I have and so that's how she chose to do hers.  Love the little mushrooms at the bottom.

Mine.  Kept us busy all day!

The activity was busy outside too.  The big Grackles...

and our neighborhood squirrel.  There are nuts in this suet!

Can't help but laugh to watch his antics though.

"I'm hungry too!"

Then Brent was over for dinner and we were treated to a dinnertime serenade.

It's Monday!

The beginning of the week and Monday's Collage Class!  Half-way through this session and Kate is going along well on her beautiful tree.  I feel it breathe...

Mary's Ocean with lots of movement.

And Barbara's calming flowery message in purples and pinks.

Danielle is on Easter Break this week, so she was with me yesterday and, of course, loved working on a collage project too.  She "dug right in" and began filling her background with happy colors and patterns.

Voila!  A collage celebration, perfect for a birthday card!

Monday afternoons I have Calligraphy Class with Marge and so Danielle and I spent a little time there.  She was going to the movies with Daddy as soon as he got off work, so we couldn't stay for the whole class.  We're beginning Illuminated Letters and Danielle was anxious to give that a try.

I think she did a lovely job!

and she chose a lovely quote.

Monday's collage

Getting ready for tomorrow's class and sleeping and dreaming about my collage last night, I decided it needed some branches that are getting ready for Spring's new growth.  Took a photo of my tree outside my front window...

and began cutting branches from this wonderful coffee-stained paper towel that I made last week.  Nice bark color.

Began putting some into this weedy place.

And will continue adding more, and now preparing some transfers.

How about this!  Couldn't waste the rest of the coffee mixture and some paint I had left, so crumbled up tissue and poured it on.  We will see if I can get it apart when it dries.  It looks nice and weedy to me.

Wednesday's class

Besides working on our collages, I decided to bring the instant coffee to distress some papers again.

Everyone loves those papers and we can always use some more!

And busy working on our collage pieces in between.

Some enjoyed a little homework assignment that I had given to do in their sketchbooks.  This involved choosing two magazine pages, cutting or ripping them into strips and then creating a collage by alternating the image strips and creating a new image.

Two more weeks left to this session, but I think the collages are evolving beautifully.  Didn't catch everyone's, but here are some...

Peggy's

Sandy's.  Thought maybe the table legs interfered here, so took another one below.

Maryann's

and Lora Lee's

A most wonderful workshop!

                                                                  by Jacqueline Sullivan

                                                                   

This past weekend, I attended Jacqueline Sullivan's "Visual Poetry" workshop through the Chicago Calligraphy Collective.  I thoroughly enjoyed the class.  Jacqueline is a favorite instructor of mine and I wouldn't have missed it for anything!

Getting us started...

inspiring...

analyzing...

working...

thinking...

suggesting...

Here are all of the pieces lined up at the end of the class; every one of them beautiful.  I just wish I had taken individual pictures of all.

This is Jacqueline's beautiful piece that she demonstrated for us.

Kathy's

Joanna's

Marge's

and mine.  Loved writing on canvas!

...and after highlighting the central letters and I am still going to add some lettering in white in between the black lettering on the bottom right.

A good time was had by all, learning new techniques and using new materials that we had not used before.  Jacqueline taught us this beautiful way of "including calligraphy as part of our painting and learning to think of our text as part of the overall composition of our painting.  Thinking of the text as 'pieces of paint'; working with a favorite quote and using our response to that quote, repeating and magnifying words that speak to us."

Yesterday in drawing class

Apples again!  Can't get away from these Honeycrisp apples that I painted a while back and so had to do them in pen & ink and colored pencils.  Good practice! Slurp!

Now...on to Lemons!  Julie always makes homemade lemonade in the summer, so this was a picture I took one day when all the lemons were piled on her countertop.  They make my mouth water.  Yum!

Here is the drawing that Donna has been working on; a lesson in perspective.  Really nice!  And a memory of our Log Cabin art room.

Above and below are Mary's beautiful pencil drawings.

And here, Evelyn and Nancy did a great job of the shading circles exercise.

Lois encourages everyone to put copies of their drawings on our art room bulletin board.

Love this one that Joan did of a little boy.