Elves at work on Seneca Lake

Gail and I and the elves have been busy at work at the art studio in the last few months. Unable to post most of what we made as they are gifts for the holiday season. I promise fun was had by all. I will show off some of the pieces that I made and kept for myself.

Upcycled book bag from Becca's room with dirt spots artfully covered with dreidel patches. The kitten is a drawing modeled after Kit Kat Sarah's rescue cat.

This is one of the beaded pieces I worked with Karen on while Steve was in surgery. The ceramic piece had a broken pin back so I got it for 25cents at a flea market in Gaithersburg, Maryland a year ago.

Gail had seen a very cute burlap tote in a fancy gift shop we made our own in different sizes this is one of three at my house. They are lined with linen and have embroidery hoops sewn inside at the top to keep them open. I supplied the burlap, hoops and an antique crocheted pieces and Gail did the labor

 This was my crow bag for the fall festivals. Hand drawn crow with freestyle machine embroidery. The bag is upcycled from Salvation Army.

Lastly is a bird print that is multidimensional printing the artist used natural components to make up the bird, the tree is a piece of toile cotton that was cut and layered and sewn freestyle machine embroidery onto the paper. The one on the right is Gail's print and she thinks she will write a Robert Frost poem onto the piece in the blank are between moon and bird. 

Lakeside multi-media art

Of to the lake to work on some pieces in progress. I have a large basket of pieces that are stamped, tags stamped and ready to be sewn in.

The first piece to finish was Fox Tales 2014 material is cotton, linen, ribbon embellished with stamping, ribbon finished with a top zipper and a small loop to make it more easily used

lining with hand made tag

 The second piece is an upcycled Angelheart Flax dress repurposed into an apron with patchwork cotton and an antique handcroched doily.

close up

The most complicate bag I have made to date pieced piece with flap closure. The button is hand made upcycled domino with alcohol inks, stamped with an elephant and embossed.

"Happiness never decreases by being shared" -Buddha

I am enjoying painting whether in mixed media, at Wine and Design with acrylics or on my own with watercolors.

My husband when I remarked on his rice bowl to the right looked at the screen and said "Buddha looks like he is sitting in a high chair". 

This was created with watercolors, the blue stamping was done with  recycled bubble wrap with various saturation of paint and various pressure when stamping. I love that each bubble looks nothing like the other.

So in the spirit of Buddha I hope this happy Buddha brings a bit of happiness to your day as he has brought to mine!

Beading my art makes me happy!!!

I so love making necklaces with pendants I have made.
The tiles ended up so lovely and I wire wrapped them and made them into necklaces. The oriental butterfly I beaded with fresh pearls and crystals. Love the richness of the gold pearls and faceting of the crystals are really stunning.

The monkey pendant is made in honor of my new mantra

"NOT MY CIRCUS NOT MY MONKEYS"

This was one of the upcycled art tiles with a green gold background and the monkey in black with turquoise and red. I love the colorfulness of the beads with it.

One of the other tiles was light purple and I created Etz Hayim, the Tree of Life the drawing is my own and the leaves are copper and gold metalic paint and them embossed to give them a 3D effect.

I also worked on some polymer clay pieces. I had made in the past and wire wrapped a koi fish to it. I love japanese art I am sure living in Hawaii and being friends with Eiko fostered this.

Lastly I worked on a scanned hand cut stamp of our dog Bolt. I had made two stamps our pitbull Blaze wore a Marine Corps cover and Bolt was styling a plebe Dixie cup for the USNA. We printed the stamps on linen and when scanned it made a very textured picture. We printed it added blue permanent marker decoupaged it onto a tile. Then used washi tape in bright colors around the outside. Wire wrapped with matching color hot pink and green. This is for my daughter so a simple silver chain is how she would wear it. I am sure if it had been for me I would of used some brightly colored pearls and beads.

4th of July Art Camp Day 2

We were up early and Gail made us a lovely omelet breakfast even though I did have to have keep the jalapeno's out of my omelet.

We both loved our pendants and pieces from the day before. Gail remembered she had some blank ones and we decided to try doing it all....as we are fond of saying "let's try! nothing lost if we don't like it". Well let me just say I am so impressed with what we did. I used a great Japanese butterfly stamp with so many components in the stamp. I ended up making three sets of tiles.... in bronze orange and gold, royal blue and turquoise, and purple and pink each set is three pieces of varying sizes all with different imaging. I brought only three home, two that we framed as accent pieces.The third is going to be made into a pendant.

The rest of the time was spent creating parts of the next 'fox tales" bag, adding layering. The construction will have to wait until next time at the lake. 

I also used the time to make the linen labels for the inside  we use for the bags. I used multiple stamps- anchor, monkey, zebra, giraffe, elephant we stamp with black  fabric paints and then I added a bit of red permanent marker for accent, I did have to restrain myself as I love to add lots of color.

Well we did stop for lunch the only thing was it was 5 pm before we remembered to eat. 

I had another wonderful art camp. We are dreaming of being able to bring this to others we talk about it and the seeds are planted we just have to see how we can grow the dream. Until then it time to start planning for our next Hector Art Camp. 

4th of July Art Camp-FREEDOM OF ARTISTIC EXPRESSION DAY I

This 4th of July weekend was spent at art camp at Gail's lake house in Hector NY.
As usual the weekend started with happy hour- cheese, salami, olives and gluten free crackers. This time is spent catching up with each other.

On the way to art camp I stopped at two second hand stores. The first is a treasure trove of 25cent items. They had bought a whole household sale in Ithaca of a woman who was a paper artist-so bargains included painted items, items she had done artist exchange for. I also got some lovely embroidered and crocheted pieces to use in mixed media. The find of the day was some painted domino's about 20 for two dollars.

While waiting for Gail to get dinner in the oven I went up to the studio to work on two upcycled bags

 
The second bag is two sided this is the larger crocheted piece the opposite side is the same style crocheted piece only predominately white with yellow.

Then I started on some mixed media pieces. One of the found treasures was a luggage tag which I then created my own back to include my information.


Then altered a pendant with using a fun piece of book page behind the transparent ballerina she then became a more me piece by labeling her a "hussy".

 Late that evening after a delicious dinner and wine from Villa Bellangio we started to play with the plastic tiles that were already colored- stamping, using metallic paints and embossing. We are using some of these as buttons for other bags, I will wire wrap some for pendants and several are being used in picture frames.

This elephant pin is on an altered book bag. The elephants are stamped on linen.

 Circus monkey will be made into a pendant

Etz Hayim  a Jewish piece with the Hebrew Tree of Life, the verse is written on the side in English. This will also be wire wrapped.

Finally we were so tired as once again we had lost track of time and we headed to bed.....already on day 2.

multimedia on the lake

Another wonderful weekend at the lake making art.

I had gotten some wonderful Angelheart Flax pieces at our local Salvation Army to work on  a beige dress and a 2 sided jacket green linen on one side and striped on the other.
Used two previously stamped pieces to alter them.

Then my greatest challenge was to make my own tallit. I used my mermaid stamp for one side and Gail's double turtle on the other side. The tallis bag has another turtle piece and a small shore bird. Striped blue on the outside and madras print on the inside. Finished with a self-made tag with a monkey and my name. The tzitzits and the neck piece, atarah

were saved from a ritual burial at synagogue and repurposed.

May showers bring spring flowers.....so what does the cold bring. A grumpy Mandy for sure. It was so cold I never even bothered putting in my spring wardrobe.
We did two away trips.

A week in Hilton Head South Carolina. Good food, relaxing by the very cold pool (heated my patootie). The highlights of the trip were two side trips. First to Savannah Georgia for lunch and shopping then out to Tybee Island to the Crab Shack. The last day we went back to New York through Charleston ate a fantastic lunch at Hominy Grill- I ate and loved shrimp with grits. Then we strolled the Charleston Market and picked up a few pieces to make necklaces with- a bold bulldog for the USMC and two enameled pieces a crab and a 6 pt flower or is it an abstract Jewish Star.

My adventure at the Omni Hilton Head involved a rustling bush, okay I was getting a bit worried when finally a cute gray cat sticks its head out. A minute later while reclining in my chaise lounge pool side I see out of the corner of my eye a snake slithering beside my chair. I have to tell you I froze- no scream, not sure which way to dash. Then the cat pounces pulls the snake back in the bush and the leaves are whipping every which way. Okay from a safe distance away I wait until I see the cat come out and lick its paws. Needless to say I never sat out at the adult pool again but headed daily to the family pool area and far away from any vegetation.

The last trip was a two night run down to Annapolis to pack Becca out of her dorm room. Got a chance to meet Julia who she was traveling to Europe with. Also got to meet the boyfriend and his family and the other Mids they sponsor. It was a lovely time.

gifts for friends

I was able to use some of the great pieces I had printed with Gail to make some girts for friends. The crown bags were from Michael's and were plastic lined making them a bit tricky to sew on.

 I also upcycled an old denim jacket that had been languishing in my closet. I used a hedgehog Gail's original stamp along with an original rabbit stamp of Gail's to make a multi-media piece I adore with painted pieces, machine embroidery and beading. I have worn this piece more than I have any other this Spring.

Life Gets Busy

I have been busy with Family the last few months.
Spent February with son, his now fiancee, and her family on the Big Island. I had so missed the heat, the sun the sand, hula, turtles, papaya, Kona coffee. It was a lovely trip once we got there....United Airlines messed up big time getting us there...the low point was sleeping with the homeless at the airport because they got us there so late and it being President's weekend no hotel rooms on Oahu available.

March, April and May are traveling almost every weekend to USNA Women Crew events.

I have been creative but fewer opportunities.

Did a Torah based watercolor challenge- lvoed the results.

Got together with Gail and did multi-media challenges for Cloth Paper Scissor. We used a skeletan papermache base, painted it, created a black crow out of clay, decorated with a veil. This was for the Day of the Dead Challenge. Mine was the tavern wench and Gail's was the Titled landowners daughter-both betrayed by the same casanova......

Donated two necklaces to the synagogue for Kar Klub. I enjoy being able to give back to my Jewish community. I do not do religious artwork for this as the majority of people attending are not Jewish by faith.