Marshall and Emily and Yasmine the Black Lab

And this is Marsh who lives in Grand Rapids, Mi. and his sweetie. And of course Yasmine.

Boy I'm getting so adept at this downloading now!! Can't believe myself. This was such a nice picture of Mandy and her long-haired dashund, I had to share it.

Mandy and Toby

Calligraphy poem

New watercolor paintings

Lettering on Fabric

Sea Shell Series

This series of paintings was created as a result of a class-Painting on Fabric that I took with another calligrapher, Lisa Engelbrecht. In the class, I finished a small picture with a quote from the book, Gift From the Sea and added three sea shells, sewing them on the fabric. Then I started experimenting on watercolor paper and liked the results. Many of them also have the sewn on shells.

The size is 8x8 and I usually frame them in white frames. The lettering is usually blue or blue-greens with a white mat over blue or blue-green.

Sea Shell Series

Sea Shell Series

Sea Shell Series

Some of my cards

I've taken watercolor classes for several years and started combining my calligraphy with the paintings. Now I do many of the cards with just the paintings on them. Some are a combination of my plein aire painting class in the summer where we paint on site in private gardens and select places like a nursery near Joliet or the Morton Arboretum and some are studio work. They depict the beauty of nature that I love and the soft pastel colors. Also there is a series of mixed media cards that combine washes of color in the background and papers and pressed flowers with quotes on the side. I think I included three of them in this post.

Trouble with my scanner

Well, we have been having trouble with our old computor and the scanner, or I'd hoped to have some of my artwork here by now. That's my goal for this blog, but will have to be patient. I'm so enjoying the start of the fall colors and cooler weather. There's always one tree down the block where the green leaves start turning scarlet and mixed with the original green leaves it's a beautiful display. Our two little hummingbirds are still coming back to the feeder. I can hardly believe how much of the red liquid they drink up! They always seem to start coming regularly in August and with my new feeder I'm enjoying them much longer. They actually sit there for several minutes at a time...relaxing? and drinking.

This is a collage completed in a class called Kolazh (indicates the pronunciation of collage in the dictionary!) taught by a calligraper from near Washington state through the Chicago Callig Collective a couple of weeks ago. I just noticed a part at the bottom must not have gotten on the scan. I'm just relieved that my hubby was able to finally get a picture scanned for me. Now I have to learn to do it too!
I hope to find a quote to letter underneath the picture. I usually work in soft colors with a nature theme, but I like the composition and hope it will come together as a finished piece.

Kolazh - Collage

Artist Date

There was a new show at the Union Street Gallery with it's opening last night. The show is Perspectives, Anyway You Look at It. The gallery is well worth seeing- it's their new space on Otto Blvd, just past the Hospital on Rt. 30. The artwork in this gallery is very contemporary and I noticed that many of the around fifity pieces are by out of state artists. Then another thing is to see the artist's studios on the third floor. They're inspiring spaces to see and since I know three of the artists, it's nice to connect with them too. Contact them first to see when the studios will be open if you want to see them too. I did hear them mention a new web site, but I'm not sure what the "address" is.

My new blog!

Well, with the encouragement of my friend April, who said creating a blog is easy, I gave it a try and here it is! My new "baby"; my brand new creation. I'd been asked many times if I had a web site where people could view my cards and artwork, but after joining the Artist Way online group, I realized that a blog is an OK thing to have instead. It's funny how things open up for you just when you need it.

I'm an artist who loves calligraphy and painting. I specialized in painting in college, but also took a lettering class and loved it. I got frustrated in the acrylic painting because I never seemed to be able to get the blended colors I wanted and turned to the calligraphy instead. I'd always loved cursive writing and making the rounded letters and seeing the consistent pattern of lettering on my writing pages. When I did homework and even in my note taking I'd start all over if I had too many erasings or the writing didn't look good! Kind of a perfectioinist which I'm not really! I joined the Chicago Calligraphy Collective and when they started a group that met every month what a joy to find people to share with. We bring questions to the group if we need help with a project and if we happen to take the class of that month, bring what we did to show the others. Our new project is a calendar for 2008 - we've done a group calendar for a few years.

I've learned so much from art friends who share what they know. I'm taking watercolor classes at the Center in Palos Park and also teach Calligraphy there. There's such a wonderful group of people there and they offer so many different classes, a few Retreats each season, Luncheons on Tuesdays and special events during the year.

Well now all I have to do is figure out how to post my pictures now and I'm set to go! More to come later.