Art & Craft Show Schedule

The Center Art Show
Sunday Nov. 16 12-4PM
12700 SW Hwy, Palos Park, IL

There are over twenty possible classes you can take at the Center! I could hardly believe the list! The teachers will be set up with examples of student work and things for sale. It's such a lovely place and the lodge is beautiful -built in the 30's. Join us there!

The Nutcracker Sweet Homeshow
Fri, 9-9, Sat, 10-6 Sun, 10-4 Nov 21 -23.
11007 W. 84th Place,
Willow Springs, IL 60480

Christmas Crossroads
Lockport Highschool, Lockport, IL
Sat, Sunday, Nov. 22-23. 9-4 both days.

Soul Cards

These soul cards were made in one of our Midwest Collage meetings. They are about 5x7" mat boards with collaged pictures. You then talk about what the pictures mean to you and why you chose those images.

I was invited to take part in an art show at my college for the opening of their new art building and this was one of the pieces. It was the weekend of Homecoming so we enjoyed the game too.

Homecoming game with friend Jane

Brand new art building at my college, Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa

My good friend Jane

Calligraphy study group meeting

Pat Kutz in the green, Rita, Joyce, Kate, Luce and Bessie Beth is out of the photo

Luce's studio

Our calligraphy study group monthly meeting met at Luce's in her wonderful studio! Rita is standing with Luce.

Finished commission piece

Calligraphy study group meeting

Project I'm working on

This is the first part of what I'm trying to finish and it's funny, I had grabbed the tracing paper and lettering quickly to make some dif. sizes at the copy place, and the flowers were backwards and on the right side. I glanced at it and realized it was a much better layout with the flowers on the right and the quote "flush left"! Funny how things happen that help you see different ways that might work out better than your first plan.

New Collage

I worked on some new ideas for collage to include the quotes on the side. This one looks better "in person". I like using the altered magazine pages and tissue paper and paste paper (the green paper was the paste paper) On the next one I used one of my favorite topics, stairs and I like the bottom that resembles roots.

New collage

Weathergrams

Two of the beautiful envelopes from Conference

More work from the International Calligraphy Conference

I was trying to find some work from the Calligraphy Conference that had alphabets that were designed by the artist and this isn't really an alphabet but is gestural lettering with some smaller text. Many are getting away from the traditional work because the computor can do that now. One of the evening presenters I remember said, "what can we do to make people look at our work?" He was a graphic designer who said that!

Gathering in Saugatuck, Michigan

As soon as I got home from the Calligraphy Conference, we drove over to see Marsh and Emily in Grand Rapids. Took a drive to Saugatuck and we got someone to take our picture. It was a beautiful weekend. The night before we went to the Taste of Grand Rapids for supper. I couldn't believe I still had any energy after the week before!

Book from Jean Formo's class

This is the cover of my book that has a hand sewn binding and many handpainted pages ready for some journaling.

Book class

One of the pages in my journal book where we cut some strips and then slots to push the strip through! And the cut out window on the lefthas the page beneath showing through. Now ready to start journaling on the many pages!

Calligraphy Conference in Naperville

The books we made in Jean Formo's class. They all have hand sewn bindings and hand painted pages. We used mainly a dye based watercolor paint in beautiful colors!

Calligraphy conference and trip to Michigan...

Arrived back home in time to repack to see son Marsh and Emily in Michigan. Went to the Taste of Grand Rapids on Sat evening and Saugatuck on Sunday. Home again Sunday evening.
Then got ready to go to Mary Ann's funeral in Dolton at 9AM. Two other calligraphy friends from Arlington Heights were there - Some attended the Wake the day before. We'll greatly miss Mary Ann who surprised everyone by showing up Sunday at the conference evening program! That was like her last hurrah I guess as she passed away on Thursday morning in her own bed.

I'll remember the last Conference we drove to in Minn. with Ginny and stayed over at Mick's brothers. And all the monthly study group meetings we attended together at Ill. Benedictine Univ. She was a special person.

CONSERVATORY AT THE BILTMORE HOUSE

This is looking at the gardens next to the Biltmore House, built in the late 1800's. It's in Ashville N. Carolina and was a tour we took (my Mom, daughter, Mandy and sister Betsy)

BILTMORE HOUSE GARDENS

Biltmore House

On our trip to visit my Mom in N. Carolina, we took a day to visit this huge home built in the late 1800's. It's the largest home in the USA with 42 bathrooms, when bathrooms were rare at the time and an indoor swimming pool! I remember seeing an article in one of the magazines but not sure which one, BUT the recent Victoria magazine has a four page article on the Farm at the Biltmore, which we didn't see. The weather was beautiful and the tour fascinating!

New collage for the Artshow in Frankfort

Backyard a sanctuary

I do love looking out at my backyard even though it's quite small. Beyond the fence is a creek and all the trees help keep it pretty private. The birds this year have been so plentiful! The little wrens are back and I love listening to their beautiful songs every day! Yesterday they were hopping up the Cottonwood tree like woodpeckers do. I never knew they would do that, and then we saw them go into a little hole in the bark. Maybe that's where they ended up putting their nest as they seemed to abandon the birdhouse.

Collage plus the lettering

I finially got my lettering done to get transfered onto the collages I completed in Laura's collage class. The quotes all have to do with the journey theme to go along with graduations for the Frankfort Art Show coming up the 21st of June.

Baby Robin, such a cutie

This little robin baby let me get so close to get a picture!

Daily Quota

I feel good about all I accomplished yesterday. Worked on some altered papers with dark colors- black and burnt sienna. I experimented with the Starbucks corregated cup holder and painted and printed it on some book pages and tissue papers.

Earlier I worked on and finished two more abstract landscape collages. Now to get to the matting and figuring out the sizes of frames they will need. I forgot to plan for standard sizes, but you learn as you go I guess.

Found a neat quote to put on one of the collages: It is where we go and what we do when we get there that tells us who we are. Oates

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us. Marcel Proust

Bluebird at my Mom's in North Carolina

I took many many photos of this little Bluebird hoping to get a good one to paint. He was all puffed up in this shot and with the wooded area behind I thought it would make a good painting, my first one of a bird! The limbs are still masked off in this picture.

Another painting of Judy's garden

In this painting, for the first time I used quite a bit of masking fluid to mask out the light flowers to make it easier to paint in the greens and the shed's brown first. Then I could go back in and remove that to paint the light colored flowers or leave some whites where needed.

This was a collage that I used a photograph from our Europe trip; looking across the water at Sweden. It's still in the process before the papers were all glued down. I wasn't sure about using all the different greens at the bottom. I was afraid it would look too hodge podge, but after seeing the photo, decided to go for it.

Abstract Landscapes

These are the last ones we did in collage class and are fun to do. Some of the papers are magazine pictures that are distorted, painted tissue paper and other assorted papers. Sizes are about 5 x 10.

Sculpture in Michigan

This beautiful sculpture was in Michigan, and I happened to see a similar one downtown when we were driving to Mandy's graduation. I've got to find the artist's name in my notes! They both had the leafy extensions on the arms and looked so graceful.

Building in Berlin

My daughter, Mandy, painted this buliding that was in the Tiergarten in Berlin. It's called the House of World Culture. We and other parents went on a trip to Europe in 2004 with a group from the art club in High School (and I April and I were roomates!) Mandy's graduating from the Harrington College of Design in Chicago May third! And this painting turned out so awesome, though she's never had a watercolor class!

Another painting of Judy's garden and potting shed

I've been working on this one for three class sessions and it's close to being finished. I'm glad I had several photos of the garden for times I didn't know what to paint next.

New painting I'm working on

This looks a little blurry, so I'll try another.

Pencil lettering

This is from a handmade book colored with paste paper and done all in shades of gray. It was done at a calligrapy workshop in Michigan that April and I attended a few years ago and also includes some collage! The library pages are collaged onto the arches textwove pages. I just came across these pictures and thought I'd share.

Gift From the Sea Retreat at the Center

Saturday morning a few of us hiked in the woods and were lucky enough to have a beautiful sunny day! Lois, who led the retreat, pointed out some animal tracks on the way...racoon, deer, and maybe a tiny mouse's little tracks on top of the snow. We heard birds high up in the trees and spotted two Red-headed Woodpeckers. We followed the path through the many kinds of Oaks and maple trees and ended up at a creek and a lake. Then we returned to the Lodge where the retreat was held.

During the day and previous eveing, Lois led the readings from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's book and I led the book project with colorful pages cut and all ready to use. We worked on decorating the pages, with very subtle pastels. It's nice to prepare the pages with some color or decoration before writing anything...it just helps not to be intimidated by the blank page! Lois also had some shell rubber stamps and some brought things from home to use. After some of the "regular" attendees started writing some of the inspirational quotes and coming up with some creative ideas to add to the pages, it helped encourage others to find new things to put into their books. I also had a sheet of creative lettering for them to experiment with.

At the end, we drilled holes through the cover and pages of the book and did the stab binding with decorative threads and added various colored threads to finish them off. Shells and other embellishments were added too. We all sat together and shared our pages with the group which is so interesting as they were all unique with the different colors used, the way the pages were decorated, and the writing and the embellishments that were added inside.

Walking back to the Center

The Creek in the woods

Snow Mushroom

Lois called this a "snow mushroom" where the sun melted the snow around the bottom and left a little mushroom shaped "roof' at the top.

Lois thought these were possibly little mouse tracks in the snow...these were so cute!

The little tulle net bags contain shells and beach glass for the participants with the hand lettered tags and name cards colored with paste paper

Judy's book with pastels on cover with shells

Dried leaves

I found these Pointsetta leaves and had to take a picture. Thought they looked so neat in a circle

Beautiful Window

Beginning Stages of a Painting

This is a painting of a window at a store in Michigan I had taken a picture of. I'll upload the photo next.