Makers & Shakers Art Party - Make Your Own Stamps

At the April Shake Rag Alley Makers & Shakers Art Party, I shared how to make your own stamps from common household materials - no carving required! 

We created designs from string, foam core pieces, craft foam, Styrofoam meat trays, bubble wrap, and all manner of household odds and ends. Designs were then mounted on blocks of wood or foam core using glue or double sided tape. One really fun stamp is a roller stamp made by mounting a design on toilet paper tubes that happily fit perfectly on a paint roller! 

The eleven creative souls in the session made some really fantastic stamps.

Click here for more info on the Makers & Shakers Art Parties at Shake Rag Alley. 

Paper Printing Alchemy Workshop with Sarah Rehmer

Two days of total emersion into eco dyeing and rust dyeing paper - many different kinds of paper, from copy paper to watercolor paper to giant coffee filters and more.  There was mark making on papers to be dyed, rust printing on botanicals, the use of modifiers to change the colors of the final prints, even burned holes in the papers with incense sticks! What fun!

We all came away with a treasure trove of papers. Some students got really lovely leaf impressions. I went more for a rather funky overall texture look. I love my papers. 

Fly Away Home Workshop with Roxanne Evans Stout

Thoroughly enjoyed the three day Fly Away Home workshop at Shake Rag Alley with mixed media artist Roxanne Evans Stout. Fun project and Roxanne had interesting use of materials to show us.  

We made mixed media artist books with a birds and butterflies theme, plus a "nest" to hold our books. All of the participants made wonderful - and very different -  books.

We made the nests by weaving/binding wooden berry boxes. I really got into the nest. 

I imagined what a bird would do building a nest. 

Here's my nest in progress: 

Got quite a bit messier by the time it was done:

More in process shots:

Finished inside pages:

Winter UFOs

In the craft world, UFOs are "Unfinished Objects."  We've all got them - that stack of half finished projects you started long ago but for one reason or another never finished, yet haven't quite been able to discard them. 

The pandemic plus a bitterly cold winter, has led to LOTS of staying-at-home time to sort through and cull all that stuff that's piled up over the years. Which unearthed a bunch of my UFOs.

Sometimes I cut up or repurpose old unfinished (or failed) collage or assemblage pieces and use them as fodder in new works, but here are three that I decided to actually finish:

Collaged Wooden Box

I started this box in a Shake Rag Alley workshop taught by Madison collage artist Rita Yanny back in 2007 (who says I'm not a packrat). Rita brought 4x8x5 wooden boxes to use as substrates which I painted using mixed media paint layering techniques, something I was just learning to do at the time. Not surprisingly it never really came together. So this time around I instead collaged the sides and top with various papers, actually using up some of my old UFO collages in the process (yeah!). Built up the flat top with some wood blocks and a wood ball, and added "feet." Left the original paint showing on the edges of the lid and base just for funky effect. I guess this was more of a redo than a completion, but I like the results much better than the old paint job.

Chunky Mixed Media Book

 
In 2010 I attended a Create Mixed Media Retreat sponsored by Cloth Paper Scissors magazine, where I took a workshop with Leighanna Light who does wonderfully fun and funky handmade books. This particular book is made from a single strip of accordion folded unstretched canvas. Leighanna mixes up a lot of dissimilar materials, like adding metal to cloth, hence the old tin plates on the front and back covers. Didn't alter the covers though I did add a bunch of sticks to the spine. I did, however redo all the interior pages. Mixed feelings about the results. I've always liked the cover, still do...just not so sure about the inside pages. Sigh. Maybe some things are just not meant to be.

Mixed Media Collage Portrait

This piece is probably the first time I felt I was successful incorporating one of my portrait drawings into a collage, something I had been trying to do for a long time. I created it in a Shake Rag Alley workshop with Andrea DeMeng in 2016. Although I considered it finished at the time and even entered it in a WRAP show, I later felt some alterations were needed.

Here's a (really bad) photo of it at the end of the workshop - 

The workshop project was to make this hang like a scroll (it's about 6 inches by 17 inches). Andrea had designed a clever hanger but for some reason I never could get mine to hang straight. So I ditched the hanger and mounted it on a piece of lumber - happily happened to have a board in just the right width. Then in my recent modifications I added the hat and the hand holding a flower, touched up the facial features, and simplified the clothing. Now it feels done to me. I'm planning to enter it in an upcoming WRAP show so we'll see what kind of a reception it gets.

Sun Prairie WRAP Show Demo

Portrait drawing has been collaged onto the background.
The next step will be to develop the hat and bodice, 
and blend the figure with the background.

Wisconsin Regional Art Program (WRAP) exhibits always culminate with a Workshop Day consisting of a morning workshop and an afternoon critique by the show judge of the artwork that was given awards - 1/3 of the entries receive "State Awards" and move on to an annual State exhibit in Madison in September.

I was given the opportunity to be the morning workshop presenter at the Sun Prairie WRAP Workshop Day on Nov 2nd. Many workshop leaders present a retrospective of their work, but I was asked to do a demo of my mixed media collage techniques, specifically how I create the backgrounds for my figurative collage pieces.

The Sun Prairie WRAP show is large with about 45-50 participants, mostly painters. What a great group they were! Lots of interest in what I was doing, even though it was quite different from what they do. Lots of questions and dialog. A truly enjoyable morning.

I showed how to do a mixed media background with layers of collage materials and paint, using stamps and stencils for pattern. I then talked about how I "find" an image in the chaos of the background and add one of my portrait drawings (well actually, a scanned copy of a drawing).

In the sample at the top above, the figure has been added but not yet enhanced or incorporated into the background. There is a clear suggestion of a hat and a bodice in the background pattern. These will be enhanced and the figure will be blended into the background.

Below is a sample layered mixed media background. There is just a slight hint of where a portrait could go with a top hat and a bodice. The next image shows the same background with the portrait in place and the hat and bodice outlined.

Prairie du Sac WRAP Show

The 2019 Prairie du Sac WRAP show ran from mid January through the Workshop Day on March 23. As in the past, the show was hung in the Sauk Prairie School District's River Arts Center which has a beautiful exhibit space with a lot of local traffic.

Kathy Sherwood served as both the show judge and the workshop presenter. Kathy works in Madison as a graphic designer but in her personal artwork she loves to work with soft pastels and especially enjoys portraiture, which is what she demoed during the workshop. We viewed samples of pastel works done on various papers and Kathy shared a wealth of soft pastel information and tips.

Eighteen artists were in the show with two works apiece. I entered two mixed media collages - Jester, which incorporates facial elements from a photo of a Renaissance painting, and Her Eyes Were Too Close Together, based on an original drawing from a live model. Jester was awarded an Honorable Mention.

Junk Drawer Art Charms Class

Although jewelry is not my main passion, I do enjoy using mixed media techniques to create jewelry with a rather funky appeal. And for the last several years I have been teaching classes in mixed media jewelry during Shake Rag Alley's annual jewelry weekend, now called Jewelry Boor Camp (formerly Beads and Bangles).

This spring I taught a session called Junk Drawer Arts Charms - making jewelry components out of some decidedly unconventional jewelry materials, especially household "trinkets" - all that flotsam and jetsam that has accumulated in your desk drawer, tool chest, sewing kit, or wherever.

In addition to the Junk Drawer Art Charms class, from time to time, I have also taught Boho Dangle Necklace (making mixed media dangles that are incorporated into a necklace or can be used for earrings) and Handmade Bead Bracelet (making beads out of unconventional materials such and paper and vinyl tubing, then combining these with commercial beads on a memory wire bracelet).

My jewelry can be found at Longbranch Gallery in Mineral Point.

Mixed Media Workshop in the Quonset Hut

The first Shake Rag Alley workshop in the new Quonset Hut was Mixed Media Paint Layering held in mid March. The Quonset Hut is pretty funky around the edges and scheduled for renovation, but nobody minded at all, especially not me. What a great space to spread out in! I had room to set up a separate demo station for the first time ever. It was glorious.

There were 10 terrific students and everyone did great. We first made some fabric paper which is an overnight dry meaning they would have to take it home wet for later use. (But we had ample room to spread it out - yeah!)











Then we moved on to layering thin coats of acrylic paint (glazing), collaging, and stamping on watercolor paper to build up patterned paper with lots of depth.

This was a very short class, only three hours, so there wasn't much time to take these papers and work them into a finished piece. But there were lots of stencils and card stock on hand for anyone who wanted to use some of their newly created paper to make a card like these pomegranate and hand cards.

Altered Book Workshop

I've had two great groups of students for workshops so far this month. Both through Shake Rag Alley, but both firsts in terms of location.

At the beginning of the month, two women from Rockford who were here for a Shake Rag Alley custom retreat weekend, joined me in my studio for an afternoon making Altered Books. First workshop that I've taught in my own studio. Really a plus to have all my supplies at hand for them to use.

My second class was the first Shake Rag workshop in the new Quonset hut! More on that class in a separate post.

Both Rhonda and Barb are veteran crafters so they really moved right along and got a remarkable amount done in only three hours. Here's Rhonda's amazing book. Can you make out the image of the man peeking out from under the torn pages in the detail? Very clever.

Book detail showing
face peeking through

I'll be teaching the Altered Book workshop again in the fall at Shake Rag Alley on September 28th. 
Registration will be open by late April. See the workshop tab above for a class description.

Mixed Media Paint Layering Workshop

We were a small but enthusiastic group for my Mixed Media Paint Layering workshop last weekend at Shake Rag Alley - they were really into it. But then what's more fun than spending an afternoon playing with collage and paint?

Some fun stuff created by the students:

Lynn's sweet collage (wouldn't it make a great card?)

Really like the layering in Christine's pomegranate piece.

Ron's piece - great combination of colors!