Monday @ Mary's

We gathered this week at Mary's on the Peninsula.  Most of us continued to work in our folded paper journals.  Above is the front cover of Karen's book.  Evidently she finished hers!  Her cover shows her little pug as an angel.

Karen's.  Note the cigar wrappers.  Her sun looks rather piratical to me.

Karen's.  I love these images.

Karen's.  Fun how she used the torn strips of paper.

Karen's

Karen's.  Love the Dance!

back cover of Karen's.

Now we are looking at Pinky's book.  She mostly finished hers too.  She used a stencil and water colors on the left side.

Pinky's.  I love the diamond stamped image that she enhanced with pens.

We thought the leaves on the left were stamped but Pinky hand drew them and colored them.  Nice work Pinky!

Pinky's

Pinky started this page at this point today, see below for her mostly finished page.

Wow!  So much hand doodling!

Pinky's

Pinky's

I think this is April's work, correct me if I'm wrong please.

This is what Mary was working on today with a stencil and water colors.  Great colors, Mary!

Karen was busy starting on her second folded paper journal, cutting images to use.

Mary and April, busy at work.

April was doodling away, preparing for the doodle class she will be leading on the weekend.  Cool Beans!

This is a page by Jan using some images, stamps and paint.

This is what Jan did today, using some paper buttons she glued down and used as flower forms, drawing in and coloring with pens around them.

Mary served up some home made chili (Delicious!) with English muffins and coconut cream pie for dessert!  Pinky brought sweets for everyone also.  Thanks gals!

It was another fun day.  See you next week.

Peninsula Monday!!!

     Well, the girls didn't fire me last week, so here I am again!  (I do think that Mary will add some photos, too...so that will be good.)  We were going to meet at Mary's this Monday because it was a holiday and April wouldn't have to work, but Kit wasn't feeling very good, so we invaded Pinky & Cliff's place.  (Thanks, guys!!!)
     We spread a piece of clear plastic on Pinky's table so that we could do some gesso'ing!!!  Remember we're still working on our Folded Books.  Karen & Mary had already done some gesso'ing in their books, so they were a little bit ahead of us, but Jan, Pinky and I trudged onward.  Both Pinky & Jan had gesso, so we shared.  I should have taken a picture of that process, but...of course....forgot.  We just spread out our folded books until you were looking at all 16 squares (pages) at once, and painted them with white gesso.  We used a little heat gun to dry them out.  And then the fun began.
     We weren't sure why, but when Karen painted her pages, she had quite a time with the pages sticking together, and then tearing.  She didn't seem too bothered by it, though, because she just used some washi tape and 'taped 'em up!'  Mary confessed that she'd also had some trouble with them sticking.  Mary had some little pieces of a material that was kinda like vellum (or like the little tissues that you find by the donuts at Freddies....not that I'd know anything about what's over by the donuts!!!)  They worked pretty well to place in between each set of pages so they wouldn't stick together.  
You know, even though we're using the same techniques, we all have such different styles, it is always so interesting to see how each one turns out.  

   It seems like Karen leans more toward doing a little painting and then she often adds paper.  Here is a look at a couple of Karen's pages.  I believe that she painted the background with water color crayons, and then added the paper raven.  Looks cool doesn't it?

Here are a couple of pages that are devoted to her little Joe that just passed away.  Karen loved her little Joe, and is going to miss him a lot.  

 Here is another photo of her Sweet Joe!!!



Here you can see that Mary kinda likes Cowgirls.  I wish I could flip it upright so you could see it better....but I CAN'T.  (sorry!)
Don't know if you can tell but Mary has painted both the backgrounds.  The one on the right is using a texture template that she just bought at Dots & Doodles in Astoria, Oregon.  If you ever get a chance to visit this art shop, DO!  Run by a couple of neat characters and their DOG!!!
  Mary's second page is one that she painted using some of Pinky's water color crayons.  Nice job, Mary!!!

Jan painted the background with water colors (I think) and then glued on this snappy dancer.  (sorry about the reflection from my camera flash)  I like it, Jan!

I'm not sure exactly how Jan did this combination of pages, but they are wonderful.  It looks like it was gesso'ed, then painted, then stamped, then painted and drawn on, then paper added, then more stamping.....and well, I think that the newsprint might had been put on at the very beginning, and then gesso'ed over.  So cool, Jan!  You might want to comment and let us know your course of action on these pages.  Cool beans, Girlie Girl!



Pinky was doing a lot of painting with water color crayons & her new Gelato water color crayons (a little bit different material than regular water color crayons...they seem to be a bit more creamy.)    It's a bit hard to see, but Pinky first gesso'ed this page, and then stamped a white lacy image in the center.  Then she drew around the outside.  How cool is that.   Neat, Pink!

This next page is stamped with....well, I'm not actually sure.  I know she used a great big stamp that she has...but I'm not sure what medium she used.  It sure looks metallic & shiny!  Hmmmm....Pinky, will you make a comment and let us know how you achieved this?  Sure looks great!
 


These last two are mine (April).  The first one is gesso'ed first and then I dampened the page before smearing with water color blocks...then using a water brush, just brushed it around.  Kinda fun!  Really will have to put my thinking cap on to figure out what else I do with each page.

These final two sheets are side by side in my book and most of you might be impressed because one of them is ORANGE.  I know...will wonders never cease.  (I'm really not an orange fan), but I'm making my Folded Book be rainbological so it will go from red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet!!!  ROYGBIV!!   So....ah, I kinda, sorta had to have orange in there!     hahahaha!




Hope you have enjoyed your visit and hope that you will join us again soon.  We will be back again next week with even more work done on our pages.  Come check it out!!!!

Folded Book Workshop & more fun stuff!!!

So today I (April) was the only one with a camera.....so, beware!!!    :-)    We had a wonderful time together, but then, when don't we?  I don't think it's ever happened.  I will apologize up front, tho, for my OPINION getting a little loud.  We started a conversation about new health care reforms and I MAY have over-stepped.  If so, girls, then I hope you'll please forgive me.  You KNOW how I am, and very often my mouth is engaged in high gear with my brain lagging quite a bit behind.  Sorry!!!
Enough said!
First of all Jan shared with us last week, this new folded book that she made.  She had folded it all up and then painted the sections that would become pages later.  It was so neat, we asked her if she would show us how.......so....... she brought us special large paper and was nice enough to offer us a workshop today.  Beings that I'm the PERSON who was going to BLOG about our day I wanted to be sure to take lots of photos and get all the correct terminology.  So I asked Jan what this folded book was called.   Well, it's a Folded Book!  Hence, following you'll find our Folded Book Workshop!!!
Step 1:  Lay out your large paper!  (Jan gave us two different kinds of paper that we worked on one at a time.  They were two shades of manilla.)  ((Does saying manilla remind you of 'Nilla Vanilla Wafers!!!...it's a sing-song commercial I remember from my youth.)   hahahaha!  Sorry, I digress!

Step 2:  Fold the paper in half length-wise, then each those halves in half again.  Unfold & flatten.  Now fold the paper in half width-wise, then each of those halves in half again.

Step 3:  Now number each square (lightly) and appropriately.

Step 4:  Fold according to Jan's instructions.

Step 5:  VOILA!!!

I know, it doesn't look like much YET....but give us about 7 weeks (average of 2 pages a week), and BOY, HOWDY, watch out!  Are you gonna see stuff!!!
Speaking of stuff, take a look at some of the stuff we were working on today:

Karen's Squash Book pages...she really liked the look of these buildings!

One of Jan's pages.  She gessoed over printing on the left hand page

Jan copied a trivet that I had at my house (that I didn't even know that I had.  Funny!  

Mary was crocheting a wash cloth!!!  Matched her shirt perfectly!

Pinky made this...well, I don't know exactly what this artwork is called...but it's so neat!  Her paper in the center is jagged, and she threads golden matellic threads back & forth, into this beautiful piece of art!  Pinky is really showing us her artful self these days.

Here is the beginning of Pinky's Iris Folded Bear

The finished BEAR!  

                                                          Beautiful, huh?

I was STILL working on Pinky's calendar pages, but they are still not finished.  I will get them posted another day!  Hope you all enjoy visiting our blog!

Don't forget to get those bags packed for New Zealand!!!  Komona Dragons ....hahahahaha....I mean, Komodo Dragons here we come!!!

Friday Surprise...

We met at April's on Friday instead of the planned Thursday due to snow in the forecast.  When Pinky and I came over the hill on Friday, it was just fine...little spots of ice, but nothing terrible.  It just felt good to be all together again and working on our own individual projects, as usual.

It seemed we were all working on different things and just sat around creating and solving the problems of the world all at one time...wonderful!  This was one of those days when April was sharing with us and we were laughing so much, we were in tears.  I love those days!  Laughter is such good medicine.

Jan brought each of us a fantastic white pen to use in our projects and a new pair of scissors each.  I tried my pen and so did April during our time together and I love mine!  Pink said she might try a zentangle on black with her new pen.  I bet that will look outstanding.

 Pinky's great zentagle above.  She did such a wonderful job on it.  We all want to try some of these.  I bought her a book for Christmas where you do one zentangle per day to learn the different techniques and as you can see...she took right to it!

 Karen's Christmas card with her favorite little pug, Yum Yum, on the front.  Karen missed a few at Christmas and was sending out New Years cards with notes today.  Each year she creates a card and has it printed to send out.  I always enjoy getting her Christmas cards.

 Jan looks like she is in deep thought about what she is going to put in her book next.  She is making an art journal book and we are hoping she will give us some pointers on how to do this.  She helped us all make smaller versions of this, but we all thought this looked like a pretty good challenge for the future.

As you can see, Jan has gone through and put the basic color on her pages and now is starting to decorate them.  I can't wait to see it when she is done.

OK, Jan...was this Orange page yours or Karen's?  I didn't write it down like I usually do.  Maybe Jan can come on here and say something more about this.  I completely blanked out on who's this was.

 Mary was working on post cards and this cover for a journal she will give as a gift.  I am having trouble with pictures on my new computer and you can see by my journal and April's below...cannot figure out how to turn a photo that is the wrong way...forgive me.  I will get it together one of these days or Jan will come behind me to correct my goofs...what are friends for???

 April's June calendar page started for Pinky's calendar.  She realized she needed to make Pinky at least one calendar page that was left off.  It was so fun to watch her just put this together.  She does the neatest lettering.

Pinky always makes her iris folding look so easy, but it really isn't.  A person has to have a lot of patience for this technique and Pinky has that for sure.  She looks like she is getting an early start on next year.

Karen took down April's Laurel Burch teapot and drew these cats from it.  They turned out so cute.  She used some of April's paint pens to color them in.  I love the looks on their faces.

We are shooting for  Thursday this week and hope you will join us on the blog after that to see what we are up to.  See you then...