Calendar pages for 2018

Every year for the past several years our group has made calendars for each other.

April's pages

 We eventually evolved into making individual calendar pages, 12 from each member, and then trading.

April's

 We lay all of one person's pages out and then everyone else takes turns picking one. 

April's

 We keep going around the circle until they are all picked.

Jan's

 Then the next person lays hers all down on the table.

Gwen's. I see she used some tags from our recent tag painting workshop.

 And everyone takes turns picking one.

Gwen's

 And so on.

Gwen's

 Until everyone has traded their pages away.

Pinky's

Pinky's

 We all end up with 12 pages by the others.

Pinky's

 Then we take our pages home and make a calendar out of them.

Karen's

Karen's

Karen's

I just put one up on my refrigerator each month.  I love having a new piece of my friend's art work to enjoy each month!  Each page is so unique and interesting.

Tag painting workshop

 The five of us had a fun day decorating tags using a variety of mediums, mostly molding paste, stencils, paint and a little ephemera.

 Pinky had purchased a big box of fairly large red tags and shared them with us all and that was what we decorated.

 Our main object was to experiment with the media and see how different applications affected each other.  For instance, what happens when you apply gesso to the tag as a first layer and then paint over it with acrylic paints as opposed to applying paint directly to the paper tag.  Or how molding paste works over or under paint, or mixing paint in with the molding paste to color it before using the paste on the tag.

 We were writing our "formulas" on the back side of the tag.  Or at least we started at first but soon got into the fun of creating tags and just played.

 I think everyone made at least half a dozen tags that they were happy with.  They were pretty fun to make and everyone learned a bit and had a good time.

 We did the workshop at Karen's house.  Above shows Pinky, Karen and April.

April and Gwen, hard at play.

Changes

 I can hardly believe it has been four years since any of us posted here.  It was about the time that our Mary Fox was diagnosed with colon cancer and things changed.  Mary and her husband moved to town, followed by Pinky who was newly widowed.  Lucky that they were able to find new homes within a couple of blocks of each other.

The picture above shows us gathered at Mary's new craft room.  It is bright and roomy and has all of Mary's things organized with art work all over the walls.  Unfortunately Mary wasn't able to enjoy it for long as she succumbed to the cancer in April 2017. 

Pinky and Mary, sisters

Mary and her husband Kit

 We were all devastated by losing Mary but are still getting together when we can, sharing memories and sharing art, laughing and crying together.  Our friend Karen, pictured above behind the red gift bag, has been struggling with her own health issues and she and her husband are now moving closer to town.  We won't be able to see her unless we go to her house.  Which we will do!  Gwen has started attending our get togethers again.  She was one of the founding members, she dropped out for awhile but has time again to join us now and then.  I'm going to start posting more often than once every four years, at least that is the plan. 

We will forever miss our Mary Fox.