Late Breaking News....

\




Two paintings recently sold [well.... ok......last summer] at the Art and Soul Gallery in Ogunquit, Maine: Velvet Night Angel, top and center, and They said she was too young to be in love, bottom.

The latter painting is particularly special to me because I used a photo of my mother, taken around 1944 when she was 18. I used acrylic paint for the background, patterned paper for the green and yellow areas, a hand stamped and baked charm [LOVE] made from the unfortunately named "shrink plastic". As the sheet plastic is baked in a toaster oven it is reduced in size by about 30% and gets thicker and stronger. I'll have a whole tutorial on shrink plastic in a future post. It's really fun to use and has unlimited design possibilities. The charm at the top is also made from the same material and stamped with an original hand carved stamp [another great project]. The words were done on the computer with a font designed in an old fashioned typewriter style. All the collage elements were adhered with acrylic matte medium to a stretched canvas. I use Liquitex or Golden mediums.

Both paintings are what I would call mixed media collage on canvas. The Velvet Night painting uses acrylic paints, dioxizine purple and pthalo blue, in various ratios to create the night sky. Fabric was used for the dress, the ground, and the rectangular piece on the left, which was painted with fabric paint and stamped with a hand carved stamp.

The flower is a copyright free black and white drawing [Dover Publications] that I painted with acrylics. Upper right is a postage type stamp in sticker form and the lower right shows a hand stamped polymer clay piece brushed with Jacquard metallic powders and baked in a toaster oven. The raised areas of gold are made with dimmentional paint such as Scribbles. Last were added a tiny lock and a key. The top triangle piece is made from foam core and covered with watercolor paper. It is painted in acrylic, with another rectangular shaped polymer clay piece. Individual rubber stamp letters are used to create the wording.
Don't know why there's a big gap here, but keep scrolling down for more. There IS more, I promise!!

Fall Crafts at Croton Falls

This is my friend Genevieve Boehme, who participated in a Craft Show with me at the Croton Falls Community Church on October 3rd in Croton Falls, NY. Her booth made quite a hit with everyone. The name of her business is polkadoodles, polkadoodleshandmade.com. Take a look at her website to see all the wonderful fabric items she skillfully makes for women, babies and the home.


My husband Dave and I set up our booth, which turns out looking like a Greenhouse full of Fall Vegetables!

My friend and mascott, Froggy sits permanently atop a child's red knit hat and attracts a loyal following wherever he goes. He's a great conversation starter.

Late harvest root vegetables receive a shower of snowflakes.

My booth displays knit, crocheted and felted items side by side with original designs in jewelry, beads and buttons. This lightfilled greenhouse-like window in the church was a welcome surprise.

Beads in colorful polyclay.

Whimsical Buttons in polyclay, when you have a cherished handknit that needs closure, or a handbag or tote that wants some pizzaz.

Polyclay Pins, great for a jacket, coat, handbag, bulky sweater...

a strong fabric that requires a big statement.

A very lightweight pendant with handstamped original designs, colored inks, charms.... all held together with copper wire, and hung from a soft glass cord. Handmade copper clasp.


A local craft show is the perfect venue for making a start selling your crafts directly to the public. It's not as threatening to the novice as a larger show, doesn't require distant travel
or an expensive stayover, and is a great way to learn the basics of selling. With each show you will become more organized, better known to the local community, more confident, and you will have a better idea of what to make and how best to present your creations. You can find local shows by searching on the internet, by checking local newspapers and the Pennysaver, looking for signs along the roads in your area, checking with churches and synagogues, schools and PTA's. Check out the sales tax rates in the county in which you will be selling. You can add the tax to the cost of your items at the time of sale or include the sales tax in the ticketed price. Go online to learn how to apply for a sales tax certificate in your state, and if you sell in a state other than your own, learn that state's sales tax laws. You will need to send the sales tax money you collect to the appropriate state office on a specific schedule that will be explained to you.

You will likely need to purchase a 6x3 foot folding table and a couple of folding chairs. I keep my table under my couch. Some venues provide you with these items. A cloth placed over the table is useful, especially for hiding empty boxes and bins underneath. I'll talk about other items to bring on my next post.

Periwinkle Dreams 8x10 inch print

Just added to my etsy site: "Fly on Periwinkle Dreams; you were born with wings." This print is available on 8 1/2 x 11 inch archival paper and printed with archival digital inks to last for generations. The original painting/collage was done with layers of acrylic paints, fabric for the dress and hat, a stamp for the face painted over with acrylics, copper wire, a handmade shrink plastic charm (LOVE tag), buttons, dimensional paint, hand stamped and painted fabric for the design in the upper left corner. Some metallic paint was used.

Silver Heart Collage

This collage was created on a stretched canvas using lots of heavy gel medium for the background texture. Layers of acrylic paints came next followed by a strip of fabric, my handwriting on paper adhered with matte medium and two polymer clay items. The heart shape was made from a mold of a metal heart that I made from polymer clay. I baked the mold, then used it to make more hearts. I painted it with a silver metallic acrylic paint. I painted over the silver with black and them rubbed it off immediately with a paper towel to reveal the pattern of holes in the heart. The bottom polymer piece was stamped with two of my handmade stamps. The tag that says "breathe" was made from shrink plastic, a versatile and fun medium that shrinks and thickens when you bake it.

A is for Art

Here is another example of one of my favorite techniques of collage art. Claudine Hellmuth is one of the most prominent artists using this technique today. It consists of gathering vintage photos and using part of that photo, usually the face of a relative or in the case of the above art piece, oneself. Yes that is a photo of me in one of the cute little hats my mother made for me. The face is mine as well as the hands. The rest of the piece is drawn, painted and collaged. I started with a heavy application of white gesso onto an 8"x10" stretched canvas to provide the texture, then added the blue for the sky with Liquitex acrylic paint, a dark turquoise green for the ground with a lighter, more neutral green brushed lightly on top to reveal the darker green underneath. The purpose of the different layers and the texture is to create more interest than just one solid smooth color could do.

The band across the top was created by layering different papers and distressing them with Distress Ink Pads. I used a commercial rubber stamp for the letter "A", and outlined it with dimenional Scribble Paint in gold. I hand lettered the word "Art". The word "Love" was hand stamped onto a sheet of shrink plastic and heated in the toaster oven until it thickened and shrank in length and width to about 30% its original size. Again, I outlined the shape with dimensional paint in gold.

Simple shapes were drawn and cut from decorative papers for the dress and feet. A little bit of line drawing was done with a waterproof fine tipped felt pen for the shoes and socks and the number on the dress was stamped onto paper and outlined with the gold dimensional paint. All collage elements were adhered using either Liquitex acrylic matte medium or gel matte medium depending on the heaviness of the material. As I went along I coated all collage elements with the matte medium as I adhered them and brushed on the medium over the entire canvas when I finished the piece. The number 12 refers to the date of my birth in case you didn't guess. And I don't mean 1912. I mean the day of the month. That's all I'll say.

I would be glad to answer any questions about the techniques used in creating this piece. Just leave me a note in the comments section for this post.

Handcrafted Jewelry

These two photos show examples of my handcrafted jewelry. The top picture is of a necklace made of polymer clay beads and copper wire. Polymer clay has to be conditioned before it can be shaped. Then the bits of colored clay are mixed to create the desired pallette and through various techniques of combining the colors and shapes, and baking them, incredible designs are created. Inclusions, and embossing powders can be added. Designs can be stamped into the clay. Sanding, polishing and sealing complete the process.

The bottom photo shows a shrink plastic necklace. A special plastic sheet is stamped with my original handcrafted rubber stamps, then color is added with inks or chalks. I cut the designs apart and heat them. They shrink to about 30 % of their original size. It's really fun to watch the pieces transform in the shrinking process. They curl up and look like they're about to die, but just when they're on the brink, they straighten out like a yogi in shavasana and just lie there in the toaster oven until you come to retrieve them. The design and colors intensify. More color may be added after heating. Sometimes I use sanding to distress the finish and fixative to preserve the piece if the materials used warrant it.

Strength Courage Peace

This small collage/painting was created on a stretched canvas with acrylic paints, hand carved rubber stamps on polymer clay, shrink plastic sheets, and fabric; copper wire, paper, glass beads, linen chord and metallic paints complete the piece. I've always liked the practice of breaking out of the borders and off the surface of a work.

My Etsy Shop is somewhat delayed in its opening due to the setting up of PayPal which should be finished by next week.

Believe In Love

These photos are details of a painting/collage done in acrylic, with a foundation of torn paper and accents of shrink plastic, fabric, rubber stamped letters, and dimmensional acrylic paints. They actually work as two separate pictures, but they add up to one. You'll have to wait to see the whole thing. How's that for a tease? Today I received my shipment of 100% cotton rag paper for making archival digital prints of my artwork. I will have prints, blank note cards, jewelry, and buttons for sale in my shop on Etsy. There will be a link from this blog to the shop. The buttons, shown below, are great for adding pizzaz to all the fun knitted items that so many are creating. Art quilters will appreciate them as well.