September back to school for many...back to work for me.

I have been awarded a solo exhibit in July of 2011 at the Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts. The theme will be birds and I am thankful that I have so much time to paint them! There are currently eight in a list of thirty that need to be painted by March (drying time) I figure one a week will get me to the goal give or take a few because of sales.

Ok. All summer travel, visitors and most immediate new home madness has come to an end. Time to rock the easel. Hope you all had a fantastic summer. Keep in touch with your thoughts and comments.

Quilting Arts TV

On Thursday, I taped several segments for season 700 of Quilting Arts TV and a new DVD. My first topic for QATV was working with Shiva paintsticks and freezer paper templates.

The next segment was on using tea bags for collage on fabric, like we did in my tea and ephemera class.

Getting hooked up with a mike before the next segment begins.

This season Pokey has included a new segment in the show called Save My UFO, where guests give suggestions on quilts in progress that viewers have requested help with.

Pokey reads through a letter from the quilt maker about what they would like to accomplish with their piece and where they need help.

Helen snaps a photo before the taping begins.

Pippa and Helen working away in the green room.

Jeannie Delpit, from Bernina, is so helpful with the machines on set.

Malka Dubrawsky and I met each other at the airport in Cleveland and drove out to the studios together on wednesday and met Kerr Grabowski who was taping a DVD in the morning.

Here's a pic of Malka on the monitor in the green room while taping one of her segments.

The last few weeks (months) have been so busy with teaching and preparing for all of this, I am glad I don't need to go anywhere for the next month or so, I am tired!

Tea & Ephemera, round 2: Sunday morning

Sunday morning I think all of us were tired and happy, glad that we had such a wonderful opportunity to spend this time together making art and friends. Knowing that these were our last few hours were a little bittersweet.

Preparing fabric for everyone to use before hand really helped the class be more relaxed and we got to more techniques before our short time together was over.

Thank you so much to all the staff at Interweave, Cloth, Paper Scissors, Pokey, my fellow, incredibly talented, instructors and especially the students who made it such a fantastic week. I can hardly wait until we get to do it again!

Student show and tell

Saturday night there was a student show and tell for people to display the projects they worked on during the week. This was a great opportunity for all of us to see the different things that were being made in the other classes.

I thnk we were all sharing a feeling of great success.

An Ornamental Fiesta

At Create I got to teach one of my favorite classes making Fiesta ornaments. I saw several mother daughter teams at Create, what a fabulous time they always seemed to have together.

You know why this woman has such a huge grin? She had never painted before, aren't her ornaments fantastic?

I love having teachers in my class! they are always the best students ;-)

Here's my teachers pet finishing up her stitching on one of the Bernina 440's we were so lucky to have in our room. What a great machine, I would love to have one in my studio!

Beautiful!

Where have you been?

There is one more trip for us yet to come this weekend in a string of summer travels. I have been away from the blog so long I had to actually sign in!

Let's see how much I can get to before Thursday. I am starting a new painting on a new ground. Canvas has been my ground of choice, but in a new effort to expand the work I will be using Ampersand gessoboard.

On the easel and coming to completion....



In the works:

Create Artist Fair

The Artist Fair at Create was pretty amazing, much bigger than I thought it would be with artists selling there wares and lots of mixed media booths loaded with ephemera and bits and pieces of rusty things, game pieces, little bottles and fibers. It was so crowded in the beginning it was hard to see everything but as the crowds died down I managed to get in a few photos.

Leslie and Jamie with their table of hand dyed scarves and little art quilts.

Natalya and Jane were getting a little punchy after days of teaching and selling at their vendor tables.

Jane LaFazio

Tired and hungry at the end of the night.