teaching = more creating for me!

10/07/2008: This is what my studio tables look like after I finished teaching class. . . kind of messy. I thought if I left everything out I might continue working on the canvas that I had started in class as a demo. Well, this philosophy worked for me & I did finish that collage! (see below) Then a few days later, I created another one; and this one is for my dad. His 75th birthday is on Friday! He has certainly had quite a rough year with a lot of health related problems. But, he is truthfully a fighter and I would say he is cautiously optimistic these days . . . . we just take it one step at a time. I will be going to Florida to visit my parents again for a few days, at the end of the month - yay! Below is a progression of the first collage I worked on and finished while all my collage class supplies were still out:

I used lots of skeleton leaves, tissue paper, marbled papers . . . the image of the bird & the girl is on the M is for Magpie collage sheet from Alpha Stamps.

Rubber stamping was done with StazOn ink and more paint was added to the top of the collage in pinks & purple - click on any photo for more details.

The finished collage, complete with a favorite quote.

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And here is the collage I created for my dad, on a gallery type stretched canvas . . .

It started out like this (below left) -

I used lots of handmade papers, watercolour crayons and gel medium . . . gold metallic ink . . .

This collage for my dad incorporates a photo of my dad and my mom sailing the melonseed sailboat he built (cedar strip) on the little lake near where Steven & I lived, about 2 years ago. I printed it out on matte photo paper along with about 5 others, and chose this one because I liked the quality of it and the fact that it was of my mom & dad sailing together. I added a bit of watercolor crayon and white Lumiere paint to the photo. You may also be able to see my 2 nephews and my sister behind my mom & dad, paddling 3 canoes that my dad built! Pretty amazing. He is a very special man, my dad. Happy birthday, dad. xo