Donna Zagotta Day 1

Donna Zagotta began filming today and I might have to kick Mom (Lynn) off of camera B so that I can be in there and watch. Studio set up started last week and we were all wowed by what we found in the boxes Donna had sent. Donna's work is amazing. She does the type of figure work that I really love.

At lunch Donna talked a little about her work. She said at one point she began to be known for her interior paintings and in order to not be pigeon holed she made a conscious effort to add figures and street scenes to her repertoire. That's an interesting move. Artists- especially instructors- seem to walk a delicate line between being able to pursue art where art takes them (through styles and subject matter) but also having a consistent style that people can come to know.

If you love Donna's work, check out Polly Hammet, Carla O'Connor and George James.

Patterns

One of my goals this year (Feb/Mar resolutions) is to learn a new computer program. This goal lines up surprising well with a new policy at work that allows us an 8-hour day each month to work on learning a skill or program of our choice. Our first go at this was this last Wednesday and I'm on my way to learning Illustrator. Such a fascinating program...and dear Lord I have a long way to go.

Can you spot where I messed up? :)

Construction

Forgive the mess. I'm trying a few new things with blogger and it will take a few days to figure out the new (and improved...hopefully) system.

Thank you!

Work Day

Someone should let the weather know here in Oregon that it is practically APRIL. with that in mind, one might wonder why I see a flurry of snowflakes coming down outside my office window? The early blooming flowers look about as miserable as all the tiny birds being tossed around in erratic gusts.

Luckily I've spent most of the day (and by most I mean the last 6 hours) in a meeting. This is what I love about being in a small business. When we see a need for something we can call a meeting

Great News for Quilt Lovers

A rich and wonderful tradition is getting some well deserved press...and space. This Saturday, Lincoln, Nebraska will see the opening of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum. What began with a gift of around 950 quilts from Ardis and Robert James, the International Quilt Study Center now boasts the largest collect of quilts in the world. Speakers at the Center will include Nancy Crow (March 30), Janet Berlo (April 13) and Jonathan Holstein (June 5). For more visit www.quiltstudy.org. There you can find a more detailed listing of speakers, workshops and exhibitions.

(Image from Jeff Muceus and Wikimedia Commons)

Encaustic with Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch

Last week we were lucky enough to have encaustic artist Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch film here at the Creative Catalyst Productions studios. Lynn and I fought over who got to run camera B and as soon as Patricia left, we went out and purchased a months supply of beeswax. Patricia makes it look downright easy. Lynn and I discovered that it's not quite THAT easy but after editing Patricia's workshop DVD and a few tries, I think Lynn and I will both love this medium. There is just so much versatility in it. I find myself looking at everything and thinking, "I wonder how THAT would look under a little wax."

Art Show

The Creative Catalyst Productions winter art show closes this Friday (February 29th). The theme is Treasures and here are some examples of the cool pieces people have submitted.




The above are:
"Crows" by Rosa Vera
"Howell's Babies" by Donna Morrison
"Magnolias Blooming" by Jean Corbett
"Shop Talking" by Nancy Standlee

Check out the other wonderful entries and then join yourself. It's fun and there are some nice prizes, which is also not a bad motivation!

Well Hello There Anaheim (CHA Day 1)

It's only just past 8. I think I've been conscious for some 17 hours and it seems that at some point caffeine just stops being relevant and you need to succumb to sleep. We got to Southern California with all our bags and did some major trekking through the CHA compound attempting to find our spot in the newbies section. More doors here are locked than unlocked and it means you do a LOT of traveling. This would be awesome accept for the fact we're hauling boxes and suitcases full of merchandise.


But so far it's been a lot of fun. I think the people in the booths around us are really nice and the booth just across from us has some fun stamps that I will be eyeing for three days. Sherrill Kahn brought her husband Joel down to visit us and it was so great o meet him! We're yet to run into Claudine Hellmuth or Traci Bautista or Sherri Haab but hopefully I'll be able to track some of them down tomorrow...although I'm sure they are ALL incredibly busy with demonstrations.

The only really funny thing was how the cashier at Target seemed confused when we didn't want bags for every small thing. We were buying a plastic garbage can and I told her to just throw all our stuff in there. She looked at me like I was crazy. I wanted to put my hand on her arm and say, "I know. I'm from Oregon." That point would have been doubly clear 5 minutes later when Dad and I absolutely and completely lost our rental car in the parking lot. Ten points for wandering tourists!

Tomorrow we will probably be at our booth by 7:30 am so...To sleep!

PS- The second image down is a map of the entire layout of CHA. OK that's a lie because it excludes our section of New Members. (Glorious)

Valentine's Flowers

Ingredients:
Felt-various colors
Fabric-various colors
Netting
Heavy duty florist wire
Scissors
Needle
Thread-various colors

Recipe:
1. Cut out flowers
A. I find that just plain circles of various sizes can be really cute. If you want to get a little more fancy you can put some petals but make sure you leave enough room in the base to push in a wire. The layer on the left is how you want to cut your flower. The flower on the right won't leave any room for the wire.


B. When you have your layers cut, arrange them in stacks.

I just mixed and matched. The flower on the left has (top to bottom) brown fabric, netting and then felt. The flower on the right has felt, brown fabric and finally felt.



C. Take the bottom flower and cut a slit in it just big enough for your wire.

D. Sandwich all your layers and sew them together. (Look at the final flowers for reference)

2. Put in the Wire
A. Take a long piece of wire and carefully put through the back slit. Push it in far enough so that it almost touches the thread at the edge of the flower.

B. Bend wire back on itself twice so that you have a wire "z" pushing against the back flower.
C. Bend once more- but at a 90 degree angle- to create a stem.

Valentines Cards

I love fabric. I absolutely love the texture it gives to cards, but bobbin problems usually kill all desire to work with the medium. My answer? Fusible webbing. Here are some valentines day card ideas where the only sewing necessary is some time with a needle and thread. No machine required.

Card 1: I drew my design on with fabric chalk so I could have a line to follow. I used pink and white thread with a little netting over the heart. If you flipped the fabric over, you'd see that I'd taped down the beginning and end of my thread so that it wouldn't slip out. No fancy knots. I finished hand stitching the design and then ironed double sided fusible webbing to my material and then ironed everything to my cardstock.

Card 2. I simply cut out a rectangle of fabric and fused it to cardstock. I cut out a fabric heart and adhered it to the fabric with fabric glue.



Card 3. The flower fabric is an old curtain I bought at Goodwill. I fused it to double sided webbing and then drew and cut out the design. I then fused the individual pieces to the brown fabric before fusing the whole thing to cardstock.

Card 4. I used a bunch of tiny scraps to create flower circles, a vase and a leaf. I adhered the flowers with fabric glue and used webbing for the vase. The back side of the card has a piece of polkadot fabric on it. (Same fabric as in one of the flowers).

ChaChaCha

It's the big CHA countdown. I am making myself leave for an hour one day this week and finding appropriate footwear. At some point I let my tennis shoes go too long without a replacement and I've been paying for it since. Rule to live by: Don't mess with your feet!

Also, we get back *on* Valentine's Day...which means friends and family will be getting Valentine's Day cards probably still in June.

So worth it!

Lesley Riley's, "Exploring Fabric Collage"

Check out the trailer to Lesley Riley's, "Exploring Fabric Collage."

CHA- a paperaholics dream

Across the country small business owners are staying up late preparing for the Craft and Hobby Association. This is a huge event where retailers go to find merchandise and product makers go to find retailers. We are working overtime preparing for the trip. I've been writing letters to some incredible paper stores (*drool*) and working on graphics for flyers. I spent almost 2 hours fighting Photoshop this afternoon but then accidentally learned how to do something really cool so it was all worth it.

On a completely random note, last night I was in our local craft store (surprise) and I was flipping through a 2007 Sommerset and suddenly was facing really familiar work. Sure enough, there was Sherrill Kahn's name shining out at me. It's so great to meet these artists and to have a personality to go with the names. Such talented hardworking people.

Sherrill Kahn Day 3

Today we finished up all of Sherrill Kahn's filming a day early! Sherrill will be heading back down south tomorrow afternoon to begin preparing for CHA. She will be there demonstrating some of her amazing work.

Sherrill has been nice enough to leave us some of her paint to play with. And play we will! I've learned so much the last few days and I am excited to see how I can bring her techniques into my own art.

Sherrill Kahn Day 2

Today is our first full day with Sherrill Kahn and she is amazing. She has written a book on seemingly everything and she is so open to sharing what she knows. She uses Jacquard paints and it's going to take a lot of self control to not run out and buy some!

We've been in the studio filming all day so I will post some pictures up tomorrow. In the meantime, here's the trailer for Gloria Page's DVD workshop. Enjoy!

Pre Sale!

The wait is over! OK, well sort of. Gloria Page's beautiful workshop "Art Stamping Innovations" is ready for our pre order sale. I loved every minute of Gloria's stay with us. She is one of the most positive human beings I have ever met and her outlook on life is contagious. She is also an amazingly creative and talented artist. I took what I learned filming and editing her workshop and have begun to do my own card art (the elephants below). It is sort of an addictive art so be careful!

Check out a preview here.

Check out my posts from while filming and editing Gloria.

You know it's going to be fun when...

...a big box of Jacquard products shows up at the office in preparation for Sherrill Kahn's DVD workshop. Sherrill arrives tomorrow and the studio is ready. It's going to be 4 days of cool techniques and great demonstrations. I will be running a camera for the shoot and I am really excited.

Thursday

I realize that I didn't post anything personally creative yesterday. I was too excited about Virginia Cobb's DVD. Today is another attempt at figuring out how this poster should look. I'm just playing around and letting my mind wander.

My weekend starts tomorrow and starts early. First I will be at the local college by 7am getting ready to film a friend's master's defense. I will then spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on a couch with said friend accompanied by a giant bag of chips, some brainless movies and crochet hooks to celebrate her finishing 3 years of hard work!

Virginia Cobb Pre Sale

Work is abuzz today with excitement. Virginia Cobb's DVD, "Acrylic Abstract Painting: The Evolving Image" is being produced as I type. We're announcing the pre-sale and will have it shipped to us in just a few weeks!