"The Artistic Mother" Project #4 (AKA a little art and a big festival)

Thanks to this fun project I now have a new obsession. BEADS! I love beads. I had a few just in case but didn't really work with them often. But no more! They will be showing up everywhere! They will now be up there with the tons of paper and yarn and fabric that I just had to have. I can't get enough of the gorgeous colors and amazing textures. Love it all.

I used a photo of myself as a toddler for the body of the butterfly. For the inner wings I stamped an image of a butterfly on the back of a paper that I wanted to use. I didn't want the detail from the stamp to show. I only needed the shape. The outside butterfly image came from the internet (free use) and was gessoed and stamped, glittered and colored with oil pastel sticks.

Then came the beads and the little do dads. I'm hanging this over my work table so that whenever I doubt myself , you know we are our worst critics, I can just look up and be inspired to work on.

You must check out Kristin's blog at "Twinkle, Twinkle" . Her butterfly is too sweet for words.

Earlier today I took in "StART on The Street", an art festival in downtown Worcester, Ma. It's one of my favorite things to do. It is celebrated a couple of times a year. There are hundreds of talented artists selling their work, music and of course great food.

I always look for one of my favorite artists Bob Aiello. His watercolors of the well known and lesser known Worcester landmarks are amazing. I love his use of color. It was the most beautiful day!

And then I saw this. I covet this really bad. I want to put one in my backyard to hide in! A veritable palace of solitude. A place for dreaming and imagining. Definitely on my list!

Hope your weekend was full of art and family and beautiful days. I just live for weekends like this, don't get too many of them so it makes them all the more special.

bo bice

The most amazing performance ever on American Idol. Don't forget to turn off the music on the side bar.

"The Artistic Mother" Project #3

I have been learning so many new things traveling with this amazing group of talented women as we work together on the projects in Shona Cole's wonderful book. Each new project opens up new ideas and inspires new creativity. For me this project was learning to be patient, to wait for ideas to come naturally.

It is always amazing to me how an unruly jumble of art supplies can magically transform itself into such an awesome work of self expression. What looks like a pile of unorganized stuff is actually planned chaos.

This is what the pile finally became. It seemed to take forever for my vision to take shape. I had many ideas of where I might take this, but was never quite happy with them until last night. Suddenly i'm off and running, it just seemed to come out of nowhere.

I am so glad that I waited for the muse to come to me instead of forcing myself to meet a self imposed deadline. I am really loving this piece.

The little girl in the photo was me way back in Nov. 1956. It's one of my favorites.

It was so fabulous to use the handmade papers that we learned to make at the beginning of the workshop. I'm definitely going to be making a lot more of these.

It's all about goals. Those that you reach quickly and those that you work towards for a long time. Whether or not you get there, taking the journey is half the fun.

Project #2 for the "Artistic Mother" Workshop

It makes perfect sense that if you have a wonderful journal you need to have a wonderful tote bag to carry it in wherever you go. You never know when the muse may strike and an amazing idea may come to mind.

T'was a really fun project. My only problem was that after it was all finished I noticed that I had put the handles in wrong! Being the OCD fanatic I can be, I know that I will pull it apart and fix it. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon. It will make me crazy until I do.Until then Kate doesn't care. She just loves her awesome tote bag.

Keep on creating!

The Perfect Gift

This past weekend my dear friend Karen and I finally got to see " Alice In Wonderland". It was an artist's delight, visually stunning with breathtaking color, amazing sets and costuming. After the movie she gifted me with this charming book.

She knows that I have been following the workshop from the wonderful book by Shona Cole, "The Artistic Mother" with my four year old granddaughter Kate. I absolutely adore this book and love sharing it and making art with my little artist Kate.

Sunshine By Kate

We've been working on many projects none of which are ready for blogging. I thought a little music might do for Artistic Mother followers. You will want to disable the music at the bottom to hear this.

The Artistic (grand) Mother :

Project #1

The studio is finally dried out after all the rain we've had. I couldn't wait to get started following the workshop section of Shona Cole's book: "The Artistic Mother". I am taking my granddaughter Kate along with me on this fabulous journey. She is my little artist. The journal is to keep track of her artful journey. She is already a little crafty diva and wants to try everything. Yeah Kate!

My daughter and her two children have moved in with us after a rough divorce and we've been trying to fit three more people into our little house. My studio has been split in half so that she could have her own room. This week the wall between the two rooms has finally gone up so that I now have a dedicated space of my own again.

As you can see I have a real issue with being organized. I can't function without it. This isn't even the half of it. Maybe someday we'll go on a tour. Like I said, I have issues.

I had so much fun with the background papers. It was different to just play. It's something I've been working on for a while. Hopefully I'll find more time to play again.

Little by little the more that I worked on Kate's journal the deeper into supplies I got. This kind of chaos I like!

This is my finished project. A journal to keep Kate's progress as an artist from the very beginning and a record to help her remember when she made art with her Nana.

I would love to hear feedback on this project. Is it done? Is it too cute? I tend to stray to the cute side. On to project two.