buddy in a box

Buddy is such a help in the studio.

Obama

Over at Mundo Lindo, I had the kids do portaits of our new President. Here's one, done by 4 different kids (ages 9-11) and then sewn together. Check out the rest at Mundo Lindo. (I'll post more portraits tomorrow.)

do not pick the roses

I wanted to try sketching a flower everyday to chronicle the stages of a blossom. I should not have picked a rose, especially a yellow rose. (too hard to shade--it turns the yellow to green or murky.) Next time, I go with a tulip, much easier.

Art Unraveled 2009

Here's my teaching schedule for Art Unraveled!

August 5, Wednesday, 9-4:30 indoors & air-conditioned
Paper on Cloth Collage
Create a truly mixed media piece by collaging paper on to cloth. ( Jane’s techniques were featured in the magazine Cloth Paper Scissors March/April 2008 and in her appearance on the third season of Quilting Arts TV.) In class, we’ll paint and use a variety of textures to create our backgrounds on uncoated canvas. Then Jane will show you easy ways to transfer (copy) or draw your image onto the canvas. Once you’re happy with your design, you’ll collage it with a wild mixture of different types of paper and finish it off with painted and stamped and sewn details. You’ll work on three collages at once, so you might want to have a theme (or not!) Jane will show you lots of mixed media techniques to inspire you. At the end of the day you’ll have three paper and cloth collages, with the option to machine or hand-stitch additional texture at home.

August 6, Thursday, 9-4:30 indoors & air-conditioned
Sketching and Watercolor Journal Style: Collections
Want to learn to draw and paint quickly and simply to capture details from your life or travels? Spend the day drawing and painting in a relaxed supportive environment. Jane will show you how to take the time to really look at an object and draw it. Then she’ll demonstrate the use watercolors using a straight-forward, intuitive approach, how to mix color to capture the look and feel of whatever you are painting. You’ll be drawing small items for your own collection. (A collection of small 3-dimensional objects: figurines, shoes, earrings, the contents of your purse or suitcase, your art supplies. E-mail Jane if you have questions about what to bring.) You’ll create a set of 5x7” illustrations of objects from your collection that you’ve brought to class, as unique as your own handwriting. Jane will show you how to enhance your drawings with creative page layouts and journaling. You’ll create a small paper portfolio to hold your pages (with room for other pages that you create.)

August 7, Friday, 7am-10am
Sketching & Watercolor Journal Style: ON LOCATION
Spend the morning drawing and painting outside on location at the gorgeous Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. Jane will show you how to select subject matter and hone in on the pertinent details, yet simplify your drawing, so you can capture your impression of the scene quickly. She’ll demonstrate drawing on location, and the use of watercolors using a straight-forward, intuitive approach. You’ll do at least 3 pages of your visit to the garden. Jane will show you how to enhance your drawings with creative page layouts and journaling. We’ll carpool at 6:30 am to arrive at 7 am, when the garden is cooler and stay till 10 am.

And I'll have my artwork for sale at the Shopping Extravaganza on Saturday, August 8.

Registration begins in Februrary

Palm Springs: Jane's felt step 1

I'm posting a few pics of our Palm Springs weekend, and you can see the rest here.
Helen, Susie, Jeannie and I spent the weekend at Jeannie's beautiful house in Palm Springs. We each were in charge of teaching the others an art project. I started Saturday morning teaching wet-felting. Here's my peice, with the wool roving laid out.

Palm Springs: our finished felt

Here are all four of our peices (remember, you can see more details here)

Palm Springs our books

Saturday afternoon, Helen taught us how to make these cool books, and here are the ones we created.

Palm Springs: my pencil drawing

Sunday morning, Susie led us in a drawing project called "Tree Spirits" where we drew a tree and then tried to see and draw the spirits or creatures our imagination found. Here's my tree, graphite with a little color pencil.

Palm Springs Palm

We took a long walk each morning.
Sunday, Jeannie taught us a quilt project. She brought her free motion stitching machine and her needle felting machine. We spent the day drawing, quilting, drawing and quilting...

Palm Springs Hike

Here's me, Jeannie and Milo the dog. This is a few blocks from Jeannie's house in Old Palm Springs. After this hike on Monday morning, we packed up and headed home. Thank you Jeannie for hosting us! We had a wonderful, creative fun-filled weekend.

palm springs

We were so busy with other art projects, I only had time for one watercolor journal page...

Palm Springs January 09

Jeannie's backyard in Palm Springs California. We four friends spent the weekend creating art.
You can see all the pics here.
.

Palm Springs Art Weekend

Jeannie (it was her house), Susie and Helen displaying some of the art we made this past weekend. I'll post more photos and details of the art projects tomorrow.

the economy......

Another casualty of the economy. Remember I said I'd be teaching kids art classes at San Diego Museum of Art (and how I was so very proud to join their faculty.) We got word last night that ALL the SDMA Museum Art School classes will be suspended until at least summer... I know it was a very difficult decision for them, and they are very hopeful they can make the school financially sound again...they need donors. BIG donors. Or tons more students. Or?? We teachers and SDMA staff brain-stormed last night, like I'm sure sooo many people and businesses are doing right now-on how to resusitate the school...

sketching at Torrey Pines

Husb and I spent most of the day at Torrey Pines State Reserve in LaJolla. I'm working on a sketch/watercolor commission for Julie and her husband. I got about 2/3 of it done today...darn, looks like I'll have to go back!

the most beautiful day in 2009

It was definitely the most beautiful day of 2009....This is another view from Torrey Pines State Reserve. My new, new year's resolution is to walk every trail and visit either every 4 months or every week! It's about a 30 minute drive from our house.

10 January, 2009

The SketchCrawl group met at Bazaar del Mundo, in Old Town for our first sketchcrawl of 2009.

san diego sketchcrawl group

We got there a little before it opened, so we set up in the parking lot. We had 16 artists, and a beautiful day and venue. It was a great way to kick off 2009!

san diego sketchcrawl group

After a morning of sketching and painting, we walked over to Casa Guadalajara for lunch. Fourteen for lunch. We passed our journals around the table and had a delightful time!

Art Quilt Explorations online class starts Feb 5

I'm teaching Art Quilt Explorations on joggles.com for 6 weeks starting February 5. It's a great beginner class as we do a new small art quilt each week. 1) Landscape 2) Geometric Felt Quilt 3) Painted Quilt 4) Bird Theme Quilt 5) Shrine Quilt and week 6) Stamps to Stencils. All for only $75! More details here and registration info.

A quilt for Larkin's baby

My first ever functional quilt! A baby quilt for a friend's daughter. I've only made art quilts for the past 5 years or so, and this was a new experience. I broke my sewing machine in the process, but it's fixed now. The back of the quilt is flannel, the same as the green border. Of course, I made up the design myself. Oh, and Larkin is a vegetarian, hence the carrot print.

detail of Larkin's quilt

bird collection continued

I thought I was nearly done drawing my bird collection, but then I realize I have a collection of tiny birds too, started in my childhood. The little yellow chick was the very first, a gift from my grandmother when I was 9 or so.

scanned feather pattern

Here's that collage, repeated and group and rotated to make a pattern. I'm printing them both on an iron on transfer, and then to organza to see what I get.

scanned feather collage

A collage I created a little while ago. Paper on Paper.

Persimmon Moon

Speaking of yoga, I try to take classes 3 times a week at RB Yoga. Great place, wonderful instructors.
(In fact, one of the women in my yoga class wanted to see this painting, so here you are Geeta. It's framed to 18x22 and it's $300.)

ohm

I realized recently that I've been practicing yoga for four and half years now. I love it!

check these out, then come back here.

My blog friend, Gil, over at Journal Craft has interviewed Danny Gregory. It's a very good interview and you've got to read what he gave his wife for Christmas.

And my new blog friend, Jennie over at Meet Your Muse has a bit of my work and words on her blog.

January 1

I used to keep the 'good' silver separate from the everyday sterling silver. What would I be saving it for? The 6-10 dinner parties we have each year? So, I mixed them all together in the kitchen drawer and we'll just use them!

I'm teaching kids art classes in San Diego

I'm teaching kids classes at the San Diego Museum of Art starting in January.

Artistic Explorations: Artville at SDMA
Each week kids will get creative with a different material and theme. This class will provide a venue for each young artist to be creative with gentle guidance in drawing, painting and sculpture. Creative problem solving and laughter is encouraged while discovering the joy of making art!

Saturdays, January 24—February 14, 2009
10:00 a.m.—12:00 p.m.
Ages 10-12
$65 SDMA members/$75
Instructor: Jane LaFazio

Saturdays, March 7—March 28, 2009
10:00 a.m.—12:00 p.m.
Ages 7—9
$65 SDMA members/$75 Instructor: Jane LaFazio

Register through San Diego Museum of Art here. Or call SDMA (619) 231-1996

birds of a different feather

Christmas Eve

Husb serves crab legs, and I will stuff the mushrooms for tomorrow. The tangerine is for a snack.

christmas 2008

Merry Christmas everyone! It was my turn to do the illustration and husb's turn to write the holiday letter. The cards will be in the mail tomorrow!

it's beginning to look a lot like...

it's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas

Even BeBop is making a list and checking it twice.

I love tulips!

it's beginning to look a lot like...

Andrea's birthday party dinner--where the debut of my Chicken Verde Enchiladas were enjoyed by all.

chicken enchiladas

Cook, draw, cook, draw, paint, cook. This was a very quick sketch as I prepared enchiladas for the first time--for a birthday dinner party for 10! Thanks to Denise, who suggested the recipe--I'm pretty sure it was a success.

blog followers

See the new gadget on the right of my blog? You too can have your pic there and keep up with JaneVille. Call it a Christmas present to me. (that is unless you'd like to get me that chocolate I mentioned earlier.)

little felteds

I was asked to write a little something about creativity...And what works for me, is to work small. I've created little 3x5 inch collages (from library book registration cards), worked on little 2 inch circles of collaged felt, my sketchbook is about 5x7 inches and here, I've created little (hand needle) felted things about 4x6 inches. Working small allows me to play and explore a direction...And, if the little things turn out, I can sew or paste them together to create a larger piece of art, OR sew them together and cut them apart again and start over. Either way, they don't take too much time or take up too much room and in the interim, they are just cute to have around...

button box contents

John R. gave me his mother's button box. I had to smile at some of the contents--not exactly all buttons...

Mixed Media class starts January 26

Mixed Media with Paper & Cloth San Diego
A 6-week class in San Diego
Dates & times: January 26 – March 2, 2009. Mondays 9am-noon
Class Location: Athenaeum School of the Art Studio in University Heights, 4441 Park Blvd., Cost: $205 non-members/$160 members plus $20 materials fee payable the first day of class. Class description: What’s mixed media? Everything and anything! You’ll paint, collage, draw, print with our own hand carved stamps, sew, glue, even burn---all to make art. This class encourages your own creativity with lots of techniques and ideas. Most everything in the class can be done on a paper surface OR a cloth surface or combining the two. Each week you’ll explore a new technique or theme. Class will be inspirational, positive and fun, with lots of sharing, laughing, and learning from the others in the class. All levels of experience welcome, and previous students can expect all new lessons. Register: (858) 454-5872 or mail or in-person at Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, 1008 Wall Street, La Jolla, CA 92037 http://ljathenaeum.org/school.html

4 days in San Francisco

I'm home! Husb and I spent four days in San Francisco visiting family and friends. Note the It's It in my moleskine. It's two oatmeal cookies with vanilla ice cream in-between and coated in dark chocolate. I had to draw it very quickly because it was melting and it was soooooooo good. We bought a case, and brought them home packed in dry ice.

San Francisco

We visited the brand new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate park. It's incredible! An aquarium, planetarium and a four story rain forest all in an light filled 'green' building. You gotta go see it. It's right across from the gorgeous deYoung Museum, another must see.

jellyfish

sketching and watercolor workshop

I taught my 'Sketching & Watercolor: Journal Style' at the California Center for Creative Renewal on Saturday, Dec 6. This is the fourth time I've taught there, and you can see why! It's the perfect location for my class. We had 21 people and everyone enjoyed themselves. The weather was perfect, like 77 degrees. I'll be teaching there again next year, in probably August and December.
NEXT workshop at CCCR is Saturday, August 15., 2009.

sketching and watercolor workshop

sketching and watercolor workshop

"on a clear day, you can see forever...." The view from California Center for Creative Renewal in December!

sketching and watercolor workshop

Twenty one people.

My husb!

Here is yet another reason why I love my husband! I was too sick yesterday to teach Mundo Lindo, so Don filled in with my assistant Lizzie. Here he is with the robot he created in class.

news

Thanks Lynn Majidimehr for awarding me this Kreativ Blogger award. It's so nice to be noticed in the big blog world. If I've left a comment on your blog, consider yourself nominated.

Utility Box news: Here's a link to a story in today's San Diego Union Tribune about the project.

Art UnRaveled 2009: I'm honored to be teaching there again this coming August in Phoenix. The schedule will go up in January, but I'll be teaching all day August 5: Paper on Cloth Collage. All day August 6: Sketching & Watercolor-Journal Style. From 7am-10am, August 7 on location Sketching & Watercolor-Journal Style.

Lastly, don't forget to put my 2010 Bella Italia: Orvieto Sketchbook trip on your wish list.

Stop the presses. dear Sandy just awarded me a blog award too! Sandy was in my workshop in New York and is a lovely person and wonderful journal artist. Thanks Sandy!!

it's a happy utility box

here's my completed utility box. it's located on Imperial Ave and 55th in Southeast San Diego.

mystery landscape

You know how you work on things for the longest time to try and resolve them. This is one of those projects. I don't think it's finished yet. (It's a landscape, dupioni silk)