7_14_09

Montecito is at about 7,500 feet elevation in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park. The temperatures were perfect! high 70's with an occasional cooling breeze, so it was perfect for outside drawing.

wild flowers

When I wasn't teaching (every morning from 9:15-noon) husb and I were taking part in camp activities, like rifle range, canoeing, tie-dyeing, and hiking.

luau night at Montecito

We're home from Montecito! We had a wonderful time, and did lots of art and hiking in beautiful Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park. No, we weren't the only ones dressed like this--it was Luau night at Montecitio Family Summer Camp.

Come with me to Orvieto, Italy in May 2010

I'm teaching "Bella Italia: Orvieto Sketchbook" the Week of May 23-29, 2010. For our week in Orvieto, we’ll be staying in the spacious, graceful, quiet, Istituto San Lodovico. It is a large old palace that has served as a school and is now a convent Bed and Breakfast run by three nuns. Parts of the building date to as early as the 14th century. There are remnants of frescoes from the period, one that is said to have been done by Michelangelo when he visited on his way to Rome to paint the Sistine Chapel. You’ll have room to stretch. There is a garden, a courtyard, valley overlooks, a library, a lounge, several kitchens. It is like being in a home – comfortable, cozy, and welcoming. The convent hides behind high walls and large arched doorways. Passing through the arched portal is like passing into another world. Pristine silence, lovely gardens, patios, fountains, and simplicity greet the visitor. The rooms are spare but completely modern. Full baths in all. Spotlessly clean. Marble stairways, old oriental carpeting, huge leather couches. No noise. Whisper quiet. You sleep very well.
Won't you join us? Check out the rest of the trip plan here.
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Meanwhile, dear blog readers, I'm off for a week to Sequoia National Park. I'll be teaching at Montecito Family Vacation camp in the mornings and adventuring with my husb the rest of the time!

A new place to learn art in San Diego.

My friend, Lauren Becker Downey has reopened her Bravo Workshops under the name
Bravo School of Art
NTC Liberty Station
2690 Historic Decatur Rd, Studio 206
San Diego, CA 92106
619-223-0058
(There will be a website, but it's not up yet.)

I'm teaching these workshops:

Adult Classes:
COLLAGE 101 with Jane LaFazio
Sunday, October 18, 1 - 4pm
Saturday, December 12, 1 - 4pm

Are you ready to start making some art and don’t know where to begin? Collage is a great wayto express yourself creativity and inexpensively. Use a glue stick or acrylic medium, use old magazines or fine imported rice paper, recycle packaging or antique envelopes. Any and all can make a wonderful small art piece. In this workshop you’ll start 4 or 5 small collages, and maybe finish 1 or 2 in class. Play with color, composition and focal point.
Workshop fee $38 members $44 non-members

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Kids Classes:
FISH PRINTING (for kids ages 8-12) with Jane LaFazio
Saturday, August 15, 9 - 10:30 am

Don’t worry! We won’t be using real fish, just rubber replicas to create multi-colored prints on fabric. As it’s called in Japan, Gyotaku is the process of painting the fish with the colors of their
choice, then laying fabric on top to create a one-of-a kind print. Students will have an opportunity to make many prints, including ones on a t-shirt and on fabric. Once the fish are printed, the fabric will be assembled and sewn to create a pillow or wall hanging. Please bring
a clean white t-shirt.
Fee $20.00 members $23.00 non-members
Materials fee: $8 per child

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SELF PORTRAIT (for kids ages 8-12) with Jane LaFazio
Saturday, October 24, 11am - 12:30pm

Using soft pastel (chalk), create an original self-portrait on colored paper. With gentle instruction on facial proportion and placement of features, children will draw a face and color it in, learning to blend the chalk to their own skin tone. Self-portrait hair color and hair styles are left to their creative judgment!
Fee $20.00 members $23.00 non-members
Materials fee $2

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CLAY PLAY(for kids ages 8-12) with Jane LaFazio
Saturday, November 7, 11am - 12:30pm

Using air-dry clay, children will learn some basic skills of hand- building like pinch pots, coil pots and slab construction. Then, let loose to use their own imagination to create whatever they’d like from aliens, animals or whatever! Children will take home their clay creations to air dry. Clay can also be painted at home.
Fee $20.00 members $23.00 non-members
Materials fee $10

Kimono: Aloe Butterfly

I think you may have seen this one before. It's paste paper collage on to watercolor paper. Part of my current Kimono series.

Kimono: Golden Hibiscus

I just finished this one. Paste paper, collaged on to hand dye fabric, machine and hand stitched. Embroidered hibiscus on cloth in the center.

Kimono Series

Here are my three recent Kimono pieces. I'm having fun exploring one image, using different mediums. The one on the upper left "Kimono: Matilija Music" is paper on canvas. "Kimono: Aloe Butterfly" is on the right and the lower one is "Kimono: Golden Hibiscus."

Purple Marbles

I tried something all together new with this quilt. (It's about 12x12inches). It's made with hand-dyed batting, needle felted, monoprinted organza and machine and hand quilted.

BeBop

BeBop demanded equal time with Buddy on the blog.

My student

So, I have a new thing. Private lessons of "Sketching & Watercolor: Journal Style." The one-on-one, 3-hour session takes place in Bernardo Winery (in North San Diego) and cost $75. Here's Elizabeth, my student from yesterday, sketching and painting at the Winery. Contact me to set up a date!

hibiscus

Here's the hibiscus that I drew, while showing my student.

winery leaf

We started simple, by doing a leaf.

Buddy

Buddy. He's watching TV.

Say hi to me in Long Beach

Are you going to the Long Beach Quilt Festival the end of July? I'll be doing Open Studios in the Quilting Arts make it university area on Friday, July 24, 12:30-2:30 and Sunday, July 26, 12:30-2:30. Come by and say hi!!

Here's a semi-detail view of my Zen Eucalyptus. This quilt will be on exhibition as part of "Edges" at the Long Beach Quilt Festival.

Happy 4th of July!

Husb's got some relatives in from Norway, so we're having a BBQ tonight for them. I made this cake to impress them. (Easy cake, and I'm thinking yummy. Anything with whipped cream is good!)

Stars and ...dots

Stars and ...dots
Originally uploaded by janelafazio.

oaxaca bird

Inspired by Melanie Testa's book "Inspired to Quilt" I created this small (8.5x11") quilt. It's layered with organza, and painted and beaded and hand-sewn.

backyard birds

Real birds from our backyard, but drawn from photos, using my newly discovered technique.

artist prayer flags

I did a glue resist/setacolor demo for my art quilt class on Sunday, and then just had to sew them up into artist prayer flags. You can see closeups here on my flickr.

carnelian flowers

I may have posted this in some form before---it's been in the studio for a while! Here it completely finished! about 9x12"

sunset flower field

I think I started this in a class demo...Anyway, all done! I'm finishing up pieces for the big sales extravaganza at Art Unraveled in August. ~9x12"

summers past farms

Our San Diego SketchCrawl group met today at Summers Past Farms out east on highway 8. We had a group of 14 or so, including my husb. I did these flowers on a Moleskine page that I prepared yesterday. (Adhered a page from a book with matte medium, then lightly coated the page with absorbent ground.)

molinillo

So here's a relatively quick drawing of a molinillo. Note the hand carved stamp is based on the top of the molinillo. I'm obessessed with this stamp and I'm using it everywhere! I've got like 3 or 4 quilts and 4 or 5 collages on canvas, all with this stamp.

fuschia

Playing with doing a wash on the Moleskine before I do a drawing. It's limiting and more of a challenge.

beach walk 6 09

From our recent camping in San Clemente. I had to paint the feathers at home. I did finish the sea weed while were there. Too stinky to bring home.

molinillo inspiration

I'm working in my studio this week, and looking around my house for inspiration. I've recently been working with this molinillo as inspiration. (This is my collection)

new zealand inspiration

I bought these felt balls online from a store in New Zealand a few years ago. HAD to have them.

saturday's workshop

I taught 'sketching and watercolor: journal style" at my friend Laura's beautiful garden in Sunset Cliffs on Saturday.

saturday's workshop

That's Laura, in the forefront, and students and her lovely home in the back.

saucy succulent

san clemente beach

Husb and I camped just up the cliff from here, San Clemente Beach. We just camp overnite, with our tent, sleeping bags, marshmallows and store bought food. We walked on the beach a lot, and even had guests to our campsite for cocktails. Waay fun. And it's only an hour's drive.

clemente rocks

Husb and I collected these rocks on our beach walk.

clemente eucalyptus

View from our picnic table at campsite #73, San Clemente State Beach.

anne's lace weed

Another quiltlet!

ancient bricks

here's some fabric I created in the workshop this weekend. I don't know yet, how I'll use it. I've got it hanging in my studio waiting for inspiration.

ladybug fabric

this fabric is my favorite of the ones I made. I love the unexpectedness of the colors and patterns.

Monoprint & Soywax Workshop

Melly Testa's workshop was a great success! I organized the workshop and rented the beautiful SDWS workshop area. Twenty wonderful artists/students for two days. Melly taught us so much, and we created some fabulous fabrics. I'll post my fabric tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can see some photos from the workshop here. Note what a beautiful place San Diego is for a workshop!

thanks to Mike Rome for some of the photos!

hibiscus

I got a little drawing in.

workshop assistant

This weekend I'm hosting a 2 day workshop for Melanie Testa in San Diego. Since I'm the 'workshop assistant' too, I had to actually hang laundry! Actually, it's soda-soaked fabric that we're monoprinting and using soy wax resist. I'll post some pics of the results soon.

molinillo dos

This is about quiltlet #20, so I'm starting to think about how to put them all together. Though I'm really enjoying the process, and find my skills improving and the images and stitching are becoming more complex and interesting. So, I guess I'll just make some more!

view from the Hendrick's

More photos from Gateway, Colorado.

friendly guy

He posed for the perfect portrait! Took this on my morning walk in Gateway, Colorado last week

drying silk gauze

We dyed silk gauze in the workshop and it looked so pretty drying in the sun of the hotel courtyard.

colorado walk

colorado

car museum

Gateway Canyons Resort has an incredible car museum. I loved the shiny chrome!

Fran Skiles and me

I spent last week in a Fran Skiles workshop at the Alegre Retreat held at Gateway Canyon Resort. I had a really great time. Learned a lot in the workshop, met lots a really nice people and the resort was fabulous.

alegre retreat

Didn't have much time to sketch, with the all day workshops, with hikes in the morning and dinner and events in the eve. There were lots of great subjects at the resort, including beautiful flowers, mountains and horses... so I'll just have to go back

palisade

This was quite the challenge! I could have spent days painting it, or done a bunch of differenct sketches to get it right.

Colorado

I'm just home from here. A gorgeous place about an hour and a half from Grand Junction, Colorado.