Laura Wasilowski has a new book!

My pal Laura Wasilowski has a new book Fanciful Stitches Colorful Threads, with a focus on hand stitching and you know how I love to stitch by hand!
There is a blog hop going on, and at each stop you can enter to win a copy of her book.
Here's the schedule:
Annie Smith April 19
Melody Johnson April 23
Jane Moxey April 24
Lyric Kinard April 25
Judy Coates Perez April 26
Linda Teufel April 28
Jane LaFazio (that would be me! right here!) April 29 
Susan Brubaker Knapp May 2
Frieda Anderson May 3
Connecting Threads May 4

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. COLOR

I'm home from a glorious week in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. A mixed media art retreat ~ Tesoros del Corazon, Days of Art, night of Altars ~ organized and taught by me and my friends Laurie Mika, Helen Shafer Garcia and Lynn Leahy.
I have lots to share and I'll start with this post of COLOR! San Miguel is filled to the brim with color.













More tomorrow!

On the Road...

I'm out of the country for the next week! See you next Thursday!

Tiny Tutorial: Paper Flower Box

Yes, I still do have pages left in the cookbook from my dad... and I'm still making stuff from the pages of the book. Inspired by "Playing with Books" I've created my own project.
      
I used a little papier mache box from the local craft store. They come in all sizes and shapes. I cut strips from the book pages, and covered the box lid and bottom, using acrylic matte medium as my glue.
       
I used a 3" circle paper punch and cut a bunch of circles. I started by folding them in quarters.

     
I have a whole punch that can reach the center of the 3" circle. I punched holes in the center of my circles and cut the petal shapes.



    
I used a brad to hold the flower petals together.

I shaped each petal with my fingers.


Punched a smaller circle to cover the brad in the center of the flower, and glued it on.

   
With scissors I made a hole in the top of my box and attached the flower with the brad.  I could have covered the brad on the inside with another paper circle to be neater.
    
Got out my Luminarte Twinkling H20's and used the Jasper Red and plenty of water to randomly color the flower petals.

I dropped a bit of glue in the center of the flower, and sprinkled tiny pink buttons.




I'm inspired to do more...different types of flowers, different box shapes...oh my... You can check my earlier post here, to see what else I've done with book pages.

Rollerskates & Rosehips

Using my watercolor sketchbook images in my artwork.
You know, I teach classes...Check out my teaching schedule here.

More paper work

Is there such a thing as too cute? no! this is SOOO CUTE!  Yes, another Saturday spent with my new favorite book.





Funny, I thought my husband would enjoy an afternoon spent folding flowers with me...hmm. not so much. Like the time I had him help me make felted soap. Not his thing...

I tried spray painting the page first, with a stencil, but I like the plain pages best, I think.





No, I'm not on the payroll of the author or publisher of the book,  (they don't even know I'm a fan) it's just a craft that really speaks to me. It's just so accessible.

Tiny Tutorial: Sketching and Painting exotic flowers.

I usually paint with regular watercolors, but today I tried using  Luminarte Twinkling H20s. They've got a wonderful sparkle (it's actually mica) in the paints that gives my pages some extra depth and zing.



This is my subject matter. A protea. 

I start, in pencil with a loose sketch.

I inked the 'pollen presenters and style' (see botanical reference here) first, since they are closest to the viewer.

I painted in the center, using a few colors of my twinks (that's what people who use em call them, I'm told). You can see the sparkle!




Here are my pots of color. and below is a video from Marah Johnson on how to prepare and use the paints.


Back to my painting..










This is another type of protea.

My journal pages are composed as I go along. Draw, ink and paint one thing--extra space on the page? Draw, ink and paint something more. Starting with a sketch..













I like it when the image goes off the page...

Look at that sparkle!!

I added the South African flag, because protea are from South Africa (you knew that of course) and finished the page with a little splatter of blue.