Temecula

Our San Diego SketchCrawl group went north to Temecula yesterday, to it's thriving Old Town. Tons of people strolling the sidewalks and filling the restaurants..Some of us sat on the sidewalk and drew this interesting succulent. Drove 45 minutes to draw a succulent. Oh well, it was great company!

This reminds me, I'll be teaching 'sketching & watercolor: journal style ON LOCATION" in Phoenix at art unraveled and the morning of August 7 we'll be drawing at the gorgeous Desert Botanical Gardens... They'll be lots of glorious subject matter like this one.

a typical day in my mixed media class

Ha, wasn't it just my last post when I mentioned having fun in my Mixed Media with Paper & Cloth class? Well, here's a photo from Monday's class. That's Howard (age 75) showing off his skill and that's me (age 58) answering his challenge! ha! I love this photo!

We always laugh in my classes. Always.

One of my lovely students, Davi, from my Mixed Media with Paper & Cloth class here in San Diego posted pics from our recent class on her blog. Check it out. We really do have a great time!

(photo by Davi)

Shoes and Socks

Photo of my feet by www.kennethgreene.com. He's one of my students. He likes socks. It would make a great drawing subject, but I only draw from 'real life.' Kenneth has challendged me to do something creative with this... hmm.

Laguna Beach Workshop

There are a couple of opening in my workshop "Sketching & Watercolor: Journal Style Sunday, March 29 in Laguna Beach, California 10-4pm $90 per person (includes all your supplies for the day) The class is geared for beginners, but all levels are welcome. Register with Sue foursue@aol.com All materials are included in the fee. Bring a small camp stool or folding chair, hat, sunscreen and bag lunch.

The artwork was done at Torrey Pines State Park.

Art Quilt Exploration Class in Escondido, CA

My monthly art quilt class is open for registration. It's ton of fun, and the class fills up quickly.

Description: Create art with cloth and use fabric to tell your own special story. Each month you'll learn a new technique or be inspired by a new theme. Learn painting and transfer techniques, embroidery and embellishments, and create your own original small art quilt each month. There are no patterns, ever. Jane is building a national reputation as an art quilter; you'll see her works at galleries throughout the country and in magazines like Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors. See Jane's work and check out her blog at http://www.plainjanestudio.com/.

Materials required: materials will be discussed at the first class

When: The 4th Sunday of each month, April 26 – October 25 (with no class in July) from noon-3pm

Where: Quilter’s Paradise, 1451 Montiel Road, Escondido (off the Nordahl Rd exit of 78) http://www.quiltersparadiseesc.com/

Cost: $120 for 6 classes

Register: call Quilter’s Paradise (760) 738-9677

Cloth Paper Scissors March April 2009

Yippee. I have another article in my fave magazine, Cloth Paper Scissors.

Cloth Paper Scissors March April 2009

Here's the cover. I'm on page 20.
Cloth Paper Scissors March April 2009
Originally uploaded by janelafazio.

Buddy and BeBop

dyed batting

Some friends came over yesterday and we rit-dyed cotton and bamboo batting ala Judy Coates Perez (Quilting Arts Dec/Jan 09). Here's my new stash!

Husb, theatre actor Warner Miller, and me

Husb and I saw "Since Africa" at the Old Globe on Sunday. I highly recommend it! Here we are at the reception (honoring Mo'olelo Performing Arts 5th Birthday) with the star of the play, Warner Miller.

photo by Nick Abadilla

tiny bird on a pear

I'm doing a show and tell at Legacy Quilt Guild (in Lakeside, CA) on Thursday night. I've been told they are more into traditional quilters, so I'll be telling my story, showing my art quilts and then....? So I'm going to give them a little project to start work on at the meeting... This is little piece is 4.5" square, and I drew a picture in marker, then machine stitched and hand stitched.. Voilà! An art quilt.

tiny pom fern

Another little 4.5 'art quilt,' a drawn 'doodle' then all hand-stitched. These are waay fun. I want to do more.

Jane

Isn't this fun!! I made it here I made this here at http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/ Should I make it my blogger profile photo, or is it too trendy?

Mixed Media with Paper & Cloth starts again in April

Mixed Media with Paper & Cloth

Jane will show you how to paint, collage, draw, stencil and stamp, and sew---all to make art. We’ll create textured, layered backgrounds first, and then Jane will show you techniques and tricks to create an image or focal point for your work. You can work large or tiny, follow the directions or not—but you will come away more creative and knowledgeable about mixed-media materials, techniques, and ideas. Almost everything in the class can be done on a paper surface OR a cloth surface or a combination of the two. Class will be inspirational, positive, and fun, with lots of sharing, laughing, and learning from the others in the class. All levels of experience are welcome, and PREVIOUS STUDENTS CAN EXPECT ALL NEW LESSONS. Questions, e-mail Jane at PlainJaneStudio@gmail.com.
Mondays, 9 AM–12 NOON
Apr. 13–May 18 (6 weeks)
Athenauem San Diego/Park Blvd. Studio
$160/180 + $25 mat. fee
Materials: a $25 materials fee will be collected in class. For the first day bring a small sketchbook for your own notes and doodles, a bottle of liquid acrylic matte medium, a couple of foam brushes and a sheet of 140 lb. watercolor paper. A materials list for the rest of the class will be discussed in the first class.

HOW TO REGISTER: Registration for classes may be made by telephone (858) 454-5872, in person or by mailing in the registration form to the Athenaeum. Telephone registrations may be charged to American Express, Discover Card, Visa or MasterCard. Mailed registrations may be charged to a credit card or paid by check payable to the Athenaeum and sent to:
ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY
1008 Wall Street
La Jolla, CA 92037

Dreaming of Orvieto, Italy

You know, I'm teaching at a retreat in Italy in May 2010...Just imagine, we'll all be sitting on the street in this picture, sketchbooks in hand, drawing, being, enjoying...Can't wait! Join me!

(photo by Bill/Kristi Steiner)

more feathers

Feathers........Oh, and check out Bonnie Samuel's blog. She asked me for my thoughts on artist inspiration..

bernardo winery

San Diego Sketch Crawl today at Bernardo Winery. Eleven people, even in the cold, it was great to get together draw and share.

rabbits

Remember this page from my journal. I used a Sulky transfer pen and got the bunny images on felted wool. The shiny bunny is copper foil. I'm thinking this may become a book cover. I love the transfer pens--a great way to combine my drawings with my fabric stuff.

the economy and art institutions.

everyday there seems to be worse news regarding the economy.

San Diego Museum of Art to lay off 23 employees

San Diego Union Tribune
February 6, 2009


BALBOA PARK: The San Diego Museum of Art, the city's largest and oldest art museum, will lay off 23 employees from across all departments, it announced yesterday. It was reacting to a 30 percent reduction in its endowment, from $77.5 million to $53 million, since the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1, 2008.
The museum in Balboa Park had instituted other cost-cutting measures in November, eliminating $900,000 in expenses, including extended runs for exhibitions and the elimination of publications for exhibitions. But in the effort to reduce the fiscal year budget for 2008-09 from $10.43 million to $9.12 million, the cuts in its 107 full-time staff were necessary, said director Derrick Cartwright.
“This is very difficult,” said Cartwright, “but it is unavoidable. I felt staff reductions were the necessary step to ensure the future of SDMA in the years and decades to come.”


and from SDMA website:

On January 16, 2009 the Museum Art School at the San Diego Museum of Art temporarily closed due to the difficult economic environment and declining enrollment. The Museum will use this opportunity to understand national best practices that will ensure the school’s future success and increase participation. Spring break camps will not be held in 2009.

Husb & Me

Today is our 32 wedding anniversary. We met on St. Patrick's Day, in 1976 at a bar in Palo Alto, California. I was an international flight attendant; he worked for Hewlett-Packard in Personnel. One year later, we married (at Lake Tahoe, wearing blue jeans) and moved (with his job) to Corvallis, Oregon. We lived there 8 years, and then moved to Seoul, South Korea (with his job) for two and a half years. Then to Los Angeles (Marina del Rey--loved it!) for a year and a half, then, in 1989 to San Diego, where Don became Personnel Manager at HP. I worked full time in graphics and marketing. We lived very well. Traveled. Wore nice clothes. Then in 1992, at the age of 46, Don had a brain aneurysm. He had brain surgery, was hospitalized for a month, and had 7 years of language therapy to try to learn to speak, read and write again. Needless to say, it turned our world upside down. We had to RE-create a life for ourselves (since Don is permanently disabled because of his aphasia). Why am I telling you all this? Well, today, our 32nd wedding anniversary marks 16 years since Don’s brain injury. For half of our 32 years, he has been brain injured. It’s amazing to me. As you know, from reading my blog, we have a wonderful life! We are so very happy, and live an exciting, productive life together. It wasn’t easy, especially those first years, but we made it. Definitely cause to celebrate!
(This photo is our most recent, taken December 2008. I promise to get a better one!)

Art Unraveled: Phoenix, Arizona

I'm happy to say I'll be teaching at Art Unraveled again this year. It's held in Phoenix, Arizona (in a lovely air-conditioned hotel) August 4-11.

My classes are Paper on Cloth Collage Wednesday, August 5, 9:30-4:30
and Sketching and Watercolor Journal Style: COLLECTIONS Thursday, August 6, 9:30-4:30 and Sketching and Watercolor Journal Style: ON LOCATION Friday, August 7, 7am-10am

You can get the additional info on the Art Unraveled website, and registration begins February 10.

felt

Squares of felt (cut from a larger wet-felted piece) soon to be reunited into a large and hopefully fabulous quilt.

guitar and bird

color

2009 intentions

I teach a once-a-month art quilt class. The January assignment was to create a quilt of your intentions/affirmations/resolutions for 2009. Here's mine.

buddy in a bag

This bag was in the kitchen, last time I looked. Now it's in the living room with a cat inside.

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