2/26/11 Online Classes

I'm taking two  online classes this month and one in March.  The first is Artful Pages: Four Artists Four Ways and the first week was taught by Mary Green and was all about vintage gluebooks - here's my first page.  The course is really well done - the instructions are clear and there is a ton of information and resources given.  In the next three weeks there will be sections of this course taught by Hope Wallace Karney, Lisa Mc Ilvain and Lenna Andrews.

The other course I'm taking is Mouse, Paper, Scissors through Jessica Sprague.  Its about using digital elements along with actual paper for collage work.  The first thing we made was a cover for a 5x8 legal pad using a piece of 12x12 scrapbook paper and ribbon.

I'm also taking another online class by Carol Murphy of Altered by Design titled The Dance starting in March.

2/24/11 Kings and Queens

I came across the Gingersnap Creations blog and one of the challenges is called Kings and Queens.
I found these two images and made the postcard below-

It's a really cool site with lots of things going on - I'm going to be doing more of their challenges.

2/14/11 Happy Valentines Day

Artchix Studio also has great swaps and collage supplies.  In honor of Valentine's Day here are a couple of the ATC's just finished for this swap:

Well it was like a heat wave in Chicago today - in the 40's.  Above zero.
So my husband and I and some of my sisters, nieces and nephews went downtown to see the Hearts A Bluhm exhibit.  These 100 hearts were designed by Columbia College Chicago staff, faculty, students and alumni and are lining North Michigan Avenue for the month of February.  They were installed on February 1st and the blizzard came on the 2nd.

2/13/11 Feather Your Nest Book Swap

Alphastamps  always has really good swaps and challenges and I just finished the Feather Your Nest Book Swap.  The chipboard book is shaped like a house and they have loads of wonderful collage sheets and other supplies searchable by themes which makes it really easy.  Here's two of the pages:

2/13/11 Creative Swaps with Lenna Andrews

I've mailed my Vintage Note Cards to Lenna Andrews / Creative Swaps - look at her blog to see all the great work she gets for her swaps.
                                      

I've also signed up for her newest challenge - 

ARTFUL PAGES

4 Artists 4 Ways

This is a four week online class with Lenna and three other book artists giving us four different ways to approach art journaling, fabric pages, altered books and vintage glue books.  (Hope Wallace Karney, Lisa Mcllvain and Mary Green are the other teachers)

There will be three lessons each week, and a different artist each week.  Twelve lessons in all!

The course begins on February 20, 2011. Registration is open now, so click on the Artful Pages link above and sign up!

2/1/11 Monthly Sketchbook

I participated in the Art House Co-op / Sketchbook Project 2011.    28838 artists from 94 countries submitted sketchbooks that will go "on tour" to 8 cities starting this month.  The sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Art Library for public viewing.
They also sponsor a Monthly Sketchbook project - you sign up for 3, 6 or 12 months and receive a blank sketchbook every month with a theme assigned to it.  For January the theme was Time Traveller and I decided to only do collage so I went through stacks of magazines and other images I had -  I looked for images of people from different time periods, backgrounds, watch/time machine images.  Then when I started working I stopped thinking and just kind of reacted to what I was grabbing and putting together.
These are some of the page layouts from that book:

2/1/11 One More Heart

The last heart I designed was sponsored by Walgreens.  They're already up on Michigan Avenue in Chicago and will stay on display for the month of February.