Snowflake Workshop

I am looking forward to a "Snowflake Workshop" later this month. We'll recycle white paper and add a pinch of glitter because we love the way snow glistens in the light. Next we'll pour the pulp into shapes we place in the deckle boxes, then we'll press the new sheets of paper into clay moulds to impress textured designs on the surface.
Later we can add a nylon thread or ribbon for hanging. They turn a Christmas tree into a winter wonderland, or they can hang in a window. Some may tuck them into cards as gifts, others may tie them onto gifts.
These hand-made paper snowflakes are such a fun time to make. You can call The Center now to sign up for the class on Wednesday, November 16, 6:30-8:30 pm in Log Cabin 1. The Center is at 12700 Southwest Hwy., Palos Park, IL. Phone: 708.361.3650.
When December rolls around, you'll be so glad you did this!

Glimpse 8

Continuing my "Glimpse" series, "Glimpse 8 - one of these things..." studies open and closed spaces, light and shadow, and celebrates variety in color, shape, texture and kind. The title invites the viewer to keep it simple by remembering a song from early Sesame Street days.

Stay tuned, there will be more.

A Glimpse of My Process

Ideas for my "Glimpse" series come to mind every so often, but the execution of the idea has to wait for the right time. Yesterday I found conversing to be too much effort, and this morning I awoke with this thought: words are flopping around in my head like fish in a boat (a memory from childhood vacations at a lake cottage and fishing with bamboo poles in a rowboat). I realized an idea had been percolating and it was time to act today. Frame is waitinbg, corn flowers pressed, pulps being made for the necessary layers. Ready or not....

Floral Portrait

This little botanical pulp painting is mounted on a 5x7 mat board; I made it as an example for one of my classes when I was a visiting artist at a northern Illinois school recently. Each class tore colored paper into postage stamp-size  pieces to add to another batch of pulp. Colors changed as we combined containers throughout the day. I pushed the dried, pressed flower into a slurry-filled deckle box so it would be captured by fibers and become part of the paper itself, not just applied to the surface. The colors were divided by a metal form, and bonded together when I removed the form and pressed the water out.

On Friday, May 20, I will be leading an afternoon workshop from 12:30-2:30 at The Center, 12700 Southwest Hwy, Palos Hills, IL, where we will do projects like this, and many others. The special feature of this class is the invitation to bring fresh flowers from your garden or bouquet. We will press and dry them in my microfleur to use in our art projects. Beautiful results guaranteed.

Pulp Painting in Spring

Sometimes I want to celebrate circles as design elements in my work. That and alliteration. The 8 1/2 x 11 base contains tulip and daffodil stems and leaves I cooked in my fiber pot with chemicals, then couched (pronounced "cooch" - it's a French thing) the colored circles of pulp directly onto it. So this is a single piece of paper - a pulp painting. The vibrant colored wet pulp dries many, many shades lighter.

Valentine Workshop

There are so many ways to make handmade paper into valentines. I'll be teaching a workshop at The Center, 12700 Southwest Hwy in Palos Park, Wednesday, January 27, 6:30-8:30pm. There are still a few openings left if you call ahead. There are shapes to collage, shapes to impress on moulds, and pulp paintings, so many styles of pulp paintings. I love to remind my students it is not their job to know what to do before they come, it's my job to teach the processes so well that you leave with a stack of treasures.