Twig Studio

La Maison Fantome

2012-02-19T15:23:00.000-08:00

Assemblage class with Michael DeMeng in NOLA. A week of good food, architecture, tours, cemeteries, voodoo ceremonies, and ART.

Fried shrimp & hush puppies at Cajun Cabin on arrival. We'd been up since 4:30am California time and it was about 3:30 New Orleans time. We only had a small snack on the plane and we were starving! This hit the spot!!

A band marched by as we were eating lunch.

Outside our hotel, The Inn on Bourbon.

In the hotel lounge.

Night scene on Bourbon.

The Voodoo Temple where we had our welcoming meet & greet and a blessing ceremony for our creativeness. Following are shots from inside the museum.

This patio had a somewhat creepy vibe. Found out later that an extremely gruesome murder took place in the apartment above the museum. This is priestess Miriam.

More pics later....

AmyFaerie's A R T Pennant Swap

2011-07-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

Here are some pennants I made recently for a swap at ATCSFORALL.COM. These were so much fun to create and the returns in the swap were fabulous!!The one with the baby is for me, the frozen charlotte dolly was a host gift for Amy, and the others were for the swap. Can't believe I made something in such bright colors.

Cold Blooded Journals with Michael DeMeng

2011-07-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

July 9, 2011, my friend, Evelyn, and I travelled to Solvang to attend this workshop. We had so much fun on the roadtrip, as well as touring Solvang, shopping, and eating! All I can say is: If you ever get the chance to take one of MDM's classes DO IT!!! Michael is the most unpretentious guy and one helluva instructor!! He thoroughly (and patiently) walked us through all the steps needed to create our little monsters including a safety and info demo on the power drill vs the Dremel. Chroma crackle usually takes a few days to achieve the "crackle" affect, but Michael showed us his technique for obtaining instant crackle with the product. It was amazing!!

My journal cover started out looking like a lava-fest - it was RED! I just wasn't happy with it, so upon returning to our room for the evening I worked and worked on it and came up with the final version above. I'm now very happy with the results. I learned so much about how to put this thing together and will incorporate all my boo-boos into my next effort. Since I'd never done anything quite like this, I learned one needs to think ahead about how all the pieces will be attached and some logical order into doing so.

Michael had several of his assemblage pieces and sketches for sale so of course I had to buy a little pencil sketch. Lucky me - I also "donated" a baby doll head for a demo, so I came away with it painted by MDM!!! NO! I didn't ask him to sign it, even though someone suggested I do so, I felt like it would be kinda "stalker-ish".

At the end of the day we all took our journals upstairs to the wine bar next door for a show-and-tell. Complimentary wine and goodies awaited us and after everyone was comfy Michael did a review on ALL of our journals. He asked if we wanted to say anything about our work and then he pointed out several things that worked in our piece. He had wonderful things to say about each and every journal (I think there were about 21 or so of us in the class!) It was very nice to have feedback and to be able to hear everyone talk about what they did or why.

It was a great weekend and we're looking forward to attending MDM's La Maison Fantome class in New Orleans at the end of Jan/first of Feb. I've never been to NOLA, so it's going to be very exciting. We have 3 days of class with a couple of days in between of tours. I hear a seance is in the works at one of the haunted hotels. Can't wait!!

Digital Art

2010-06-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

Some recent fun with Photoshop Elements 8 - don't laugh, I'm still in the learning process.

KatiLady's Challenge

2010-03-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

My friend, Kati, has a great post showing how her ATCs have progressed. I promised I'd post my first ATC. It is soooooooo funny - thought I'd post a little progression of my own. 2009 saw a distinct move away from ATCs into 4 x 4 chunky book pages. I'm amazed at how my art has changed - it doesn't seem as "flat" to me as it once way. I like it better - it's fun learning new ways to keep art evolving!!

Macabre???

2010-03-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

Found poetry ATC's for an online swap. I love using these images from an old, old, old surgery textbook. Some of the girls loved them, some not so much! lol

Cemetery Angel Altered Photo ATCs

2010-03-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

This is a set of ATC's I did recently for a Cemetery Angel Altered Photo online swap.
The pics had to be our own. Wish I had more time to scout out some interesting cemeteries to take more pictures. Hard to find the Angels....

Things I've been working on

2010-03-16T22:27:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the projects I've been working on lately. I'm part of a group of 4 that meets once a month to play, as well as a monthly ATC class. I'm also participating in an online Moleskin journal round robin which is almost coming to a close, another real-time Moleskin journal round robin and two altered book round robins. Life is never boring here!! These pics are bits and pieces from all these random groups/projects in no certain order. I've had a blast discovering new techniques and really enjoyed the jewelry making. I even did some volunteer work at a women's shelter in Sacramento helping with jewelry making. It was very rewarding to bring joy into the lives of these women. Art can be so empowering!! Some of the pics are also projects from classes I've taken over the last year or so. One with Anna Corba. A friend and I drove up to her studio in Santa Rosa and attended a day long class with about 12 or so other ladies. Her studio is a dream and she is a generous and gracious teacher. Her husband whipped up a scrumptious lunch for us as well.

Botanica Chunky Book

2009-11-01T20:07:00.001-08:00

Just a little page I made as part of an online chunky book swap. I used my new PanPastels.

Fun, easy technique. The PanPastels come in so many wonderful colors. I had to stop myself from going crazy on buying them all. I was a good girl, only have 12!

Marie Antoinette

2009-11-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

These images are a little disjointed as my scanner isn't big enough to take the entired 2-page spread at once. You can see a bit of how Marie flows onto the second page so put on your imagination cap or squint and maybe you can visualize this as "one" spread. This is for a round-robin I recently joined. My theme is "white". This Marie book belongs to my friend, Fran. I don't usually work with light colors or glitter, but I think it came out OK. Everyone is shocked that I used stickles. We swapped out books this morning and the next one I get to work on is "Good Wine, Good Friends." You must use purple and green on each page, write a toast about friendship, include a pocket with a surprise inside, include the name and vintage of your favorite wine to drink with friends and tell why the wine is special to you and lastly, you must include a stamping technique. Whew! This is going to be a challenge, but thankfully someone else has already worked in the book so I can see how they incorporated all these elements. The work so far is gorgeous, hope I can measure up!

Encaustic Exploration

2009-11-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

I took a wonderful class today! We played with collage, transfers, and beeswax all day long. The class sample was a little intimidating, but I've taken classes with this instructor before (Karen Brooks) and was amazed at the results, so I figured " why not?" I'm sooooooo glad I did! We had a blast and I was truly awed by the results. The scans don't do justice to the wax part of this technique, but the "real-life" finish is stunning. Just had to share.

Speaking of fumes...CITRASOLV TECHNIQUE

2009-05-14T15:59:00.001-07:00

This technique is super easy, super smelly, and can be super messy! LOL

First you need a bottle of CONCENTRATED Citrasolv. It is a natural cleaner/degreaser found in the grocery store or co-op food store. The one I found in my local food co-op smells like oranges. A 16 oz bottle was about $10 US. It also comes pre-diluted in a spray bottle BUT DON"T BUY IT, CUZ IT WON'T WORK. You have to have the CONCENTRATED formula.

Second you need a National Geographic magazine LESS THAN 10 YEARS OLD. I don't know why, it's just what I read. Must have something to do with the inks?? GO OUTSIDE or SOMEWHERE WITH GOOD VENTILATIONPour some of the Citrasolv in a dish and use a paintbrush to spread it on the pages of the National Geo magazine. On the one I used I found it did NOT work on the cover or the first few and last few pages of ADS in the magazine. Just brush it on the front and back of all the nice COLORFUL pages. Leave it all closed up and let it sit for about 30 mins to 1 hour.

Check it after the first 30 minutes just to make sure it's still wet enough that the pages are not sticking together. Peel a couple pages apart and see if you like the result. When they are as you like rip them individually from the mag and lay them out to dry. I just laid mine all over my patio.When dry they are ready to use. You can't tell really well from my photos, but they'll have sort of a shimmery appearance. Very easy and very beautiful technique for backgrounds.

Mixed Media Altered Photo

2009-05-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

My favorite city is San Francisco!! My heart beats faster, I smile bigger, and there's a spring in my step when I'm there. It's as if the city is alive and I can feel it beating and breathing through me. I don't think I'm conveying the feeling well - just making myself sound like I've inhaled too many paint fumes. Anway, if you DO "get it", you know the feeling I mean. For me, San Francisco is like "coming home". I've never lived there, but it just feels right. Austin, TX is the same, as well as Boston, MA. Whatever "it" is, I just can't get enough.

I needed some new photos for a Mixed Media Altered Photo ATC swap that is coming up soon. One of the criteria for the swap is that YOU have to take your own photos. The altering part is completely open to the artist's whim. All of the above photos were taken on a recent visit to SF.

After printing the pics I sanded them a bit, added some crackle texture, and added color with Silky Crayons. I then used some acrylic paint to make the circles and stamped the text with one of the cute little BonTon Bon-Bons word stamps.

Chunky Book Pages

2009-05-14T14:56:00.001-07:00

These pages were made for a recent chunky book swap. I altered photos of doors & gates that I'd taken recently in San Francisco to turn them into a sepia tone. The backgrounds were done with Golden acrylics and Portfolio water soluble oil pastels. For the final touches I stamped the entire piece with a background "abc" stamp,then stamped the boy image, and last I wired beads to the eaves.

Recovering

2009-05-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

I had carpal tunnel release surgery on my right hand at the beginning of April. The surgery was successful, but recovery time means no use of the hand for quite awhile. I'm past that now and have finally been able to CREATE!!

This Altered Paint Box project was inspired by an article titled "Rainbow in a Box" by Connie Govea Stuart in the May/June 2009 (Volume 13 Issue 3) issue of Somerset Studio.

I'm going to give it to the guy at Borders, here in Davis, who always rings us up (Justin). He's the one who told me about the article and he was SOOOOOOOOOO excited about this project.

Hope he likes it!!

Description: Citrasolv background, rubber stamp images, dye ink, Lumiere paint, Metal embellishment, faux gemstone, seaweed, metal coins, microbeads, glass crystals, doll arm (which has a little wire that can be used to hang the piece on the wall if desired. Justin and I are kindred spirits in that we have a "thing" for doll PARTS. I like the arms. YES, just arms. I have a little collection of them on my windowsill. DON'T LAUGH! IT HELPS KEEP THE NEIGHBOR KIDS FROM TORMENTING MY KITTIES WHILE THEY SUN ON THE WINDOWSILL. Justin likes the heads.)

Happy Holidays!!

2008-12-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm slowing down a bit on my art projects for the year. Trying to finalize Christmas shopping and wrap gifts while packing for a trip to Boston for a week. All my projects are complete and mailed, just waiting for returns on a few swaps.

In September I joined a round robin deco book swap. The ladies in my group were from California, North Dakota, New Zealand and the UK. My book actually made it back home and I love it!

Here are pages I created for work in the others' books:

Micromummy - UK - Vintage Babies:

Lise Bu - UK - Vintage Ladies:

1orange - New Zealand - Blue & Black:

Monarch - North Dakota - The Sea:

Rockstarsgirl - California - Hindu Gods & Goddesses:

Skeleton Dress Up Challenge

2008-10-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

Last month our ATC instructor, Evelyn, gave us all these cute skeletons to dress up and return this month-we'll all vote and a prize will be awarded.

Mine is wearing transparencies of haunted houses and is embellished with Tim Holtz metal numbers, philosophy tag, jump rings and a clasped chain to hang it from.

Hope I win, but probably too freaky for my cohorts!!

ArtSea2008

2008-10-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a wonderful trip to San Simeon/Cambria for an ArtRereat! I've never attended one before - it was AWESOME. I can't wait to do it again next year. It was put on by The Stamp Art Shoppe in Roseville, CA - Sandy and Richele did THE BEST job putting together their first retreat! VERY GENEROUS goodie baskets and lots of fun projects made this retreat a winner!! I still can't believe I was able to make some of the projects we did!!

I'll post pictures as soon as I get unpacked - am off this weekend for a camping trip - so maybe Monday??

Have a great weekend!!

OK here are the pics - I couldn't wait.

June 16 and June 21 -New ATCs

2008-06-24T22:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't been doing as many online ATC swaps lately ~ too busy attending classes, working, traveling, etc. Maybe I'll take on more after vacation in July. Here are a few that I've done the last week or so. I really like how the "His & Her" cards came out. Mine are definitely all "Hers" - the theme dictated we could do either or both. I don't think I've used any of these rubber stamps before so it was nice to use something collecting dust in my bins.

I think with the Green Swap card I may have gone overboard. She is maybe a wee bit....too much? I don't usually do all this glitter & sequin type stuff - felt right at the time, but I may have been wayyyyyyy out of my element. What do you think????

G is for...green...girl... (For a "Green" ATC swap)

Following set was for a "His & Hers" ATC swap:

HANDMADE BOOK

2008-06-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

My Sweetie and I are going on a cruise next month. We leave from L.A. and spend a day each at San Diego, Catalina Island, and Ensenada, Mexico. I wanted to make a special book to journal in as well as having a place for photos and envelopes for ephemera I collect along the way. I still need to do some embellishing, but may wait to do that until after the trip - not sure yet. I love this leather clasp from 7 Gypsies - it works great and was sooooooooo easy to install.

The pages are all attached to an accordian style binding:

There is an envy like this for each city:

We leave in 22 days!! My first cruise - can't wait!!!

MONOCHROMATIC CHUNKY BOOK SWAP

2008-06-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

I frequently do ATC swaps through the mail with an online group: atcsforall.com. They also have swaps for chunky books pages, round robins, inchies, rolos, and a multitude of other things.

I decided to branch out a little and join this chunky book page swap. I made 8 pages - sent 4 off for the swap and kept 4. It was hard to decide which ones to let go.

Here's the final product with my 4 pages and 1 each from the other 4 swapers. I just used my Crop-a-dile to punch a hole in the corner of the pages. One swaper had already punch a hole in the corner for her ribbon so it just kinda worked out. I used a binder ring to hold them all together. I found these at Wal-Mart. A package of 8 colored rings is ONLY 88 CENTS!! What a deal! And nice colors (red, green blue, yellowy gold). Check out ATCSFORALL.COM if you haven't yet.

On the following images I'm using the other swappers' screen names.

One of my pages:

Page by jennalee from Southern CA:

Page by KatieV from Bloominton, IN:

Page by Janice from Warrington in the UK:

Page by Me:

Page by Shoreart from Philadelphia, PA:

Page by Me:

Page by Me:

May 2-4 - COLORS ALTERED BOOK

2008-06-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I had some special bonding time together over the weekend and decided to create "color" books from altered children's board books. We sanded the gloss down from the pages, layered on acrylic paints and drizzled on Pearl Ex powdered pigments (mixed with some water) then collaged and embellished with a white gel pen.

This is one of my favorite books that I've done. I think this is because I really like the way the pages turned out - similar to what I've seen in books, but have never been able to create until now. Also it is a tiny "journal" of what was going on at that time in my life and shows things I like. Just a little window of my world. (Gas is NOW $4.55 a gallon here - amazingly it has stayed at that price for more than 3 days. For awhile the price jumped 5 cents a gallon every few days. I hope this is it. I wonder if the price will ever go down???? Probably not - just like my daughter will Probably Not finish her book - I don't think she even painted all her pages - but she was a great cheerleader for my efforts.)

May 22 - BIRD HOUSE BOOK

2008-06-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

Richele Christensen at The Stamp Art Shoppe in Roseville taught us how to make this sweet book.

We used Tim Holtz products from Ranger including crackle paint and grunge board. We also used black chipboard and the "bind-it-all" machine. This was a great project, but when I bind things I prefer my regular office-style binding machine. I like the wire spine that we used with the "bind-it-all" but the process was a little much. Many people like it so maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it?

Here are several images of the completed book:

May 13 - ORIENT EXPRESS

2008-06-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Back to The Stamp Art Shoppe in Roseville for another class! The instructor for this class is Sandy Brien, owner of Stamp Art. She is constantly creating something fabulous. In this class she taught us how to create Asian inspired cards using origami, photos, and stamps from Kodomo. What fun!

March 2nd - MASK A MASTERPIECE

2008-06-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

This class at was taught by Karen Brooks at The Stamp Art Shoppe, Roseville, CA. This technique used a "Mask" by Heidi Swap on a piece of pre-gessoed patterned paper (something with a nice weight like Basic Grey, Signature Lie by Jen Wilson, Prima Marketing, etc.). Acrylic paints were used to layer contrasting color around the mask. Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels were then used to outline the masked image to really make it "pop".

The "Masterpiece" can then be embellished as you wish: photos, stamps, ephemera, etc. I used acrylic paint and foam stamps to add the word "Home" and outlined it with a pastel gel pen. I also added a photo, some gold crowns and some fabric leaves that I'd stamped with words from a set of Bon Ton "Bon- Bons". The Bon-Bons are petite samps that are great for small projects such as ATCs or small cards - each little circular, metallic tin has many little word stamps tucked inside. I love them! As a final touch I used my chop to personalize the project. (This is the chop for my last name - a friend had it made for me on a recent trip to China. I was thrilled to receive such a wonderful gift!!)

I cut my image down to fit in an inexpensive 8" x 10" frame. I lightly sanded the frame, stained it with acrylic paint and then stamped on it. The frame doesn't show in the image below (I didn't scan it that way as I decreased the image and used it for an ATC).

I used some of the principles from this technique to make the following ATC. Instead of using a "Mask" though I clear embossed an image onto my paper first then layered on the acrylics. After letting the acrylics dry I placed some plain newsprint over the cards and ironed them to remove the embossing.

Feb 28 - ALCOHOL INKS

2008-06-22T05:25:00.000-07:00

Richele Christensen at The Stamp Art Shoppe, Roseville, CA, is THE COLOR LADY! She's very talented and is always teaching classes on techniques for alcohol inks, distress inks, color wash, acrylic stamps daubers, etc. among her many other classes.

I've had a full set of Ranger Alcohol Inks for quite some time. I've always managed to make a nice "MUD PUDDLE" of them, wasting precious ink and Kromekot glossy cardstock. Taking this class definitely helped! (I think some of my problem was using too much blending solution and overworking the ink.)

Tim Holtz Inspiration

2008-02-04T22:38:00.001-08:00

If you haven't checked out Tim's blog, you should. There are some great tutorials for working with the new grungeboard and with distress inks. Here's a sample of his February technique that I adapted for an ATC swap.

Newest ATC

2008-01-29T18:05:00.000-08:00

Here's my most recent ATC for a Frida Kahlo swap.

ATCs

2008-01-29T17:51:00.001-08:00

Well, I didn't make it Saturday. I attended an awesome birthday party in San Francisco and did lots of shopping while I was there. We've had nothing but rain lately, but Saturday in SF was beautiful! Great weekend!!

Here are some recent ATCs I've been working on. If you haven't been to ATCards.com, you should check it out. I've been involved in many trades and have had great fun! I enjoy the flexibility of being able to sign up for themes that I'm interested in working on and participating in one-on-one trades. Lots of talent there!

Enjoy. And remember, I'm always up to trading. If you see something you like, let me know. I may have extras on hand.

Have a fantastic week and may you have time for lots of artwork!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-25T22:34:00.000-08:00

2008 ~ I can't believe we're almost through the first month of the new year! I hope to be able to post new art I'm working on - finding time may be a problem though.

Here are some pictures of an altered book I made during a class in November. I was told I should enter it in the state fair this year. Has anyone entered their art in the fair? Any hints on how to insure your art isn't damaged, lost, stolen, etc?

Tomorrow I'll post some recent ATC's I've done.