Prayer Flag for Newtown, Conn Families

Artist, Leighanna Light has put out a Call to Artists this past week for Prayer Flags to be made in honor of the Newtown Familes who lost their children. Here is my version. The crazy quilt motif seems to be a good metaphor for me. I believe that sometimes our lives are held together by mere threads. It's the people who love us that help keep us together over all. Life is crazy sometimes. It might seem that there is no rhyme or reason to what happens around us. Life is one big jigsaw puzzle to be but back together piece by piece. Here is one piece of love to help put them back together.

My good friend, Ross sent me this:

Aloha!


I've been back to Facebook to look at your flag several times now. I'm captivated by the buttons and the symbolism they represent. My thought is that they represent the great forces in our lives where we find support-such as family, friends or other things we turn to in times of need (writing, creating art, or cooking, for example). So even as the stitching becomes loose and our lives start to fray, the button is there and can be hung onto to help prevent everything from unraveling completely.

Anyway, I really love your contribution, which should come as no surprise to you because I really love you too!

Merry Christmas!

New Pieces

New 2012 Holly Christmas Cards

I love Holly.  Every year I do a new Christmas Card featuring Holly.  Here are two different styles.  The green/blue backgrounds use a textured handmade paper.  The Coral use a hand painted paper but are much lighter in feeling.  Every year I do holly but they always look different.  

Dot

New Stitched Collages Inspired by Montana

Montana is beautiful!  You can't help but see lots of wildlife everyday.  Here are 2 species I didn't see!  :0)  I did incorporate the Pondersosa Pine into it and they were there in their magesty.

More Birds!

Villeroy Birds

This past week, I juried into a new to me gallery, "Love Art Gallery," in Sellwood, and decided to create some new pieces for it. So far I have completed 7 new ones. 2 more to go. These are scans of 3 of them. My scanner bed is too small to scan them totally so I scanned each one twice to capture both sides. Lenall

Poultry Mixed Media Series

Cluck, Cluck

Cock-a-Doodle

Cocky

I've been working on a mixed media series using roosters and chickens.  All three of these were started when I offered to clean out a messy watercolor palette at a recent PAC play day at Collage.  The artist said she couldn't paint as her palette was too messy.  I cleaned it taking very little paint while doing so and here is the result.  Strange beginning?  Yes.  There are so many people who now have chickens in their backyard.  It's quite remarkable. 

A weekend away at Menucha

The Portland Art Collective spent the weekend away in the Gorge at Menucha.  The weekend was filled with lots of laughter, conversation, art making, friends, food and fun.  I did just shy of 70 postcard sized pieces of art.  At times, I tend to be a production line artist.  I started on Friday night painting one side of the former PAC art show postcards.  I did 3 color ways.  Blues, Greens and oranges.  Then I started to compose my collages.  The subject matter ranged from waterlilies, palm trees, houses, daisies and more poplars.  I used a lot of different handmade papers and old paintings that I cut up. I used solid papers, a Japanese rice paper, a scrapbook paper, and old sheet music.  Collaging took all day Saturday.  Saturday evening I did some embossing of birds for the nest pieces like those I posted earlier.  Sunday, I used my sewing machine with the free motion foot and stitched on each piece.  The stitching acts as calligraphy.  As an exclamation point.  I still have about 25 pieces to stitch. Maybe tommorrow!

A Plethora of Poplars