a creative couple of days

I have to share the window displays of Anthropology at Fashion Island, Newport Beach. Rumor has it that design school students are the creative minds behind displays. These dresses are created using paper covered wire hangers, like you get from the dry cleaners. I took these photos to share with my dry cleaner.

AND - I participate in a small study/design group that meets every tuesday. We start the day with a word, this week the word was BLOOMING. First we do 5 min. pencil sketch, then a 15 minute something. This is paper collage. I had a page of EYES. If the eyes were flowers they could be blooming

Then we select an image from an art magazinse or high end auction house catalogue. This is my inspiration image, artist unknown,
We do 3 15-20 min. interpretations of the inspiration image.


This week I like what I saw and did. Not every week or trip to the mall is so inspiring. What are you working on?

Ran away for the long weekend

Tom

This post is about Tom. He fell in love with wood turning this fall. This long holiday weekend we drove north to Sebastopol, Ca. He and his buddy Gary took a 2 day class from a master.

Gary

Tom and the teacher Jerry Kermode and the very thin bowl Tom made.

The leaves are still turning in Sebastopol. This was before sunset with the sun behind me but the moon is very real.

The old Apple Drying buildings across the street from the teachers studio.

Another view of the apple drying building - liberties taken with photo playing.

This was Tom's weekend. I too had a great time seeing Sebastopol, Petaluma, a great yarn store and having tine with a long time friend and lunch with good friends.

The hardest part was driving back down to LA. I hate the drive across LA to Orange County. I consider it driving through the "belly of the beast". Flying in and out is much easier.

As my mother in law used to say - a good time was had by all.

New Year and New Projects

The Sketchbook Project - I ordered their small sketchbook and let them pick my theme, title.

"If you lived here"

I am just about ready to mail my entry into the Sketchbook Project - through the Brooklyn Art Library. These are some of my favorite pages. Check out the project at http://arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject/

If you lived here, you might be swimming upstream

If you lived here, you would be wearing large boots

If you lived here, you would be up a tree

If you lived here you would be invited to a party

The project and my work is not great art but parts of it were great fun. If I were to do it again, I would replace the pages with paper that could be glued and painted and stitched. It was a challenge in the end.