Collage Sisthars

Jan 21: Your Journal = Your Coloring Book

(sorry, no photo... I'm in the midst of a humungous studio shovel out and have no clean surfaces in which to photograph anything.. this also means boxes of treasures for you to dig through on Saturday from my purge)

NOTE: This is an AFTERNOON SESSION from 1-5pm

We’re kicking off January with a session on treating your journal as your personal coloring book. I’ll show my tips and ideas for fun/interesting things to do in your journal and then we’ll have time to play in our journals. You should have everything you need already in your studio. Please bring whatever you want to play with in your journal, not limited to the following:

Your journal(s). If you have finished ones (that you don’t mind sharing), bring those along – you know how much we love to ooh and ahh over each other’s work.

Acrylic paints, if you want to paint some backgrounds.

Gesso, if you want some to cover your pages or if you have some backgrounds that are a bit “too much”.

Markers: regular, sharpies, gel markers, a highlighter

 Aquarelle Pencils, NeoColor Crayons, Pan Pastels etc.

 Papery Bits and/or Magazines to cut up

Scissors

Glue Stick and/or Gel Medium.

That's it! We'll talk about the 2012 swaps and collaboratives, too.

 

 

ALERT: January Date Change!

EEK! Mark your calendars.

The Sisthars Date for January has changed to JANUARY 21!

I'm so sorry to mess with your carefully coordinated scheduling, but I overbooked myself - I will be co-hosting the Fine Line Fashion Show Volunteer Luncheon on Jan 28, during the same time I am to be leading the Journaling Workshop. I can't be in both places at one time, so I've moved the Sisthars date to January 21. You can curse and scream at me. make a voodoo doll of me (not the eyes, please), I understand. The rest of the 2012 dates (as scheduled) will not be changing - at least not by my screwup.

If you missed December and want to know what we are doing this year, click 2012 Schedule on the left schedule will appear.

 

Happy New Year and a Belated Thank You!

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were wonderful and Santa brought you what you asked for!

I finally have a moment to sit down and say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! for the wonderful pins/badges and the sash! I felt like Miss America, parading around with it - minus the Vaseline on my teeth (thankfully!). Also Thank You so much for the generous gift cards - you know those will be put to good use - and Jill was absolutely right - Hobby Lobby is 5 minutes from my office - easy (and dangerous) to pop over at lunchtime and Dick Blick is perfect for a less-impulsive shopping spree. I can hardly wait to head over there to browse the aisles and to consider the artistic possibilities.

I'd also like to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you - The fact that such a wonderful, supportive group of women can meet like we do, is an amazing thing. I am honored to know each of you - and am proud and happy to be the "gel medium" that holds our group together. Your generosity of spirit, friendship, support and laughter is a real treasure.. and we get to make fabulous art on top of it!

Thank you again for not only the lovely tangible gifts you have given me, but for the gifts of yourselves and what we've come to create in our little collaborative.

Sara

Holiday Revelry : THIS Saturday, December 3!!!

Hello, hello... my apologies for the delay in posting this.. at the risk of sounding like a bad student (the dog ate my homework), my computer broke over the weekend. After a few days of a lot of swearing, praying and electronic duct tape, the old laptop is back in some semblance of service... and a new shiny laptop is on the way.. thank you early, Santa.

At any rate, you want to know just what the heck we are doing on Saturday, right??? It's our holiday party! We'll have the jovial conversation, collagey bits swap, snacks, and Cindy will show us how to make an altered doll ornament. Also going on will be the second day of Christmas at the Fine Line Sale, so bring your credit card/checkbook - it's a fabulous shopportunity!

For the collagey bits swap, if you haven't done this with us before, bring a bag or box full of collagey bits and pieces from your studio (no shopping!) to exchange. However, please give nice stuff and you'll get nice stuff in return - this is not the place to unload the 27 sheets of Strawberry Shortcake scrapbook paper you bought in the Hobby Lobby clearance aisle in a moment of weakness. Volume is about a gift bag's worth. We'll exchange names to swap - you can still come and hang out, even if you don't want to swap.

Also, please bring an appetizer or dessert to share - (SNACKS!)

For the ornament, you should have everything you need in your stash:

Women's torso with head ,arms if you like... old photo, magazine picture, photo copy,...about 2" by 2 1/2". you can put a different head on a different torso.

 

A piece of card stock or lightweight card board for a backing for you torso and head  ...about 2" by 2 1/2"

 

A pretty scrap of fabric for the skirt - approx  10" by 10" (Sara will bring some extra fabric bits)

 

Embellishments...small...for trim on skirt ,blouse,hat or belt ,necklace, earrings and or tiara. Wings this time of year might be a good thought.

 

Your favorite glue...The Ultimate is mine; Gel medium would also work. Or needle and some thread.

 

Cord, for hanging.

 

Toilet paper roll and some batting for stuffing the skirt.

Thanks, as always, to Jean for keeping us supplied with visuals...

 

Mixed Media page samples

GASP!!! A THIRD post this week???

As promised, above are some photos of the the MMM journal pages I made earlier this summer, so you have an idea of what we are trying to accomplish on Saturday. There's no real imagery, it's all very abstract - and you can see some bits of collage peeking through. The tools I used on these are listed by block.

Upper left purple: The orange circles are a piece of O-shaped foam I picked up somewhere; the white, vaguely flowery shapes are a hand carved rubber stamp.

Upper right orange-y: sequin waste/punchanella in turquoise, foam circle stamp, the foam O stamp again, dark blue bottle cap as stamp,  the white lines on the right are a skewer dipped in paint.

Lower left green-y:  Blue skewer lines in upper right, red bottle cap stamp, checkerboard foam stamp in lower left, white lines are with a special stamp I'll show on Saturday, or you could use corrugated cardboard.

Lower right purple-orange: bottle cap stamps, sequin scrim/punchanella, skewer lines, foam O and foam circle.

So, you can see, we're using really low-tech stuff here. Also, it's helpful, if we are going to use these as journal backgrounds to keep the paint to a light/middle tone, rather than going really dark.

October's Altered Pumpkins

Fun with pumpkins in October... Helen's paper and lace collage above.

Jean's simple, but brilliant (pun intended) use of thumbtacks.

Jill's covered with handmade paper - it looked like it was felted!

Linda really used altered parts for hers!

Mary Beth started with painted pumpkins...

Sara didn't quite finish her bespectacled guord.

Cherylyn and Cheryl also popped in to show us samples from their upcoming class making PMC book covers and then binding the pages within.

 

Thanks to Jean for the eye candy!

November 18: Mixed Media Madness Journal Pages

On Saturday AFTERNOON (November 18 - from 1 to 5ish), we will have our annual Mixed Media Madness session, however this year, I am putting a little twist on it. We’ll be performing the “madness” on file folders, which can be bound into a journal (if you like). These pages are really nice to collage upon … the background is already done for you! The process and materials are very similar to what we usually do, with a few tweaks.

I have 4 boxes of legal size file folders (snagged from Mary Beth at our summer boot-swap a year or two ago), which I will be thrilled to remove from my studio, for us to paint onto, so you don’t need to worry about the “canvas”.

 We’ll start with collage… this will be bits of print, peeking through the painted surface, so think contrasty: text pages, bold graphics, etc.Then we’ll proceed to slathering paint.. as usual.. scraping with credit cards, brushstrokes, anything to slather the paint on the surface. After that, we embellish further with paint – chunky foam stamps are best, rather than super-detailed ones – and anything else that will make a mark on the page: Bottle caps, chopsticks, skewers, stencils, etc. Then we’ll do the opposite side.

We won’t be binding these in our session, but I will show you my “cheater” method of covering cardboard for the covers – and I’ll talk about a couple of ways to bind them.

Here’s what you need to bring:

A variety of cheapo craft acrylics (no color themes this time).

A pallete, if you like. I think it’s easier to walk around with something like a foam meat tray to hold the paints.

Contrasty papery bits.. you don’t need a ton and they don’t need to be itty bitty.. think about 2” x 2”, average.

Gel medium, modge podge or something to affix the papery bits with.

Applicators for the paint: Old credit cards, brushes, brayers, fingers, etc.

Things to make marks on the pages with: stencils, chopsticks, bottle caps, etc.

Wax paper to put between the sheets to take them home, as they might be dampish.

Apron/gloves if you want to protect your clothes/manicure.

Wow! What a nice, short list for a change!

 

Thanks, as always to Jean for the photo.

September Mini-collage Results

Yikes! Our next session is fast approaching. Thought I would show you what fun we had in September wtih the spontaneous mini-collage. Like the last time we did this, people were a bit freaked out about the swapping, but once we got into it, we had spectacular results. Plus, everyone left with a handful of cards/tags for their own use.

Cindy brought the sample in for the doll ornament she's going to show us how to make at our December session. Keep your eyes peeled for some delicious fabric and/or trim....

Remember: See you tomorrow AFTERNOON!

Thanks, as always, to Jean for the photos.

October 22: Altered Pumpkins: AFTERNOON MEETING

Pumpkin via etsy seller MerryNBright

On October 22, we'll be channeling Halloween and creating Altered Pumpkins.

The Altering is up to you... something spooky, something pretty, something steampunk?

Bring your pumpkin and the stuff you need to alter and we'll take the time to create, ending with a show and tell. If pumpkins aren't your thing, you can certainly come work on some other Halloween-y creation. 

Foam pumpkins are on sale this week at Michael's. If you decide to use a real pumpkin, please "gut" your pumpkin at home.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AN AFTERNOON SESSION FROM 1-5PM.

If you have any questions, please give me a shout.

Steampunkin by etsy seller IserCreations.

Steampunkin tutorial at Instructables.

Steampunkin at MAKE by Hans Scharler.

Altered mini pumpkins at Crescendoh.

September 24: Spontaneous Mini-Collage

How is it that it is already the second half of September???

For our September meeting, we are going to have a fun, stretch-your-collage muscles (in a good way) project to get your collage mojo going. We're going to apply the spontaneous collage practice to greeting cards and tags. We'll start by putting down a base on a couple of cards, swap for a few more collagey bits, swap again, add an image and then swap once more for some embellishing. Easy-peasey. The point is to just play and see what comes - not to overthink it - besides, it's only a card, right? Then, when we're done, everyone will have a little stack of cards/tags to take home.

Here's what to bring:

Adhesive of your choice: Glue Stick, Gel Medium

Cutting devices of your choice: Scissors, Xacto knife + mat

Bases: a handful of blank greeting cards, blank pieces of cardstock (these might be nice in a small frame), tags - painted or blank.

Papery bits: you know, scraps and bits of paper to make up your collages. Some images might be nice for a focal point, if you have some, or just go abstract

Embellishments: Think flat, please. Embossing powder +rubber stamps (we have a couple of heat guns), markers, leafing pens, ribbon, etc.

I may be able to bring a sewing machine, if you'd like to add marks that way.

See you Saturday!

These were cards made with collage, copies of journal pages and machine stitching. The tags at the top were collaged, rubber-stamped + embossed and then doodled on.