Storytelling With Collage

If you happen to follow me on facebook, you'll know that my work appears in Roxanne Evans Stout's new book, Storytelling With Collage: Techniques for Layering, Color and Texture. I'm extremely excited and honored to have my work included in this beautiful book, along with the work of so many talented artists. I haven't yet posted the piece by itself, and I thought now would be a good time to share it.

From A Far Country

mixed media collage, 9.25 x 15.50 inches

To read the story that goes with this piece as well as many others, you can order the book from Amazon here. The book is loaded with great ideas, instruction on various techniques, and truly scrumptious artwork and photographs to look at.

Thanks to Roxanne Evans Stout for her graciousness, and for making the process so easy and enjoyable!

Exciting News, and a Sneak Peek

I'm truly excited and so happy to announce that the wonderfully talented and generous artist, teacher, and now author Roxanne Evans Stout of River Garden Studio has asked me to make a collage for her  upcoming  book. I feel honored to be included in this project, and naturally can't wait until it comes out. I'm afraid that's about all I can reveal right now, but don't worry, you'll be hearing lots more about it before the release. In the meantime, I was given the go-ahead to show you a tiny sneak peek.

Yes! So excited!! Please stay tuned for more news as it becomes available.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Look! it's a book!

Well, it's been a while.  With school back in session, life has resumed a pace somewhat reminiscent of a meteor hurtling towards the earth.  Besides that, my daughter is about to get married, and I have been working on the guest book, which is the first book I've made completely "from scratch".  I was very nervous that I would mess it up- which I did, early on- so I still had time to start over. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, if I do say so myself.

Here are all the pieces, ready to be sewn together.  I got stuck at this stage for a while because I was looking at the directions for the stitching order, and found them confusing.  I couldn't figure out the best way to knot the thread at the end, and there were about six different ways of doing it- mainly due to the fact that Japanese stab binding wasn't originally used with hard covers, I guess. 

 Here it is, all sewn together...

 detail

 I'm not really happy with the appearance of the linen thread, and it's not terribly tight; I pulled it as tight as I could while sewing, so I think it must be the knot on the inside, which may not be as close to the spine as I had intended.

 I left the rest of the decoration until after the stitching, so as not ruin it.

I may sew over the stitches with a very thin black ribbon, which might look better than the linen thread, but all in all, not too bad.

In case you're wondering why it's called "Guest gallery", it's because Caitlin and Wes are getting married in an art gallery.  I stamped gold frames on the black pages for people to write in.

I want to again thank Mo of the fantastic blog, "It's Crow Time", who is always willing to patiently answer my unending book-binding questions.  You should really look at her beautiful drawings, especially if you like crows, which we all do, it seems.


In other news, Roxanne Evans Stout, an accomplished artist and teacher (and one of the sweetest people I know) of Rivergarden Studio has included my answer to the question, "What is the thread that runs through your work?" in her post, "Of Golden Threads, part 3".  This is her third post featuring the responses of various artists to this intriguing question, and the answers range from emotionally revealing to surprising to inspirational. If you haven't already, please check it out.


My dear friend Donna Iona Drozda recently did a guest post for the Series "Artist as Collector" on artist Nanci Hersh's wonderful blog, and to my surprise, she honored me by choosing to feature me as her 'collected' artist'.  The post is titled, "Empty and Full with a Fresh Eye" and I hope you'll take a few minutes to read it.  Also, you'll no doubt want to check out Donna's work; not only is she an enormously talented artist, but she shares her "Luna See" spiritual insight through her "Following the Moon" blog, she somehow finds time to work on public art projects such as "Life in Transit", teach workshops for children and adults, and so much more.


Thanks to Roxanne, Donna, Mo, and all my sweet blogger friends- I love you all!