Friday Desk Photo- going to the coast!

Bird books check, dice check, camera check...

I'm off to help my little sister celebrate her birthday, we are staying at her beach cabin near Lincoln City within walking distance to the sand. I'm going to see how many Gulls I can identify as well as other sea birds. Yes this is big fun for a birder.

She is the cute one on the right.
This will be her gift a Santos for the sea. I'm guessing my sis won't read this she is running a half marathon this morning before she drives down.

I started this santos at a workshop a few weekends ago but didn't like the head so.......off with her head! Now that she is reworked I'm happy. Sew up her blouse and we are good to go.

She holds a string of antique faux pearls a Saint Michael pendent and a cross. When I give her to my sister she will be standing in a large square low sided basket, I hope when they bring all the treasures they find on the sand home they can place them at the feet of "Our Lady of the Sea".

If there is time I'm going to do some pine needle weaving. Have a great weekend!

I promised you some Mar Goman pictures these are from her past "Lucy" show held at Scrap in their new gallery space. I had the privilege to meet her last weekend and see more of her work at her home studio. I have fallen in love with her art, every piece from the painted pieces of wood to a straight jacket with Lucy’s story printed on it.

Remember if you click on a picture they will enlarge and it's much easier to read.
Read this!

This is the wrapping I was talking about in my last post, cool yes.

This is similar to the kind of things she taught us last weekend.

If you ever get a chance to see one of her shows GO !

Summer Fun- Two Weekends

A mini Santos workshop in Vancouver was Thur, Fri ,Sat last week with only four of us the fun we had took days to recover from... cheeks hurt from all the laughing and our eyes burned from lack of sleep. We only went out for the basics like picking up some Cougar Gold cheese, and a stop at the Goodwill Bins.

This picture was taken around midnight Saturday as you can see by the bunny ears we are still having fun.

Suzanne's back garden is natural and full of birds this is a Flicker with her baby. The baby is the big one on the left.

I found the roller skates at the bins for George they only cost $5.00 but his smile was worth a million dollars.

After the Santos week end I was soooo fired up I came home and made some new and unique Santos, I will post photos very soon as I'm so excited about them.

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And last weekend was a trip to Mar Goman's home studio for a class on drawing, image transfer, journal ideas and some object wrapping. Mar is a wonderful local artist that I have just meet and only a month or so ago saw a show that was outstanding in Portland's Scrap. I will show some of that show in a few days.

Mar was nice enough to give me permission to take some photos in her studio.

Seven of us tried to stay on task so we could soak up as much as we could of what Mar had to teach.

We went outside to do the transfers.

Lunch break.

A demo on wrapping.

When I put up the photos you her show you will see why I love the wrappings.
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Here are a few photos of Mars art in her home...

This dress is about 5 feet long

Close up of the dress (I love the rust).

Her dolls are fabulous.

I would love to show you all the art.....but... thank you Mar.

Art Outing, it's not to late!

11Th annual garden art show at McMenamins Edgefield till 8:00pm tonight.

Kimberli Matin (my cousin) is showing and selling her adorable Re-Bots and as you can see she made it on the show card always fun for an artist.

This one was my favorite he seams to have said to much.

If you click on the photo it will enlarge enough so you can read the Re-Bots story.

I really enjoyed the colors at every booth.

This was a show stopper made by Ryan Beard metal sculpture.

Many of you know how I love rust.... beautiful....

My mom and I enjoyed the show together this year.

You can never go to McMenamins with out looking at the wonderful gardens.

and tucked in the orchard are fun and fanciful mosaics.

This fun booth taught kids how to recycle old lids by making them into flowers, the gal teaching them is Ruby the Resourceress.

Her magic worked, a beautiful flower and a very happy girl.

Thursday desk photo. What?

Spotted Towhee aka Rufous-sided Towhee

Painting by Tory Brokenshire

I took this photo about a month ago just outside the window of my studio. Rufous is one of my favorites, he lives on the ground in dense thickets hunting for bugs and seeds. But the way he looks for treats is funny he uses the double scratching method by pulling both legs sharply backward at the same time.

I put the photo in photoshop 6 and started to play, having just recently participated in a wood block class I saw his image as a carving with a twist.

Then used a tool called Bass, just a different look but I like the simplicity.

And the next step would be to make a few cards.

But the urge to create with this image was still not satiated so I grabbed a canvas and started to paint.

My original thought was to have a light background because the bird is so dark. But then I thought of the behavior of the bird and how I see him, it is on the edge of dark thick leaves and stems. he is very hard to see at times. The fun began with texture and beautiful rich colors.

As in the photo I painted his tail up, and in his mouth I put a cherry to go with the round shapes behind his head. Darn it just doesn't look right! His mouth isn't big enough to hold a cherry like that, it was a sunflower seed he was eating.
His legs are very thin he would be called "bird legs" and a few colors needed to be tweeked. So I played a bit more...

The finished painting...I love his red eyes.

I'm out of town for a few days to do some art with friends, I hope you find some time to play.