Monday, August 27, 2007

The story continues ...

In order to get motivated to create the memory book for my Aunt Anne's 90th birthday, I googled "scrapbook stores in LA" and found the website for in West LA - Sweetpeas and Snapshots - It's a vintage scrapbooking store unlike any scrapbooking stores I've ever seen - while browsing the site I saw that they taught classes and one of the upcoming classes was being taught by one of my former coaching clients - Norman Dixon (It's In The Cards)- I signed up for the class - Norman reps Anna Griffin and periodically teaches a class using her papers and designs -

Although I adore Norman as a teacher, I found that I wanted to find my own creativity in creating a page so I signed up for a Kelly Kilmer class - creating a bound journal with paints and more - Now this was art! She gave us permission to get messy - get wild and that there are no mistakes in art! I love my first attempt at binding a book - although the cover is busy with no real focal point - it's all my design! I was hooked!



I signed up for Kelly's blog (had never read a blog before) and as happens - one link led to another and I had jumped in the deep end of the pool with this art thing - I thought I was just going to make a memory book for my Aunt - but it became so much more. I gave myself permission to explore my art for the first time in my life - to let go of those "dream stealers" in my life who don't "get"it - I started doing this for me - I have never felt so free and so excited in my life.

All the times I would go to art stores and never want to leave, or go to a museum and spend hours just sitting in one room looking at the paintings - or the time I sneaked into the Uffizi Gallery at closing and literally ran up the back stairs to view the "Birth of Venus" and other Botticelli works (or as I like to call it "Venus on the Half-Shell") because I was leaving to go back to America the next day (but that's a story for another blog on another day!)

From the time I signed up for Norman's class - November 19, 2006 - my life has changed forever. By taking a chance - being pro-active when I didn't even know exactly what I was doing, I opened up a whole new world. I challenge each of you - what are you waiting for? What world is waiting for you? Jump in the pool - just do it - the water's fine and I believe you will know how to swim! Let me know how it's working for you - peace!

Friday, August 24, 2007

My Beginning...

Welcome to my first post! I've been procrastinating starting this blog because the word "artist" attached to my name is very new to me - I have only been creating my visual art since mid-November 2006, when I decided to create a memory book for my Aunt Anne's 90th birthday. The rest, as they say, is history. I created collage pages for that book, and then had them made into "moo" cards. In future blogs I will share some of my projects as I progressed from these humble scrapbook pages to handmade journals and acrylic paintings and more! These are the collage pages that were my very first attempt at all this - November 2006!

Album cover


First Page of Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book



Aunt Anne's 90th b'day with her 97 year old sister Alice watching (2006)



Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Party - Family Photo



Collage page - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book (paper/colored markers)



Collage Page - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book (paper/colored markers/glitter glue/metallic stars/ribbon)



Collage - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book (paper/colored markers)



Collage - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book (paper/ribbon)



Collage - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book - (paper/cloth/feathers/ribbon/metal letter charms/plastic pearls)



Collage - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book (paper/feather/button/ribbon/metallic stars)



Collage - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book (Xeroxed cloth/buttons/plastic pearls)



Collage - Aunt Anne's 90th B'day Memory Book (Xeroxed cloth/paper/antique bugle beads/ribbon/feather/antique lace)



www.scribewizards.com


www.scribewizards.blogspot.com