A "Mish Mosh" of things...

Got a bit behind in posting things I wanted to share with everyone - so forgive me as I throw it all in one post to catch up and in no particular order...

I've always loved books. As a matter of fact I still have some of my original picture books from when I was a child - three of my favorites - Madeline; Make Way for Ducklings; and Eloise - sit in my collection of hundreds of children's books most of them signed by their authors - so it's no mistake that I have a new love in my recent incarnation of the adult me - making books - I created a class that I call "A Gaggle of Books in a Box"

My book samples for the class ...
where students create five different mini-books - a scroll book, a star book, a corrugated paper bag book, an accordion book and a shipping tag book - that all fit in a box (actually in an altered oatmeal tub) - and this Sunday I was thrilled to be able to teach this intense but fun class at VIVA Gallery upstairs studio - thanks to Erella, Joann and Nancy for coming to play with me! Yes, play - they each walked away with their five mini-books and their parting gift from me - a little rubber duckie and a mini-water color set.


Erella with her star book


Nancy holding her star book - Joann's yellow star book on table and Erella's red accordion book in the background

Erella and Joann at "Show & Tell" at end of class


Joann's tea book - it's her corrugated book using tea bag packages for pages instead of paper bags - beautiful!

Joann and Nancy looking at student work


Joann and Nancy working on scroll books
Erella working on scroll books

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A shameless plug for my next class - Saturday - 11/22/08 at a private home studio in Sherman Oaks from 11 am - 4 pm - and includes a light lunch served by our fabulous host for the day - contact me privately to sign up - the class is "Reflections - A wall hanging/banner" based on the "Freedom wall hanging/banner" I won 3rd place in the Art Unraveled art competition this past August - spaces are filling quickly so contact me for more info -

Four-panel "Freedom" wall hanging/banner


Close up of a panel

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A couple of months ago I signed up for a chunky book swap on Art Techniques Yahoo group - we had to sign up for a technique to demonstrate in our pages and there could be no duplicate techniques in the book - it started out as a normal chunky book 4 x 4 swap - where they may grow to as many as 35 or 40 sign-ups which means you make that many original (no photo copies) 4 x 4 pages - somehow this book grew and grew and grew and GREW! When it got to 50 participants someone suggested that we form group two - but everyone protested - after all it was a technique book and no one wanted to miss out on a single technique - and then it grew to 60 participants - then 75 - then 80 - 90 - 95 and then gasp! a 100! But wait ... it didn't stop there - the final count was 120 sign-ups! Yes ... you got it - we had to make 120 - 4 x 4 pages of our technique - no photo copies and send them to our fearless (and now celebrated) leader - Sherre - at first it seemed overwhelming - I brought them twice to my mixed media group to work on - and still I wasn't finished - but then it became "Zen like" exercise - and I finished and sent them off - poor Sherre and crew had 120 priority boxes in her dining room & living room to be stuffed with sorted 120 pages times 120 entries - yikes! Then the icing on the cake - my box arrived with 120 different fabulous technique pages to peruse and hopefully try on my own - I decided to figure out a way to bind my pages into a book - what a surprise since I'm a "book person" - here's the result - It was so much fun - I signed up for a chunky book swap for AU with only a mere 30 pages - piece of cake!

Pages I made for AU Technique chunky book (30 pages) (very similar to page I made for Chunky Fat book (120 pages)

Ribbon binding - Chunky Fat book 120 - 4 x 4 pages

Front of fat book - this is one of the pages used as the cover


Overhead view of bound book

Side view of 120 pages bound



The book!


It's bound loosely enough that it can lay flat to use when working on a technique - each page has the technique described on the back


I divided the 120 pages into 5 sections (signatures) and bound each one separately on the Bind-it-All machine - then tied the 5 bound signatures together with colored ribbons


The pages all together - it's such an amazing book! I feel like all 120 of us are in a special international club - connected by our technique pages -