Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico

My friend, Sharla and I attended The Call of the Wild Soul at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.  It was a great time searching our souls and putting it all toward the journey of art making.  One of the workshops I took involved Eco dying which I loved!  Here is all the papers and silks I did the first day.

The eco dying was led by Elizabeth Bunsen and we were all amazed at the results of the day.  The second day was led by Orly Avineri and we put all those pieces to good use.  We were challenged to make something wearable for lunch that day and I put together this little medicine type pouch.  There is a stained tea bag over the Hibiscus tea stained paper stitched on the sides and bottom to make a little pocket.  The little heart is a copy of my grandmother's handwriting stained with paint.

Orly had us work on a flattened box.  The idea being that it would not become precious but to concentrate on the journey.  This is the beginning of one side of the cardboard with a little collage. We started with white, then watered it down and used a pipette and then mixed it a color to finished the last third.

Here is the other side started with black gesso.  It has paint, collage of paper and silk using some of the eco dyed pieces as well as one of my old wood block prints.  Very interesting and I'm liking what is happening but what do I do with it now?

Refold it into a book cover!  This is the front with a narrow flap folded over from the back on the right side.  I loved this idea as soon as I folded it into this shape. I really like the little peek a boo corners from the inside showing.

Here is the back when folded.  I am not sure how this will develop as I work more in the inside to make it richer and then what pages of who knows what will go inside but I am ready when the time come to continue the journey.


Book size  10.5" x 13.5"

Open  10.5" x 21"

A Little Bit of Messy Fun……

Oh boy, did we have some crazy messy fun!  Two of my sisters, my nephew and I attended a workshop with Jane Davies in Portland at the Art and Soul Conference.  It was two days of creativity and was messy but filled with laughter and fun.

This was her Layering and Excavating workshop, where we played with adding more and taking away and then adding more.

This one started out with mark making and ended up here.

Jane is a great instructor and lots of fun!  She did a lot of demos and we learned many fun techniques.

When you get to a place where you liked it, Jane's suggestion….paint over it and continue!

This one started out with a cruciform of collage on white paper. More mark making and trying out different things here.  Layers, collage and more layers.

I can't even tell you how many layers were in done on which pieces. I was working on five pieces at a time.  I thought about taking photos as I went along but got so involved in the moment that I didn't get many.

Another cruciform of collage with layering, collage, paint transfer of lines and more paint.

All of these are on 10"x10" Stonehenge Printmaking Paper

The first thing Jane had us do was cover two of our  papers with red paint and let it dry.

The red blotches on this one were the original layer of red excavated through many layers of paint.

Using matt medium and paint heavy inscribed lines can be created.  More paint and some collage.

This was also a red page even though there is not much red showing.

 Not being a painter this was a great experience for me.  It stretched me in a new direction and allowed freedom to just play.  We were not trying to make completed pieces. It was interesting to mix up a little pile of paint and take breath and paint over a layer. My mantra was "I'm going in!"


I have to spend a day playing with these new techniques so I don't forget.