Registered for Art & Soul!

Yay! I am officially registered for Art & Soul in Hampton, Va this coming May! *does brief happy dance*

I was hovering over my computer promptly at 4pm and managed to get all the classes I was jonesing for. Yay me!

I’m taking Transparency Collage-ssemblage & Creative Outlets with Michael de Meng, Chain Gang with Stephanie Lee, Graffiti Idea Book with Traci Bautista, Printing Blocks MacGyver Style with Traci Bunkers, & a Silver PMC Byzantine Chain Bracelet class with Sherri Haab & Scott David Plumlee.

I’m also booked at the hotel and good to go, so no worries here. I registered at the last minute for Portland and swore never again.

Wow! Registration hasn’t been open an hour and already all of the Sally Jean Alexander classes are closed! They were all closed by the time I finished my registration. One of my de Meng classes is closed, too. Gotta be fast.

*more happy dancing*

New Toy!

Today is my birthday – we won’t discuss how many candles go on the cake – and the Hubster presented me with the new camera I was lusting after. It’s a digital Olympus SP-55OUZ with 18x optical zoom. I have been diligently studying the manual… pause for hysterical laughter… and I think I am ready to take her out for a test run. After that I am going to the spa for a facial & then out to a drunken dinner with family & friends. I shall share spoils of the new toy with you tomorrow.

Huge Bummer!

I posted a piece yesterday that I designed for a class I was planning to pitch at the scrapbook/art store where I am on the design team, but sadly the owner announced at our meeting last night that she is going to close after the first of the year. I am so bummed for her and for the artists who love the store! She has tried to make it work and done all the right things, but cannot make the place financially viable. 

This is the point where I urge you all to support your local independent art stores. Art toys can be expensive & sometimes the big chain stores have better prices & fun coupons, but the little stores need our business to stay afloat.

I will miss Carolina Memories when it closes. I’ll miss the friendly staff, and the amazing classes, and the nifty selection of cool products that you just don’t see in the big chain stores.  It’s a sad day.

Didital Class – Final Porduct

I posted the other day about working on a product for a proposal I’m working on to do a digital class & shared the digital piece, but I thought I might post the final product since I finished it this morning…

I know some people don’t like digitals as much because of the lack of texture, but it’s really easy to get the best of both worlds by using the spiffy cool digital techniques to produce a centerpiece image and then incorporating it into a more traditional piece like the card here.

Art & Soul – Hampton, Va 2008

The classes for Art & Soul in Hampton, Va were finally posted yesterday! I’ve been waiting since I got back from Portland and spent some time last night trying to decide what I want to register for. Thought for several days that I wasn’t going to get to go because we rent a beach house in Duck, NC the first 2 weeks in May, but it looks like I can do both and only manage to miss the first 36 hours of beach fun. Yay!

I’m really excited about the possibility of taking a couple of classes with Michael de Meng! I’m also excited about another class with Traci Bautista. I’m looking at a Traci Bunkers class, too & a couple of jewelry making classes – I’ve been wanting to play with PMC for awhile now.

Registration opens on the 15th, and I plan to sign up quickly. I missed out on a couple of classes I really wanted to take in Portland because they were full, so I’m not going to wait until the last minute to register this time around.

If you haven’t played at Art & Soul yet, I really recommend attending one. I can’t tell you how inspirational my first one was – and so much fun! I can’t wait until May rolls around. The main webpage is here if you wanna check it out…Art & Soul

More digital excitement

I am on the design team for a local scrapbooking/art store and I have been thinking about a proposal to teach a digital class there, so I spent my morning designing a piece for that proposal…

Fun work. Digital is such a versatile medium – the possibilities are endless.

I have to thank my new artist friend, Roberta, for reminding me how much fun it is to work with digitals. Grazi, California Girl.

Digital

I have been doing more digital work again in recent weeks, so I thought I might share one of my latest pieces for today’s entry…

Photography field trip

Actually, the field trip wasn’t meant as a photographic excursion, but we went to a festival in Wilson, NC today with some friends, and I took my camera along thinking I might get a chance to sneak in a little work.

I got some photos I really like. I love capturing the beauty in things that are old and forgotten, like the window of an old warehouse we saw as we were driving into town…

I need to remember to toss my camera into my bag more often, so I don’t miss the opportunities that present themselves everyday.

Thought for the day

Today is crazy busy & I don’t have time for anything really substantial, but in keeping with my goal to post something in my blog every day, I have decided to post my new favorite quote…

“In my view, creativity is rampant thievery mixed with reinterpretation.” ~ Michael de Meng  

Goals

So, I have decided that to really get into the habit of keeping this blog, I am going to set myself a goal of making an entry every day this month. I’m not always good about things like this, so we’ll see how well I do.

Went back to my dance lessons and the ankle seems pretty stable, it’s a little sore after several hours in heels but I think it should be fine. I really missed dancing, so it was great to get back to it! Yay dancing!

My other excitement for the past couple of days, is that I had my annual astrology reading. My accupuncturist also does Shamanic astrology , and I ask her look at my chart every year  around my birthday. It seems I have a very busy chart which I won’t detail here… but the upshot is that a period of change & growth is upcoming after the first of the year. I guess I should fasten my seatbelt & get ready for an interesting ride.

Perhaps my art will evolve along with everything else. I already feel like so much is developing with my art these days. I am rediscovering my love of digital work with a couple of graphic design gigs that have come my way in recent weeks; and when I look at my work from Carol Owen’s class this past weekend, I see the influence of the workshops I took in Portland. Now if I could only make myself finish my studio so I can really get back to work, who knows how exciting things could get! 

Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.   ~ Christina Baldwin