Wednesday, April 25, 2007

demos and mini-classes

Cloth, Paper, Scissors and Quilting Arts (sister publications) had a lot going on at the show. Not only did they have a large booth full of gorgeous books (including the 1000 ATC book which includes mine own effort), but they sponsored mini-classes, and had lots of artists around, working right in the middle of things so you could get right up close and personal to watch, ask questions, chat.

I was so excited to see Cheryl Prater that I didn't think to take one pic.

I have a project in mind that requires 1.5" squares of ... something flat and stiff. I had thought of matt board (but ick -- all that cutting!!!!!!!). I went to the art supply store to ask questions, but didn't think of hitting the scrapbooking supplies stores.....

In the few days before the big Chicago quilt show, I stumbled across Cheryl's blog. Cheryl has little kids, so doing anything every day is even harder for her than for those of us with college kids. She is making one 1.5" collage every day ... on boughten 1.5" cardboard squares!!!!

You can imagine how thrilled I was to learn that such things existed! I went looking for them in my area, found some, and when I went back to Cheryl's blog to write her a thank you note, I accidentally killed the browser window.

Horrors! I had no idea how I got there, and had been so excited to find the supplies I needed that I hadn't paid any attention to anything other than Cheryl's excellent tiles (as she calls her work on these little squares). I didn't know her name, I didn't know her blog's name......... Phooey!

When I saw Cheryl sitting at the Cloth, Paper, Scissors artist's table at the quilt show, I recognized her work instantly, and knew she was the person whose blog had directed me to the Bazzill Chips 1.5" squares. I told her about it in exhausting detail. She is an engaging and very funny person, and I'm so glad I could thank her for showcasing the Chips, and that I had a chance to chat with her a bit. She told me that the Chips were for sale in the Cloth, Paper, Scissors booth, and I was very pleased to make some of them mine!

I tried to take Cheryl's mini-class, but didn't get in -- there was a lottery to get into the classes. My friend K got in, so I sat on the sidelines and kibitzed, which was almost as much fun as getting to take the class.....


Another teacher-of-mini-classes we met was Jill Haglund, who writes and publishes gorgeous books on a wide variety of topics. I bought an ATC book from her, and my friend K bought a book of scrapbooking paper.

K got into Jill's class, but I didn't, so I sat on the sidelines again. Jill was so kind to me -- she gave me a batch of supplies and encouraged me to lean over the barriers and make something anyway. That class was tags, which were inked and collaged and then finally dipped in wax. For a mixed-media person, I'm pretty minimal.... Jill had coffee-stained the tags, and I liked that so much I didn't really want to cover it up..... Here is my effort, with inks and a little bit of collage on the front, and even less collage on the back. It was very interesting to see what the wax did. It made the inks even more vivid, but made the glued-on image fade out a bit. Interesting......... Jill has wonderful books on many topics (when does she sleep???). I bought her ATC book.




















I did get to take a fabric postcard class from Judy at ArtisticArtifacts, which was lots of fun. She gave us a bunch of fun stuff to play with, which we fused to something stiff enough to actuallysend through the mail.

My favorite part of this is the center section. I like the dyed piece of fabric, and I love the skinny ripped blue bit and the stitches. I've been thinking I want to do more stitching on my little fabric pieces, so I collected inspiring images of work with hand stitching on them while at the show.




















K and I tried to get into the Saturday mini-class taught by the ArtGirlz, but neither of us got in. They had excellent supplies for sale in their booth, and we both acquired some of those.

This is Kelli Perkins, demonstrating her paper beads. A long strip of paper (map, old children's book, etc), rolled up around a straw, then dipped in embossing powder, gell medium, wrapped in angelina fiber, etc. Don't you just want to jump in and play with all her toys?

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