My First Mixed Media Workshop Under My Belt

 Fun was had by all at Twigs and Twist as we collaged and assemblaged our mirrors to our hearts content.

 Ephemera included tissue paper, vintage photos, jewelry....

 Ronna shows off the piece she did in honor of her mother. 

 attaching eye hooks at the bottom to hang some crystals. 

Allison displays her Music and Dolls theme, with some additions to add at home.

Allison had some really old miniature porcelain dolls, I asked her if she bought them on ebay, she said no...she dug them out of her back yard in Silver City years ago! Now that is pretty cool!

Homage Collage Reflection Workshop

I will be teaching a two-hour workshop on how to create your own personalized 12" x 12" mirror including the wide dark wood frame. You choose the subject be it a friend, relative or something you would like to honor with this personalized piece of art.

When making my sample for the workshop, I considered who would I honor? and guess what I decided -to make it for myself! It's always so hard parting with all these projects I make that I thought, "This way I get to keep it"

First step is gathering all your pieces of ephemera...tickets, pieces of old greeting cards, buttons, old jewlery, photos..etc. and laying them all out on the mirror frame.

 The hard part is taking everything back off so you can glue down the bottom pieces  and then remembering where everything goes. I did take some photos so I could look back but didn't have to. The memory still works... sometimes :)

 The next step was overlapping the papers with tissue papers.

 Then added a layer of further embellishments and some acrylic paint.

Using E6000 glue I added the 3D elements.

The final step was coating the whole project with Gloss Heavy Gel.

This workshop will be held Thursday October 13, 2011 from 5-7 pm at Twigs and Twist 1304 W. Eastman St. in Boise. To register call Gretel @ (208) 342-0600 The class will be limited to 10 people. Cost is $50 and includes mirror with 12" x 12" wooden frame and basic supplies.

What to Bring:

Ephemera (Items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.) related to a theme or a person.

These can be small 3 dimensional objects such as buttons, jewelry…miniatures of any sort.

And 2 D papers such as maps, ticket stubs, photographs, interesting papers, stamps, tissue papers, such as old sewing patterns, gift wrap etc.

*Assortment of ephemera available for purchase at Twigs and Twist

Capitol City Public Market

I haven't had a booth at the market for awhile. Then Treasure Valley Artist Alliance partnered with The Brick Oven Bistro to help manage 3 of the Art Tents.  Artists who are members of the alliance can set up in one of the booths for up to 3 times.  I chose this weekend as I thought, well by then it will be nice and warm! Boy was I wrong. At one point today I had on 5 layers of clothes including gloves and not one but two down jackets! On the positive side it didn't rain and the wind wasn't too bad. We had lots of people and lots of sales! I sold 3 of my newest pieces as well as some cards and one of my valentine projects- I almost left that one at home!
 
I had one lady come up and introduce her self to me, who had bought a piece of mine a few years back and says it is her favorite piece of art. I had another woman ask if I could do a custom assemblage with some "junk" she has and I said of course! And then quite a few people asked if I was at Green Chutes or Twigs and Twist as they recognized my style. It's nice getting the recognition. 

The cutest story was a little boy that came up to my booth and slapped down a dollar and a penny, I looked at him and said "What is that for?" and he said "whatever I can get for it" I thought a moment and gave him a bag of ephemera that was marked at $2. He was extremely excited and ran over to show his family.  I hope he makes something with it.

At 6:30 this morning, I was having second thoughts about setting up today but now I can't wait to do it again!