Do you remember my post about the Cambridge Modern Quilt Guild Color Challenge? You can read the rules here. In essentials, we did a fabric swap so that we each ended up with 6 fat quarters of fabric: 2 of a particular given color 2 complementary to the given color 1 analogous color on each side of the given color This is what I ended up with: 2 orange 2 blue yellow & red And you may recall that this is what I made with those fabrics: Well, on Sunday, the rest of the Quilt Guild showed up with their... Read more →

Hello, friends! Here's a little bit about life right now: What are you wearing? Purple! Purple dress! Purple tights! What have you bought? I've made several donations this month to charities I love: My Life My Choice: A group that helps girls avoid/get out of/return from the commercial sex industry. These girls are exploited at ages as young as eleven! And often by people they trust. It's horrifying and it's in America, in our own neighborhoods. Some of the girls come from at-risk background, but many are normal middle class girls who fall in with the wrong people. The Watertown... Read more →

As I said earlier this week I'm really enjoying these sketches. I wanted to share another piece I did from one of the sketches I shared. Do you remember my claustrophobia sketch? Here's how it looks as a small painting: I like it, but I'm not sure it's an idea that's resolved yet. Here are my thoughts: I'm not sure if white was the right choice. It might brighten it up too much. Perhaps bright colors "trapped" by black might have been better. The original sketch has a more floppy pressed down look. The ovals in this version seem almost... Read more →

Good news! Just in time for Spring, I finished my very first knitting project: a winter hat! I love how it turned out and I'm amazed that I made it! I'm ready to start on a new knitting project now. I'm thinking of something very ambitious, like a sweater. Am I insane to launch into a project like a sweater after making just one hat? Or will slow and steady plus YouTube get me there? Give me your advice, knitters! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

This weekend I watched this YouTube video from artist and instructor, Bob Burridge: I looove this idea. Sitting in front of my computer in my office, I grabbed for scrap paper and pen so that I could play along. These little sketches were so compelling to me that I knew I had to take them up into the studio and explore a little bit more. Here's what I did with the immigration sketch in my art journal: I kept the palette very limited with just four tubes of paint: white, black, blue, and red. The yellow you see is because... Read more →

I wanted to share this year's crop of Easter Eggs with you! I like my Easter Eggs to be edible, so I always try to use edible products on the shells, since egg shells are porous. This year, I decided to treat the Paas tablets like pan watercolors. I filled a cup with vinegar and water and used it to wet my brush and lap up the color I needed from each tablet. The eggs were lovely as is... ...but I wanted to kick them up a notch. So I used a pen with edible ink, normally meant for cookie... Read more →

I'm so excited to be teaching two NEW classes at The Ink Pad in NYC on June 22 and 23. Are you interested in developing your artistic voice? Part of having a clear artistic voice is having a distinctive library of personal images. “Personal images” sounds rather fancy, but all it really connotes is a collection of images or shapes or marks that you enjoy using over and over. This class is all about exploring your personal mark making vocabulary. Through a series of simple exercises, I will help you to determine which marks excite you the most. During class... Read more →

Are you like me? Do you just keep saving cool ideas on the internet and doing nothing with them? Well, no more!! Suzanne and I are determined to start using the ideas we save to actually make projects. First is this colorful house piece I found on Pinterest: I love these simple wonky houses. They're colorful and imperfect and the project seemed simple enough. However, I never like to be a direct copy-cat. After all, if you're going to copy the project exactly, you should purchase it from the original artist. Instead, I wanted to take some inspiration from it.... Read more →

Today (April 15, 2019) is World Art Day! In honor of World Art Day, I put together a quick tutorial that demonstrates one of the many ways the ScanNCut can be used in fine art applications. Today we are using frisket film and watercolor. What is frisket film? Frisket film is kind of like a sticky-backed stencil film. It is used primarily by airbrush artists to block out certain parts of their painting that they wish to remain white (aka the color of the paper). Watercolor artists use liquid frisket (less roll under), but do sometimes use frisket film as... Read more →

You guys! I am having so much fun creating these composed prints. I really can't stop. Here are three new prints to share with you: It's not a quick process. Each print takes time. There is some planning, but also some accepting of what happens -- embrace it and keep rolling. I think I'm addicted to these prints because they're all about problem solving and, at its heart, that's the reason I make things. I love solving problems. To me, the really fun art making *is* problem solving. For example: You make something. It's too heavy on the left. That's... Read more →