As I mentioned yesterday, I'm busy prepping for my June classes at The Ink Pad in NYC. 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. My Marking Making class is all about exploring your personal mark making vocabulary. Part of class is making paper stencils, like these: I shot a quick video of me testing the stencils out on my gelatin plate: And here is the test... Read more →

I'm busy prepping for the classes I'm teaching at The Ink Pad in June. The Saturday class is called "Develop a Mark Making Vocabulary." As part of that class we are designing and creating our own set of foam stamps. Here's a quick video of me making the stamps and testing them out: And here are the stamps: I used each one to create an overall pattern and I love the way they turned out! In class we'll be focusing on the design process -- both creating "good design" as well as a cohesive collection of stamps that reflect your... Read more →

I'm currently working on some new online classes. But in the meantime, I've been meaning to share a few comments and some of the beautiful work that my current online students have made. The thing that's great about online classes is you never lose access to class. So you can work at your own pace, even if it takes you years! From the Lantern Houses class: from Sarah: "I’m not the world’s greatest photographer but hopefully, you will be able to see them. I had a blast doing these. Some of mine are scaled smaller than 100% so that I... Read more →

I have a lot of paint in metal tubes. The metal tubes can be a pain to work with sometimes. They get stiff and can be difficult to open. Recently I've discovered two tools that have made it so much easier: PAINT KEY This is a paint key: The paint tube inserts into the gap in the key. You then use the key to help roll the tube up and get all of the paint out! It's simple and works really well. And when you've completely used up a tube of paint, you can re-use the paint key! (If you... Read more →

For today's Art in Bloom post, I want to talk about the "so what" factor. What is the "so what" factor? In essentials, it's the question: Why does this matter? Every time I write a blog post I hope that it does one (or more) of the following things: inspires educates brings joy One of the reasons I love Art in Bloom is because it does all 3 of those things for me. Inspires I am inspired by the notion of creating a new form of art based on a piece of art. It's not a literal translation, but an... Read more →

I've got more flowers and art to share with you today. My Mom and I went to Art in Bloom -- where I took all of these photos -- together and talked a lot about what we liked and didn't at the time. But she called me yesterday and said, "I'm finding all of your Art in Bloom posts really interesting." So we went on to discuss that. There is something about seeing them in photos that creates a different viewing experience. It's both easier and harder to see the similarities and differences. Photos flatten a 3-D experience. You miss... Read more →

I'm currently in Cleveland, Ohio filming season 7 (!!!) of Make It Artsy. Make It Artsy is a super fun TV show packed with craft and art projects. You can watch it online, on your local PBS station, or buy DVDs of each season. If you watch this week's vlog, I'm sharing a bunch of the projects that I made for the show. Take a peek: Screen printing, cookie decorating, painting, doodling, paper crafts, and more! It's going to be a great season! And just in case you've never seen the show, here's a segment from last season (season 6):... Read more →

More flowers + art today! Which ones work for you and which ones don't? Personally, I really responded to a lot of the vessels that the floral artists chose. It made me think about how much the container is a part of the overall arrangement -- which also makes me think about how much frames are a part of the artwork. I think frames are a thing that I neglect to think about. But they do tell a story about the work. I hope you're excited to see more flowers tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

The Museum of Fine Arts, here in Boston, hosted their annual Art in Bloom weekend recently. I've been several times and it is always one of my favorite art events, even though I know less than nothing about flowers. Why do I like it so much? Well, let's look at the premise: Floral artists interpret a piece of art in the museum through a floral arrangement. I find that these floral arrangements force me to think about the art more deeply than I ever have before. I stare at the floral arrangement and at the art piece and I think... Read more →

The ScanNCut DX Mats and the mat loading issue have been discussed quite a bit. Last week Brother released an official statement about it: A Notice to Our Consumers Regarding the ScanNCut DX Mat Loading Issues 02 May 2019 At Brother we work hard to provide customers with the highest quality items. So we thank our customers who contacted us about the difficulties with ScanNCut DX mat feeding process. You helped us identify and fix the root cause. Please accept our humble apology for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused you. The Brother team took this to heart... Read more →