Artfest 2010

Had a blast at Artfest again this year!!  I actually drove Mish and I to and from, so that was exciting!  (After getting my first driver's license on March 17th, 2010!!)

My first class was a PMC class with Catherine Witherell.... I think I'm now addicted to PMC!!   Catherine taught us how to make rings and hollow beads, but the designs were completely up to our own imagination. 

I was quite delighted with my hollow heart pendant!  Catherine helped me bevel the back of it so I could put it back together at an angle, leaving a gap in the front.  Drilling the holes was a bit tricky because it was thin in some areas, so I had to reinforce it carefully.  I am quite proud of it!  I still need to finalize the "wiring" on it tho'. 

And this was probably my favorite piece... I made a square hollow bead that I cut in half and made into a cage/ basket.

I then textured the ring itself with a cobblestone pattern and added some patina (liver of sulphur). I really love how this turned out... reminds me of the Tower of London and photos I took of gates and cobblestone roads.

The sad part about this "cage" ring is that a coworker of mine broke it during show and tell at work!  He was trying to help straighten it out and accidentally broke it!  Which showed that the ring was not fired long enough (through no fault of my own).  He is a jeweler so he said he'll help me try to fix it.  I hope so because I love this piece!!

For the ring above, I just added some dot indentations. I made this ring thicker and wider and just left is as a band.  I didn't patina this one- just put it through the tumbler. 

This bead was my "mistake" bead- I just kept adding broken bits to it and accidentally smooshed it several times.  In the end, I kinda liked it.

This was just a funky hollow bead that I experimented with geometric patterns on. 

The other half of my square hollow bead- turned it into a basket as well and thought I'd try a gem in the middle.  After firing, I didn't like the look of the gem- looks like a fake piece just glued to the bottom instead of an integral part of the piece.

My second class was a portrait drawing class with Misty Mawn. 

We drew blind contour portraits:

The one below is called "Agy Fish" based on its uncanny resemblance to a coworker of mine.  LOL!

We also drew portraits based on the standard oval shape w/ lines thru it to help you figure out the correct placement of facial features...

The girl above is my favorite of the ones I drew. None of these were based on any particular face- just me experimenting with facial features.

And we drew portraits on top of magazine pictures (painting over the pictures until the portrait that remains is more "you" than "magazine"):

The piece above was based on Kate Moss but ended up looking more like Mish, so I'm calling it "Mish Moss".  LOL.

I enjoyed this class as well since it gave me yet more ideas on how to approach drawing.  For someone who spent most of  her life convinced she couldn't draw, these types of classes really help demystify the experience and make it more manageable! :)

Here's Mish and some of her awesome pieces!

My third class was from Lynne Perella.  We spent most of the class doing anything and everything except working on our projects but I did manage to create something I'm proud of in 3 hours.  It's not quite finished yet but I like it.  It's basically a painted, layered background with collage on top. 

The blue strips are pieces of movie film painted blue.  I plan to add some sort of text to them- to perhaps simulate a movie poster...

Naturally I chose Joan as my muse! :)  I actually had several others I was debating using, but ended up liking how I "colored" (using cheap oil pastels) Joan the best.  Fate I guess!

I was soon to find out that subconsciously, I had chosen Enchy as my muse too!  Here she is posing with my piece!

Time to Insert a Random Photo of Mish:

Camp Runamuckus was fun, as usual.  We had some new campers this year. and we got really silly.  Case in point:  Mish had the first two classes with me, and then on Day 3 she had Michael DeMeng. Lucky girl received Michael's "baby" as inspiration!  The rest of camp had fun w/ that! 

Not to mention the fun to be had with the Stockade:

me

Baby Miguel

Mish

Tammy

Denise

Melissa

Pam

Michele

And to get this silly we didn't even need alcohol.  :)

We also celebrated Mandy's soon-to-arrive baby:

Ah, motherhood!

And then Mish and I met up with our Badbaby sisters as well for several photo shoots!

All in all, a great time.  I'm already looking forward to next year.