Back From Artfest!! Misty Mawn

These are three collages I  worked on in class. I need to finish the face here.

 Day one on Thursday My class was with Misty Mawn. She is a fantastic collage artist. We learned how to do backgrounds and some subject techniques. Misty demonstrated all these collages.

we used stablio marker to add design

 Misty put together collage piece and painted on a portrait overtop the image. Face Before,

This was a silhouette image collage.

These two pieces were done by other students in the class.

Assembling a vase of flowers.

Starting the Girl with a pearl earring collage.

She does a great job with faces. I wish I took the portrait class.

This "halo" was done with a stencil doily.

Here the collage face is painted with different colors.

Mile High Mixed Media Group

   Saturday I got together with our monthly art group to try some complicated papers that Anne Bagby is known for.

These are stamps we made with a peel and stick flooring square and foam shapes stuck on. We applied paint with our brayer to these stamps on the black and white paper.

Fat Book Pages for Artfest

One of the fun things about going to Artfest is the Fatbook you get to take home. Each artist creates one page (and enough for everyone's book) and mail it away to the hostess. She binds the book for us.

I did a three color reduction print for my page. On the back I used the printing technique from the previous post. I am almost finished. The deadline is March 7th!

Here are my two stamps I carved for the print. The first color was lime green, then turquoise, lastly black. Each time I printed a color, I carved more out for the next printing.

Printing with Golden's open paints

For this print I used three rubber bands along the top.

There are some new paints by golden called Open acrylic paints. They allow you to print with them without drying out. Therefore the paints stay wet longer.

We met at Simones studio to practice some printing techniques using these paints. Sabyl had a jelli square that was also used for the same printing technique. It can be used over and over.

Here is the first step. A square is blocked off with tape. You can use a plexi board, freezer paper, or palette paper.

Then you use a brayer as your painting tool to spread the paint thinly on the board. It takes some practice to get the colors to blend together but not turn to mud.

Then we pushed some stamps into the paint or layed objects ontop. Rubber bands are good as well.

Finally you peel off the tape and lay your paper onto the paint. Rub ontop with a clean brayer or  your hand.

Art Day in the Studio

 Satuday we met at Simone's very own art studio she rents in Denver. It was a very old printing building with wooden floors and ancient trim (and bathrooms).Each room different artist share for their studios. Simone showed us her current work for a juried show she will be in. It was so much fun to get together and talk about ART.  We practiced making sumi painting with ink. The chops were made from old erasers carved with linoleum blades with red ink. I decided this wasnt my thing. Here are some of the examples of the finished work of bamboo and plum blossom tree done on rice paper??

Walking the redwoods with Ian

We are visiting Ian this weekend to see his apartment, campus, and to meet his 4 roomates. We spent the morning walking through the redwood groves in muir national monument. It was a beautiful and different climate with the humidity supporting ferns, moss, and other smells.

Layover in Miami

Because we had an eight hour layover in Miami, we decided to take a tour of south beach. We rented a 12 person van so our whole group could go together. A bagel at panera was the first stop for breakfast since we were up at 3 am to catch our early flight from santo Domingo. One of the highlights was the architecture in the art deco neighborhood. Since we were too late to join the walking tour, I took some pics on my own and then walked along the water on the beach. I was surprised how nice the area was. The water felt like bathwater and the beach uncrowded. It was fun to see the ornamental buildings and bright pastel colors. Some terms used were eyebrows for the ledges jutting out.There were young people out and about, roller blading, biking, and on segways. It was a nice drive Along highway 1A looking at all the fancy homes and yachts . Finally we had lunch at a Recommended Cuban restaurant called Larios on the beach. The rental guy told us about it and that Gloria Esteban owned it. Relaxing in the bright green beach benches was a great way to finish off the trip. The water was so aqua blue and I hope to come back and do the walking tour.

Sabada Perdita

The parenting class was held at night and was well attended.

Sabata Perdita is the church/school we have been working at this week. It is in a poorer neighborhood of santo domingo where VisionTrust has a project. Our church has sponsored many children that attend the school ages K-7th grade. Today was the final day we will visit and spent our last afternoon at lunch with the administrator Estephania. She is an amazing cook and baker. She showed us wedding cakes she did on her laptop. We were invited to her lovely home to share closing thoughts. It was unusual to see the chickens, rooster and wild turkey residing in her front yard. We sang some songs together in both Spanish and English. Our group prayed for each other and the future joining of hearts. Later tonight we held our last parenting class up on the roof. There were 60 attendees that listened to Bible references on parenting, discipline, and living as husband /wife. We had a Spanish translator and sang some praise songs in both languages. We saw many kids at church with their Beaded cross necklace from
VBS that morning. After our last goodbyes it was time to head back to the hotel. Tomorrow is a leisure day touring the town and market.

Our mission Team

One of the benefits of serving in the mission field is forming relationships with those you are serving with. This is my first time organizing a mission trip at PEPC and of course I am learning as I go. On our team we have 7 men and two women. The ages span from 20 to 70's and in-between. Getting to know everyone whether it be working side by side painting, eating breakfast, or riding in our van through dangerous near death intersections, has been a fun part of our trip. Jim can always entertain us with a story from one of the 60 countries he has lived and it's always an adventure what he will say next.  Learning to be flexible with dominican timetables has not been difficult with our team.  We are all being stretched in our abilities as we share the work and needs of the school whether it be praying with our Dominican families via a translator, organizing games with 75 kids on a roof in 95 degree heat, leading devotions,
Painting faces on a mural, leading worship songs in another language with unfamiliar tunes or communicating with an 8 year old in Spanish.  God has used each one of us for his work beyond what we thought we were able to do. Working with our team have been wonderful (and necessary) translators along with the VisionTrust staff who are with us to and from our destinations on the agenda. It has been great getting to hear their stories and the countries they have served in. I know we will form friendships that will bind us together and we will share our stories in church so others may be involved in missions next time. http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq150/dacke8175/0bad05c1.jpg