Morna Crites-Moore's "Nostalgia"

A close-up of  "Nostalgia"

I wanted to show off my gorgeous new piece of fiber art by one of my favorite artists, Morna Crites-Moore.  She calls this piece "Nostalgia" and she made it by ripping thin strips of old fabrics then weaving them back together again.  Afterwards, she goes in and does her magic with needle and thread and adds thousands of tiny stitches over top the whole piece.  It is an incredible work of art and I'm so proud to hang it in my home.

I bought a shadow box to display it in.  If you'd like to see more of Morna's work, I featured her a few weeks back on my blog, so scroll down, or go to the right under "Artists I Follow" and find her name.

Happy 17th Baby Girl!

I just want to tell you again how proud you make me Dani-girl, what a beautiful young woman you have grown into both on the inside and out.  God really blessed me when he sent you to me. 

I Love You So Very Much,

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl

And thank you Tyler for taking such good care of our girl.  You are so good to her and good for her.  Her daddy and I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful young man to love our girl.

7th Grade Oil Pastel Spheres

My 3th Quarter 7th grade group was a talented bunch of artists.  They only had 2 days for this assignment but look at the gorgeous, well crafted results.  Above left is Aaron Liu, right is Jean Kim, bottom left is Jonathon Hsu and right is Frances Lee.  You 4 make me so proud.  Thanks for working so hard for me. 

Preliminary Painting with Tempera - Student Work

At the beginning of the school year my Beginning 2-D Art students did a Color Theory project with tempera paint where they were required to paint in a very flat, graphic style, but now in 4th Quarter they understand light and shadow, so we came back to the tempera and tried painting in a more realistic way.  The minimum requirement was to paint a sphere but of course my kids did so much more like junior Janice Min above.  what a striking piece.

Above junior Michelle Lee scratches thru her paint to create a very interesting texture.  Love it!  And below junior Crislyn Ogawa came up with such a cool subject and made such a beautiful piece. 

Senior Rachel Kim worked in a lovely color scheme above and senior Tiffany Wang did the adorable cat and mouse piece below.

Summertime with The Sposas

Yep, that's about all we do around here is lie around and hang out with our kids and dogs.

Or drive around with our second set of grand kids for an over-nighter at our house.

Or pose for pix.

But sometimes Miesha gets a little car sick (above) when she isn't hanging on for dear life (below) as Jim takes a corner a little to fast.

But mostly everyone just wants to chill and not be bothered.

Especially our little Sophie...

but give her my empty peanut butter jar to lick clean and she perks right up.  :)

But our favorite times are hanging out with our other two grand kids, J.V. and Kenzie, their Auntie Julie, and Uncle Mike , and their mommy and daddy Carrie and James.

Metal/Canvas Journals - Student Work

Inspired by felt artist Gail Perrone of Catfish Studio, and her wonderful work, I bought one of her metal/felt/canvas journals and showed it to my Intermediate 3-D students, and they were excited to try out her techniques.  The fun began when I bought them metal re bar from Home Depot and they cut and twisted the ends into interesting shapes and used an anvil and hammered those shapes flat.

Here we have junior Nandi Best's front and back covers.  She really outdid herself on this project, spending so much extra time on so many incredible details.  Notice the left side to see how she bound the book with a a hand spun and hand knit spine.  Amazing child!

They then built their frame structures by lashing the pieces together for the front and back covers of the book.

Below is a peek at one of Nandi's many pages.  Look closely at the handwoven door that opens on the page on the left.

Then they did more decorative work on the inside of the frame with the re bar to stabilize it.  They went all out decorating the fronts and backs with handmade felt pieces, painted canvas, beads, buttons, yarns you name it!

They had all kinds of requirements for the front and back covers.

Here is senior Abby Ilagan's front cover and one of my favorite pages from her book.

And then more requirements for the pages inside.  They had to bring in text, hand stitching, machine stitching, watered down acrylic washes, pictures and eyelet findings.

As well as sewing down pieces of clear vinyl to slip photos in.

Junior Kelsea Lee also spent a lot of time sewing on lots of fabulous embellishments both on her covers as well as her pages.

The results were fantastic, and I believe the kids really enjoyed how expressive this assignment became.

These are two pages from Kelsea's journal.  Very clever girl with terrific designs.

One more page from Kelsea's book below.  Love your work Kelsea!

Senior Florence Buendia worked to the theme Bucket List, and had many incredible pages.  Here is one below.  As you can see these kids put so much thought into their work.

Senior Jessica Jay went all out on her cover doing so many cool layering techniques.  A close up below.

And her back cover below.  Lovely Jessica!

I want to end with one of my favorite seniors, (yeah, I know I'm not supposed to have favorites LOL) she knows she has a special place in my heart, Brittaney Lee.  This young woman had so many illness this last year connected with her allergies, and was probably absent more then she was at school, and when she was able to come to school she was so sick, but she never complained or made excuses, she still managed to turn in every one of her assignments and keep up with the rest of the class.  And on top of that, what a terrific designer she was.  Hope this summer found you in better health kiddo. 

A close up below. 

The Magic Feather Project - My Work

I just finished this fun embroidery work for The Magic Feather Project for fiber artist Jude Hill.  She is hoping to collect 1000 feathers from her blog viewers and then assemble them into a larger work that will go to a charitable organization.  To read more about this cool idea and to make a feather go to www.spiritcloth.typepad.com and click on the Magic Feather icon and it takes you right to it. 

Enjoy!

In case you are interested my background fabric came from my Aunt Elena's tea towels that she embroidered when she was a young girl (probably around 1925).  I inherited them when she passed away 3 years ago. When I read about Jude's project and that she wanted the feather cloth to tell a story I thought of my Aunt's towels and how they have a story to them. 

Update - Rockits and Highlites

The band is playing twice this weekend.  Friday Nite they will be at Java Joes in Yorba Linda from 8 -11 with the Highlites...

and Saturday Nite at the Cypress Civic Center for a Nite in the Park from 6 -8.  So Sat. bring your chairs and a picnic dinner and enjoy music under the trees.  You can even bring your puppies.  :)

Sawdust Festival 2011

Just some fun shots of the trees at the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach this year.  Each tree was adorned with either a knit or crocheted legging.

They were made by the Laguna Beach Fiber Guild.  A great venue to show off their work!

Music Interpretation - Student Work

Isn't this beautiful?  Junior Jaimee Chirico designed this piece in my Advanced 2-d class to the music of Cold Play.  She got to choose her music and but I chose her media: monoprint, collage and oil pastel.

Fantastic job Jaimee!

7th Grade Collage Boxes

My fourth quarter 7th grades have so much fun working on these tissue paper collaged boxes.  They pick a color scheme to work in and we use recycled tissue.  They are also required to add some text for interest.  These two boxes were done by Eric Lee and Alejandra Perez.  Great work you young ones!