Donna Kato's Squash Blossom Class

Finally finished the awesome necklace Donna Kate showed us how to make in her Clay Carnival class. Donna is a great teacher and very calm and thorough in her directions and tips. Her class was lots of fun and she does a great job organizing the Clay Carnival. She has opened the registration for the 2012 classes, so if you are interested, check out: Clay Carnival.blogspot.com, or craftedu.com
This necklace received a number of compliments when worn. I tried to make earrings to go with it, and finally finished them too. After wearing them for about an hour, my ears said "no more". The weight was too much. The top pieces have now been turned into mini pendants for friends. The lower pieces are still earrings and echo the elements on the pendant.

Leslie Blackford's Class

Finally unpacked stuff from the November Clay Carnival. Eight months is a long time to let things go but I have hardly been home long enough to to do much other then unpack, clean up and repack to leave again. Much has happened, from the death of my step father in PA, while I was at Clay Carnival, my mother's deteriorating health, moving to Whidbey Island from San Diego, and the death of my dad (also in PA) in March. For a while it felt like my life wasn't my own, but now things are settling down and I finally have finished a few things from the Clay Carnival classes.

Here are a couple of photos from Leslie Blackford's class. Her work is intimate, precious sweet and sometime a bit dark and always a pleasure to see and touch. I loved her class because it allowed more flexibility to create. She is a fun teacher and if you have the chance to take a workshop with her sometime, do it! Check out her work here:

moodywoods.deviantart.com

In her workshop, we made a jack-in-the-box type project. We created a variety of animals (or objects) on little springs, and glued them to the inside bottom of little lidded boxes. Here are a few of the boxes we created. Meeting the people in the classes was great, but unfortunately their names escape me now, other then Debbie from Australia (for obvious reasons).

                                                   Cute Little Love Bird

                                                          Frog Prince

                                                             Pirate Cat

                                                    My little box with friend

                                                         
                                                            Bird and friend

Art on Whidbey

Whidbey Island is a pretty place that inspires artists who visit or live here. One gathering spot for local artists is The Pacific Northwest Art School, formerly known as the Coupeville Art Center, where I used to work. They held their annual volunteer dinner a couple weeks ago. There were lots of familiar faces, good food, and Artists in Action. One of the Artists in Action was Cartoonist and caricature artist Milt Priggee.

In the course of about two hours he enthusiastically drew about two dozen caricatures. He seemed to capture the essence of the person quickly and with only a few marks. Do you recognize the one below? I am going to use it on my blog and web site.
Check out Milt's web site www.miltpriggee.com. You will have fun wondering through all the cartoons he has posted there from many years of work.

The Move

Happy New Year!
You probably wondered what happened to this blog, since nothing has been posted for quite a while. First, I was away at Clay Carnival, and while there, my stepfather died. That let to 6 weeks with my mother on the east coast. Since returning, I've been packing for our move back to Whidbey Island. The movers come tomorrow. Yikes!
We will miss our terrific friends and beautiful San Diego, but you can see it is pretty up there too.
Once we are settled, I'll post some of the work from Clay Carnival.

View from our house

Deception Pass

Deception Pass Bridge

Rosario Beach