Art catch up

There's so much to catch up on, I'm not going to try to do it all in one post. :)

First, in bellydance arts news, I hosted the incredible Jill Parker here in Morgantown, June 12th and 13th. OMG! Wow! I'm still blown away a month later!!!! She is my biggest bellydance influence by far and I am just amazed every single time I have the honor to learn from and spend time with her. Last year around the same time (early June) I attended an immersion with her in D.C. and could write a book about how profound the experience was. This year, having her at my house and getting to spend more time with her- I just don't have the words. Maybe you can guess. :)

Moving quickly on to mixed media arts- I was chosen to be in the Art Chix top 10 of the month gallery again!!! Hooray!!! I'm so excited!!!!http://www.artchixstudio.com/shop/gallery_top10.html If you scroll down and see this,

then you've found my piece! :)

Why has Blogger decided everything needs to be underlined again? And why can't I figure out how to change it? :-P

I taught a collage workshop arranged and organized by Kali ! It was my first collage workshop! I'm very excited to have been able to do it and we had so much fun!!! We're planning another around Christmas time in Charleston, WV. I find it pretty interesting that I was still teaching primarily bellydancers, just a different form of creative expression. :)

I'll post what I've finished from that workshop as soon as I get some pics/scans. :)

For now, since I have these pics on my computer already, I'm going to post a few things I made beforehand. These are Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) I made in response to Art Chix's "recycled tea packaging" blog challenge. All focal images are from Art Chix.

Background is an insert from inside the box, sponged with ink and glued to Art Chix pre-cut watercolor ATC base.. The sheer teal material at the bottom is a tea bag (emptied, rinsed and dried) that I inked and sprayed with an iridescent mica spray. Collage image: Fairy Post sticker sheet

This one I did once the challenge was expanded to include food packaging. I had been saving the cookie bags from Angelo's Starbuck's treats and used one in this background. Crumpled the bag, opened, ran a Distress (Ranger) inkpad over it and glued to Art Chix pre-cut watercolor ATC base. Sheer material is tea bag and the star was punched from the packaging that held the tea bag. Image from "My Precious Pet".

This background is also "cookie bag" glued to Art Chix pre-cut watercolor ATC base., sheer teal material= tea bag. Stars the other side of the tea bag packaging. Art Chix images: "Back in Black" and "Flights of Fancy".

Oh, the mermaid! :) I stamped the mermaid image onto tea bag and colored with colored pencils. I glued some of the images from Art Chix "Beachy Paper Dolls" directly to the pre-cut watercolor ATC base which I scribbled with multiple colors of watercolor crayons and went over with a very damp brush, then attached the mermaid on tea bag material, then added the starfish. I kind of think the layering makes it look like the scene is more like what you see underwater, because some of it isn't as clear. I (and Eric) thought the fibers I put around the edge looked like seaweed. It was between this and some sparkly stuff. I don't often ask for Eric's input on these projects (mostly, I'm not sure he's all that interested. Very supported, but I don't know about interested. ;) , but he mirrored what I was thinking, so that was that. :)

Notice that nothing's underlined anymore. I didn't do that. Anyone else driven batty by Blogger like this? Is it just me? *shrug*

OK, I'm going to leave the rest for a few other posts. :)