I'm a CZT!

Back from Massachusetts and the Certified Zentagle Teacher training seminar hosted by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, the creators and founders of Zentangle, Inc.  They are the loveliest people and two of the most gifted artists it has ever been my privilege and honor to meet.  I am now a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) and am excited to already have a class scheduled through the Hampton Arts Commission in June.  You can learn more about Zentangle here and you can see and purchase Maria's incredible botanical prints and calligraphy here.  If you live in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia and want to know more about Zentangle, shoot me an e-mail.  I'm a CZT!

I really didn't mean to look so goofy - I was just so excited!

Swaparoo!

Finally!  The "Made For You Swaparoo" swap ended last week, and just as I was getting ready to post pictures of the awesome goodies I received in the swap, Blogger went down!  Stayed up as late as I could waiting for it to come back up, but we had to leave at 3 am to go out of town for 4 days, so ANYWAY I'm finally getting around to posting about this amazing and totally fun swap!

Jessica Ocasio from New Jersey was my swap partner and she has the coolest site - www.cutyourheartout.com.  She sent me some really beautiful things and one kinda' creepy but very fun thing!

The necklace of sage green and rose cabochons on a silver chain looks like it was made to go with a new top I have - it's like she was watching me shop!  The black filagree earrings are my husband's favorite - he LOVES to see me in what he calls "dangly earrings" and these black ones go with everything from jeans and casual wear to my little black dress.

Jessica also made these gorgeous cards - wish the picture could show more details - they really are lovely.  Even the round blue box all these items were gift-wrapped in is handmade.  SO pretty - blue and silver.

Now the skull!  How cute is he?  I laughed out loud when I saw him.  I grew up in Texas and the whole "Day of the Dead" thing was part of our Tex-Mex culture, so he has a prominent place on a shelf in my studio as does the pretty blue box - perfect size for all those tiny things that tend to get away if they're not corralled.  Jessica, thank you SO much!  I love all my goodies!  And thank you so much to the Swaparoo hosts!  What a great online party!

I Went to a Garden Party!

The theme of Art & Soul this year was "In the Garden" and there was a hat contest.  Everyone was given the same plain straw gardening hat and told to alter it any way we wanted to.  Here's mine:

Another day at Art & Soul

Yes, I am running out of steam, but not enthusiasm.  This has been another great Art & Soul retreat.  Today I took a class from the amazing and gifted Pam Carriker.  The class was called "Arcimboldo Style Self Portrait" and that's exactly what we created - self portraits in the style of the 16th century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo.  His work was considered bizarre in his day - and many still think it's strange - but it's lots of fun.  He created portraits by painting fruits, vegetables, fish and other organic items to form the features of the model.  We were instructed to come prepared with images of things we like to eat, see, hear, listen to and think about as well as a black and white profile photo of ourselves. We went through several steps to transfer a line drawing of the photo onto watercolor paper, then began to fill in with the images we'd brought.  Then there was some painting, some glazing, some other steps and we were done!  Here's mine:

Kathy's "Arcimboldo Style" self-portrait

Here are a couple of other tags from Lesley Venable's classes that I forgot to include in yesterday's posting.  The one on the left is a transfer done with plastic wrap; the one on the right is a transfer done with Contact paper.  Remember, these were technique classes - we were learning techniques, so this is not supposed to be a finished art project.  Very cool techniques, very easy to do and tons of fun.

Saran Wrap transfer on the left; Contact paper transfer on the right