Coming up this weekend - the SE Area Art Walk

For the fourth year in a row, I will be kicking off the season by participating in the SE Area Art Walk, a free self-guided tour of studios, galleries, host homes and businesses in Southeast Portland.

I will be hosted this year at Mirador, a very cool store full of items for kitchen, home, and health, plus lots of groovy gift items, located at 2106 SE Division.

The event is this weekend - Saturday and Sunday, March 1 and 2, from 10 am - 5 pm both days.

You can download maps to help plan your visits to the 52 locations that will be open and displaying art. I am #16 on the map. Trillium Artisans is also participating - they are #25 on the map. Sounds like a lot of walking? Never fear - this year, Eco Shuttle will be offering a shuttle service!

If you are in Portland, come out and enjoy this fun event and get inspired by the work of more than 90 local artists. I will have mandalas, coloring books, and a new line of painted record cuffs featuring more subtle, sophisticated designs. Mirador will also be a "chalk station" so come do some sidewalk chalk art with us!

Here's a picture from the 2006 Art Walk - that's me with my hosts, Rick and Cynthia (both awesome artists too):

Little hands create beautiful mandalas

This week, my Cool School classes at Duniway Elementary started up again. Once again, I am teaching a school newspaper class (creating an issue of the Duniway Dragonian) and we are doing yet another mandala mural on the wall down by the music room!

This mural class is for younger kids (first - third graders) so you can imagine how delighted and impressed I was to see what beatiful mandalas they designed. Each kid is creating an individual mandala on paper so they will have something to work on while waiting for their turn to paint. These will be painted with watercolors and hung all around the finished mural.
While the kids were working on their individual mandalas, they also all took turns working on a group mandala design on a larger piece of paper. I used a variety of old drum heads and records to create several concentric circles on the paper to act as guidelines for the design. Starting in the center, the kids each had a chance to add their own layers of patterns.

I took this large paper to Kinko's and had it reduced down to fit on an 8.5" x 11" transparency, which I then projected onto the wall and traced it with a pencil. The design is now on the wall and ready for the kids to start painting it next week! Stay tuned for more photos as this project progresses.

By the way, if you live in the Portland area and are interested in my children's art classes, please visit the DIY Lounge website for information about my upcoming Saturday morning kids' art workshops!

Let the sun shine in!

Oh, how I love my new camera! I spent some time yesterday photographing my Mandala Suncatchers in the window, and they came out great. I kept wishing for a little more blue sky, and as I continued to work, I got my wish! I love how the shadows of the clouds can be seen through the mandalas.I am busy listing bunches of these in my shop - take a look! My Mandala Suncatchers ($10) have a lovely glow when the sun lights them up, and they also make you happy on a cloudy day.

True Blue

Something Borrowed, Something Blue is currently featured in two treasuries at the same time!

The Dartgun sessions

The other night we had a pro photographer (Cameron Browne - he shoots the Blazers - yeah!) over to take pictures of the band. I took some pictures too! I couldn't use my flash because the photographer had lots of fancy auto-flashes set up throughout the room which caused my pictures to be much too bright. So above you see Chuck in the natural redness of the band room.

I had to take pictures of him taking pictures, of course.

Here are the Vignettes - myself, Suzie, and Kat:
The reason for the photography? Well, we're making a record! The next day we went into Dig Studio for a ten-hour recording session.

Here are a few choice shots! Unfortunately there was no time for backup vocals so we girls will have to go in another day to do our part. We had fun anyway.





So there you have it. The new record by Dartgun is in the works!

Record Cuffs get some Recycled Eco Treasury Love

I'm so glad I joined the EcoEtsy team! They are an awesome group of sellers who are spreading the word about the importance of living a greener life. Plus, they get lots of treasuries! One of them was on the front page of Etsy the other day. Today, I found the above lovely list with my Tchaikovsky record cuff. And this one, called "Green Doesn't Mean Boring," features Wild Wine.


Also, my Basic Black record cuff has gone to "recycled heaven":
Green is totally the new black, folks.

In the studio...

I have two big wholesale orders that I am working on right now - one of them is for a great store in Berkeley, CA called Treehouse Green Gifts, and the other is for a gentleman in Montreal who is getting ready to open an upcycled-arts gallery. In total, it's about 40 records worth of Eye Pop Art. I am doing my best to get these cranked out so I can focus on creating new pieces for the upcoming SE Area Art Walk. Plus the band is going into a REAL studio this weekend to make our own record! And my Cool School classes at Duniway start up in a couple of weeks as well (I'll be doing another mural painting class, and continuing to be the advisor for the school newspaper, the Duniway Dragonian).

Busy, busy, busy! When I have this much going on, I sometimes invite my friends over to help me paint. I was so glad that Melodie was able to put in a couple of hours of pure YELLOW.
I had already drawn the design out so she just had to look at a picture of the finished product and go for it. I still have to fill in more areas and do the black outline and everything, but it is just so great to have a little bit of extra help!
This is about what my workspace looks like right now:Oh, by the way - I just noticed that I have surpassed 100 blog posts! Yay for me! So, is anybody reading this? Leave me a comment and let me know you're there!!!

TV personalities

This is Grace and Tangereen with the hosts of AM Northwest, Dave Anderson and Helen Raptis.

We had a great time doing our live printmaking project and it was so exciting to come home and get to watch the video online!

Click here to watch us make some cool Valentine's Day cards!