Leslie Wood's Vintage Arts

Heat and Hydrangeas

Am I in Phoenix again?  Nope,  just a heat wave in June in Alabama.  So what do we do?  Go to an outdoor gem and mineral show and art show near Birmingham.  You know it's hot when the stones your looking at are too hot to touch.  Here is a picture of John, Kathy, my mom, Willard, and Phil at the Aldridge Botanical Gardens in Hoover.  Even the hydrangeas looked hot. 

More Circus Collages

I made more Circus collages this past weekend.  Now maybe it's out of my system. ha

Repousse

This weekend Phil had a golfing weekend in North Carolina with his golfing buddies, so I got to have myself a full weekend of jewelry making.  So I played around with soldering. And i played around with doming and then did my first attempt at repousse.  I can't say my pieces were any where near where I wanted them to be, but I'm happy with my first attempts.  My hands are now black and will smell of metal until tomorrow.  Ah, the joys of metalworking.

Girls and Dolls

Kim Logan's tiny little pocket-ful book was so cute and fun to work in.  Her theme centered around children, so I found some pictures of girls with their dolls.  I never much played with dolls personally.  I was more of a block/hotwheels girl...  but there were a few dolls I liked.

Black and White

Time for another round robin, this one the Colors and Lauren Finley's Black and White book.  Lauren made a beautiful book and the work in it is amazing!!!  So that and the lack of color, really stumped me - especially after that crazy circus class that is still rolling around in my head.  So I sat on my page here for a while and finally let it go and finished it this weekend.  I hope Lauren likes it.

Whimsical Landscapes

I just finished my paintings for Karyn Gartel's online class Mixed Media Landscapes.  I got super behind in lessons and had to play catch up.  And I didn't venture much past what she did (-:   But it was a fun class.  And I enjoyed the pace and lack of pressure you get from an online class.  Thanks Kathy Mc for telling me about them.

Karen's Colors Book

I just love Karen Owen's green and brown book she has going around for the Colors Round Robin.  Green is my favorite color, so working in it was a pleasure.

Circus Circus

Wow, been a while since i posted.  I guess my excuse is the Art and Soul retreat that I went to a few weeks ago.  It was fun but exhausting and I'm just now getting some pictures of things I did there.  One of my favorite classes and most dreaded, was Julianna Coles Extreme Visual Jounaling class 'Circus Circus'.  I had heard people either love her cl asses or hate, hate, hate them.  And while I don't think I went into the deep areas some people go, for me it was a visual journey and a technique freeing one.  The project was a big book of postcards centered around different circus stories.  I've posted some pictures of my Big Top book here.  Since there are so many images I'm making a slide show of the rest.   Of course my other favorite part of going to Art and Soul is seeing all the other divas and friends I have made there!

Cold Connections Class

And if I wasn't busy enough with my round robins, online class, and upcoming Art and Soul Retreat, I decided to add another class to my schedule.  This time it was basic cold connections metalsmithing from a wonderful local artist Connie Ulrich, http://www.connieulrich.com/.  And the class did not disappoint.  It was a 2 day workshop in beautiful Taft, Tennessee.  Here are the pieces I made.  The round coin piece was modeled after one of Connie's samples based on a penny quilt design of one of her older friends.

Mini Calendar Round Robins

I finished my April and May mini calendar round robin this week.  It feels good to be a little ahead given my busy next few weeks. The first calendar is for Lisa's Cat Calendar and the second is Nancy's Frank Lloyd Wright.