September's Solo Exhibit at the Studio: Tom Townsley

Tom Townsley

This month's solo exhibit at Studio PK101 is Tom Townsley! 

Tom Townsley is an artist of many talents.  Besides being well-known as a phenomenal Blues artist and the host of "The Sunday Night Blues Show" on WAER-FM (Syracuse,NY), Tom is also a painter as well as a writer. 

His solo exhibit being shown this month at Studio PK101 is an outstanding abstract series and is titled, " Excavations". 
Tom says -

"For me, each canvas becomes, in the process of working, like an excavation site. Whether I'm painting an abstract piece or portrait, I try to unearth something hidden in both the subject matter and myself."

The exhibit can be seen through September 27, 2015 at Studio PK101*. There is a reading of Tom's new work from "Reading the Empty Page" on Weds. September 16 at 7pm. 

Want to know more about the many talents of Tom Townsley? 

* See him in action on Youtube "Shake Your Bootie"
* You can find him on Facebook Thomas Townsley  
* There is an excellent interview over at Blues Gr.



* Studio PK101 - 1247 Erie Blvd. West, Rome NY. Hours are Monday and Friday 10-5pm and Saturday and Sunday 1-5pm.


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#100 Days Project - Day 26 (cheating today!)

Taking part in the 100 Day Project with Elle Luna over at The Great Discontent.  We had to come up with our own hashtag to use to describe our 100 days of making - mine is #100daysofochre.

Here's a look at my Day 26:  Tempura Paint on newsprint




Today I am cheating. Though this piece DOES include the color ochre, I did not paint it. This gorgeous piece was created by my 4 year old granddaughter, Tori Sophia. She definitely has talent!

Now that I see what she can do, I'm going to put her to work! LOL

Great News!!

I have great news! I am honored to announce that I am a new instructor on CraftArtEdu.com! 

CraftArtEdu is a unique online craft and fine art e-learning community which offers over 450 classes in 20 different categories. 

My very creative friend, Sherri Stokey of Knot Just Macrame, recommended me.  I am very grateful to her for believing in my talent. 

My first class is FREE and you can access it by Clicking HERE. 








Shelley Graham Turner at CraftArtEdu

CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE. :: Winter Challenge - Week Three

Here's the next link-up party in my challenge series, CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE.  

Every Thursday I will post a prompt which my party guests use to get creative - in ANY medium, in any form, whatever your skill level. JUST CREATE! On the following Tuesday we share our creations. CLICK HERE for more information


This is week three of the WINTER CHALLENGE.
This week's prompt:

Visit our party guests.

An InLinkz Link-up

Tune in again next Tuesday for another link-up party!  Do you want to attend? Just join the facebook group, FABRIC OF MY LIFE!

CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE. :: Winter Challenge - Week Two

Here's the next link-up party in my challenge series, CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE.  

Every Thursday I will post a prompt which my party guests use to get creative - in ANY medium, in any form, whatever your skill level. JUST CREATE! On the following Tuesday we share our creations. CLICK HERE for more information


This is week two of the WINTER CHALLENGE.
This week's prompt:

Visit our party guests.

An InLinkz Link-up

Tune in again next Tuesday for another link-up party!  Do you want to attend? Just join the facebook group, FABRIC OF MY LIFE!

CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE. :: Winter Challenge - Week One

This is the first link-up party in my challenge series, CREATE.SHARE.INSPIRE.  

Every Thursday I will post a prompt which my party guests use to get creative - in ANY medium, in any form, whatever your skill level. JUST CREATE! On the following Tuesday we share our creations. CLICK HERE for more information


This is week one of the WINTER CHALLENGE.
This week's prompt:

Visit our party guests.

An InLinkz Link-up

Tune in again next Tuesday for another link-up party!  Do you want to attend? Just join the facebook group, FABRIC OF MY LIFE!

Trying Something I Saw My Girl Do...

MY 50's snow girl - Roberta Laliberte inspired

I LOVE watching my girl* Roberta Laliberte do her thang. If you haven't seen her work you can check her out on YouTube or visit her blog, Prairie Fairy Designs. SUCH talent!

 * she doesn't know me, but she's my girl, my go-to girl.  She is such an inspiration!

Her work is just scrumptious! Yeah, SCRUMPTIOUS is the perfect word to describe it. It's delicious, and yummy and makes me scrunch up my shoulders and shiver! To watch her start out one place and take things in a whole different direction with a stroke of her paint brush is JUST awe inspiring! It's truly magical!  In the words of George Gwershwin, 

  'S wonderful! 'S marvelous 

'S paradise, so satisfactual

'S what I love to see 

Okay, so you get the picture, right? I want to be her when I grow up, artistically speaking, LOL!

I was watching her one video, The Queen Bee, and it really drew me in. She started her canvas with a magazine clipping and she transformed it. 

It made me remember how as a teen I would use this light thingy I had, sort of like the transparency projector teachers used in school (dating myself). With mine you would place it on top of a photo and project it onto a piece of paper taped to the wall. It wasn't a very clear image but I could get the general outline. I would work off of the outline and sketch in the drawing's details. After using this method for some time I got pretty good at portrait drawings. (Wish I still had some of my old journals. I did some really cool Elton John portraits). 

So I thought, if it worked with drawing maybe using the technique in Roberta's video would improve my painting. I have in the past done something similar where I just embellished a picture or cutout, this time I wanted to try to totally change it up.

Instead of a canvas I worked on a page in my art journal. Being in a winter mood, I began by creating a snowy background. Using a Neo-color crayon and a Gelato I gave it a nice blue base. I then used my hand carved snowflake stamp and added a few falling flakes in silver, blues and white.  

Next I added the star of the show, in this case Julianne Moore, taken from an ad in Elle magazine. 

Looking at her I decided to give her a 50's look. 
(for the record Ms. Moore wasn't born until 1960.)

Using white gesso I painted the shapes to represent her mittens and hat. I also applied clear gesso over her face.








Once that layer was dry it was time for some acrylic paint. I wish I had taken more pictures of the process but I got so 'into' it that I just kept painting. 

I added some texture and pattern to her mittens using modeling paste and a tracing wheel tool, normally used in sewing.

I found the hardest part for me was the shading of her face. I painted layer upon layer, over and over, until I was finally satisfied. This is one of the earlier views (before her mascara)...forehead was a mess!   ( I find it very helpful to take photos and review my progress. It's good to see from a different view other than staring at the actual piece.)

Painting her eyes, nose, teeth and lips wasn't hard at all, actually it was the most fun! It was like applying makeup. (In fact my daughter said she'd love that shade of lipstick herself.)

A touch of color, a bit of white paint to make them pop and then finished it off with a little sketching using Stabilo pencils (both black and white).  










I think I took a few years off of her, what do you think?

I love my finished painting and can't wait to try it again. Crossing my fingers that my painting skills improve. Until next time!

***Roberta has a really cool online class called "Magazine to Masterpiece "- You can get more info HERE.***





PS...  Before you go - please join my facebook group, Fabric of My Life. Think of it as our own art cafe, a place where we can get to know one another, share our work, ask questions, or just shoot the breeze.

Mixing It Up for a Holiday Swap!

My ornaments - Photo by Jill Bradley

I belong to an online bead community called Bead Swap - USA. For the last couple years I have taken part in their annual "Christmas Ornament Swap". My partner this year was my good friend, Jill Bradley.

Jill sent me the most beautiful ornaments (and other goodies!) She had sent me a set of four ornaments so I was able to share with my three daughters. I love the idea of us having the very same ornament on each of our trees!

Goodies: Holiday towels and Tupperware

   

 Isn't it beauiful! 

I love the mix of the red crystal with the bright silver star!

Now it was my turn to create for Jill.

Over the past year I have moved away from my jewelry making to mixed media art. I needed to find a way to incorporate both of these into my ornaments. I went to my go-to for ideas - Pinterest!

I found a great ornament made by one of my favorite mixed media artists, Roberta Laliberte.

The design and the instructions are ALL Roberta's but I am presenting it by showing photos from my process. With that said - 

Here is the first ornament - 

First thing I did was make some of my pretty painted paper. I started with acrylic paint in a pretty palette of purples, yellow, blues, orange and lime green.

Next step is to cut out an outline of the bird from cardboard (2 per bird). Using masking tape I taped the cut-outs back to back.

Next, I stuffed the bird with crumbled paper. More masking tape, making sure to seal around the whole perimeter, closing up every opening.

I put together a small

string of beads (on wire). Added a loop on each end of the wire and then fed it through the body of the bird. I taped around the openings made by the wire. 

Next step was to coat the bird with some black gesso.

Now to dress the bird. I had cut out the painted papers and then I decoupaged them to the bird shape. Added a few more details using rubber and foam stamps, and some of my penwork.

Glued on some seam binding and a little metal doo-dad and done!

I also made up a couple extra ornaments. In my stash I had a few store-bought paper mache pieces from Michael's.

                                    

  
 I decoupaged on some torn pieces of my leftover deli paper. Stamped some more deli paper with the words "Merry" and "Joy" to give them festive messages.

I hope Jill loves them as much as I do hers! 

Happy Holidays everyone.

xxoOh! Shelley

My First JUNK JOURNAL!

Some time ago I joined a new Facebook group called Junk Journal Junkies. I decided to join after viewing a few Youtube videos. There were two artists I really enjoyed viewing. 

The first is Thrifty Lou! Louise is from the U.K. and she is a "hoot"! That is the perfect word to describe her as watching her shenanigans will have you hooting AND hollering with laughter. She has the cutest daughter, named Lottie and together they can make a simple giveaway drawing entertaining as any sitcom on the tellie! LOL. Besides being great fun to watch, Thrifty Lou is a very talented journal maker. Her projects are packed with cool items and she puts a load of love and thought into each one she creates!

Here's one of the very first video I viewed of her's...she had me after this! 

The second artist, Shannon Green, is the total opposite! LOL!  Watching her gave me so many ideas on what to include and where to find goodies, for FREE!

I went right out the next day and began to "gather". I hit up the tourist and info rack at the public library, went to a local hotel for loads of restaurant take-out menus and a few local maps. I also visited the Post Office to grab some free forms and the like. In addition I made a few swaps with other JJJ's and received some REALLY cool items. I have great package Karma (loads of happy mail comes in!!) But I got my most favorite JJ items from two special friends, Lea Avroch (LA Jewelry Designs) - she sent me huge, glossy magazines from NYC and the Hamptons area, AND Solange Collin (Ahowin) - she sent me magazines and newspapers from France! 


Well, I JUST finished creating my first junk journal (JJ). JJ's mean different things to different people. I wanted to incorporate junk mail and other cast off items in mine.  This one I made for the swap called "Use Your Stash Junk Journal"  on FB:Junk Journal Junkies.  
I am swapping internationally so I tried to incorporate items which were local to where I live and/or from the USA.  I used loads of my own painted papers too. My partner loves purple and green (my favs too!) so I threw those in wherever I could. I loved the process and wanted to keep this one but I let it go! (after arguing with myself a bit. LOL)

Here is a summary of my process:

The gatherings...

This is the color palette - she likes the green and purple combo that I love!

And here is the guts - ads, menus, local attractions and news, plus some U.S. goverment issued forms I had laying around.








Here is the front cover - I took a used US Priority flat-rate box and cut it open, lightly sprayed the inside with water, waited for it to soak in and then removed the top layer to reveal the corrugated inner layer. 

I painted on some white gesso, when it dried I used acrylic paint in aqua to stamp some shapes and applied a little purple Gelato to the edges. To the reverse side I used circle daubers in several shades of purple.

These are a few of the pages - 

Leftover W-2 forms from my old job... and a bag we used at the Alzheimer's Assoc. fundraiser we held last week (more on that soon!)












Here's transfer iron-on tissue paper which was included in a old pattern I picked up at a thrift shop.

 


Leftover paint I applied to a page from an old dictionary..also applied some Heidi Swapp epoxy stickers to jazz it up a bit. On the right is a security envelope I got with one bill or another.

An application for a Passport I picked up from the Post Office but didn't use.












A page from a French magazine and a mail flyer from a ministry.

  



Here's a glance at the outer back cover.

I tucked in several goodies (they will remain a surprise) but one other item I tucked in was this tag. I keep a couple of these blanks close to my work area at ALL times. I wipe off my excess paint and inks onto it, wet stencils too! Then I embellish it and add some cool seam binder or other fibers and textiles to give it life.  I ALWAYS love the results. I REALLY, REALLY had to force myself to part with this particular one. The photos are not doing it justice!

 

Want to learn more about the process I used? 

http://youtu.be/1R8vzVyLsLA?list=UUFV7RVT8x5Or8L9F16zlRFA

CLICK HERE to visit my Youtube channel and see many more projects, don't forget to subscribe!

Thanks for stopping by!