House of Grace with Kristen Robinson

Dusty DeHaven, the Smittendust maven, has done it again -- she's brought in a four-star mixed media teacher to share her knowledge with mid-Michigan students.

Kristen Robinson is known for her work that is often featured in Somerset Studio. She taught a series of classes this week. I attended the one called "House of Grace."

This is a photo of Kristen's class example.

What a blast. Our kit included three small wooden houses. After we primed them, we got into making molds.

This is seriously easy, fun and therapeutic! (We used Susan Lennart Kazmer's molding materials.) We all had brought jewelry and other bits to mold with and boy, was it fun!

Then we turned those molds into embellishments with paper clay. Lots of embellishments!

Kristen was such a fun teacher -- she didn't just know her stuff. .She conveyed it well -- and along the way was just so darned delightful, by the time I left five hours later, I felt like I'd known her all my life!

After we painted our houses, we worked on painting our embellishment. The heart was part of our kit (we couldn't paint what we did till they dry.) And then we antiqued them and our houses, and added beeswax and resin.

Finally, they all went together. This is my almost-done house.It still needs a little love near the top and journaling on the sides.

And here are the works in progress.

Of course, classes like this are more than the learning. We get to see old friends. I've known Joanne (below) from close to my beginning blogging days.And I got to meet Jill, with whom I've been doing the drawing challenge (along with Joanne). Finally, a face with the name!

Who would imagine something so cute could come from pieces of clay and wood?

I also learned about a couple of products I've never worked with before -- these watercolor crayons (softer than watercolor pencils) and something called gel stain, which we used in the antiquing.

Thanks to Dusty, whose mission of bringing excellent teachers to mid-Michigan is her passion. 

She also makes one heck of a great name tag!

Fun at the Folk Festival

One of mid-Michigan's greatest treasures is the Great Lakes Folk Festival. Held every August (on my birthday weekend, I might add -- a party for me!), this event combines music and traditions from not only all over the U.S. but the world.

You'll hear Cajun, Quebecois, Celtic, string bands, polka, blues, gospel and much more.And along the way, you'll see traditional crafts and skills. Boat building, fishing, farming -- the heritage is covered as well. It's a big enough event that WKAR was broadcasting live, interviewing mid-Michigan folk guru Bob Blackman.

I wasn't at my best for the festival this year -- having your wisdom teeth pulled does that to a person! But we really enjoyed Michigan favorite Joel Mabus, who tells a story as well as he sings!

I was less fond of this year's Cajun group, Les Bassettes, but others enjoyed them.

However, I very much liked the bluegrass group Clear Fork from Chardon, Ohio. They were lively -- strong singers, great musicians!

It was fun to watch caller Bob Stein try to arrange close to 200 people into contra and square dances.

It got a little unruly, and yet everyone was having so much fun dancing, I don't think anyone cared!

There were two Quebecois groups --Les Poules a Colin, which opened the festival .and Dentelion. (Members of "Les Poules" included some of the younger members of the Dentelion band.) Dentelion, made up of musicians from two families, rocked the crowd with wonderful music.

We went to see them twice and the second time had a better seat so you could really see their fingers move across the strings! Claude was the leader on fiddle and vocals...

Dana took accordion and sometimes guitar...

And had a mean pair of feet! They moved faster in one place than mine can go walking!

After the first performance, Rick and I met three of the band members in the street. There was Denise (who knew of Torch Lake!)...

...Beatrix...

...and Colin.

They were warm, friendly and so nice! Rick and I plan to visit their town next summer when Rick rides his bike to Newfoundland. (Don't ask... that's a whole future post!)

Another performer we loved was Cathie Ryan, an Irish American singer, originally from Detroit.

She was a wonderful storyteller and pretty amazing musician, too.

Her fiddler had been with the original NYC company of Riverdance. Together, with the guitarist who was only doing his second gig with them, they had the audience enchanted and often singing along.

We saw Cathie Ryan twice also and each time was different, each time terrific.

I really wish I'd posted about past festivals earlier so those in Michigan could make it a point to get here. This isn't your Peter, Paul and Mary folk festival -- it's music from around the world -- and so much more!

So, thanks, MSU Museum, for bringing this festival to mid-Michigan! A round of applause for you!

Good Things In Life

It's been a pins and needles summer for me, even when I try to hide it. Unseasonably cool weather, oral surgery, waiting for results from my medical re-testing and wrapping up things at WKAR as I anticipate retirement last month. Life in retirement will be easier with social security! 

 

I'm 62! Better discounts, more flexibility, looser schedule on the horizon.

I'm also scared to death!

But, amidst all that, there are plenty of good things in life. I've been thinking about a few things for which I'm very grateful. Like Lizzie Cosette.

She'll be adopted a full year a bit after Labor Day and she's mellowed (most of the time) into a pretty delightful cat.

She's even a good traveler, though you wouldn't know it from this photo!

There's Rick's garden, giving off its harvest in spurts to spread the joy.

And his delicious homemade bread. He improves with every loaf!

There is an abundance of beauty and I'm loving this summer's flowers.

Lovely summer dinners on the patio -- good wine, good food.

And good music. I loved spending my birthday weekend at the Great Lakes Folk Festival. This is Irish-American singer Cathie Ryan. I'll post more about this event soon.

Rick used flowers instead of tissue-paper frou-frou in my birthday bag and I felt lucky that he would care enough to take the time to be extra creative!

I have wonderful friends and family, great blog buddies and no matter what happens later this month, I know I will be all right. Because really, I have enough of the good things in life to make even the challenges a little easier. 

Even a purr therapist!

Thank you.

Art Catch Up

I am way behind on my art challenge drawings, but I had time to do a few on vacation -- and a few NOT part of the challenge. Like this one, from a photo taken at the Tuileries.

The subject for this was "Over There" -- taken from one of my photos from the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.

"Cool" was done straight from life, sitting on my beach at the lake -- sigh!

"Small Pleasures" is a piece I started LONG ago -- a peek at a window with its delicate lace curtains. You will never know how I struggled with this -- it just looked blah.

Then I read Vivian Swift's "Le Road Trip" and noticed she had made her lace curtains by making the background VERY dark and then the white tracery of the lace actually showed up. I tried it here using a white marker for the lace and while my work will never look like Vivian's -- it is a start. (You'll learn a ton about painting at her terrific blog with a weekly painting lesson!)

"Flowers" is neither from life nor drawing nor photo. It is from my brain as I was playing this week. I may cut this into pieces for bookmarks.

 

Try this version of "Flowers" instead -- sunflowers from a photo taken at one of last summer's farm markets!

For "Hunger Pangs" I went back to the France photos. I had been so motivated by the beautiful macarons Carol draws in her Paris Breakfasts blog. I had to try.

Somehow Carol's look like macarons. Mine look like pink blobs. But I still had hunger pangs! Here is the original.

"Wishful Thinking" again finds me in France -- this time in Giverny at the famed bridge. I don't know HOW I was able to get this photo without people in it!

Here's how it translated to my drawing.

 

Here are a few others -- the problem children, I call them.

 

The one above was my neighbor's little well (actually it is a faux well that hides some sort of outdoor thing). As you can see, I was having trouble with the perspective as I hit it from an odd angle that I just couldn't make right.

 

This one is from the Medici Fountain in Paris -- a tight shot of the sculpture. Oddly, the woman on the left looks like a man, and the man on the right looks like a woman, specifically like my mother. I think it looks more like a woman holding a child instead of her man. Try again (although I like it in its own way, just so long as I don't think about what it really is!).

 

And this one is from some photo I nabbed and for the life of me can't remember where! It's not so bad. I'm thinking the path leading to the beach at Myrtle Beach.

I call the one above "Road Trip."
It was done from this photo as we drove through Normandy several years ago.

Well, I'm caught up! What's next? Wait and see!