Merry Ho Ho

and a Happy New Year to all our blog followers.
Thanks for taking the time to visit with us.

Paper Cloth & Foam Embellishments

Our December FOG session was a stimulating one. We were working with our paper cloth, or fabric paper (whichever term you like) from Diane’s demo at our November session, and using it as the background of our art piece. Pat came with hers virtually completed, but the rest of us were still busy working by lunch break. 

Completed Paper Cloth/Fabric Paper Samples

We spent the afternoon making Fun/Craft Foam embellishments. Yes, even though that sounds rather hokey, they really do turn out great. In a nutshell, you heat up your Fun/Craft Foam with a heat gun, press a rubber stamp into it until it cools and voilà, you have an embellishment ready for painting, inking, or colouring by other means. The harder red rubber stamps with simple, deeply etched designs seem to work the best.

We discovered that we could heat the foam sheets and run it through the dry embossing machine (Sizzix) to impress the image. This opens up a plethora of possibilities for designs. We also cut some shapes out of the foam, folded over the top (around a knitting needle), carefully heated the foam and impressed it. This makes a rather nice pendant, especially painted with the Lumiere paints.

Fun with Fun Foam

 We also discovered that not all Fun/Craft Foam is created equal. The thicker the Fun/Craft Foam, the better the impression of the stamp, or embosser. We were really churning them out and didn't get a lot of time to paint, ink or colour them. (Lumiere paint by Jacquard is the best for some metallic or pearlescent colour).

January Challenge

In fact, we were so enamoured with our efforts that we have decided to use the woman’s face for our January challenge, the start of an ongoing art journal project. Can’t wait!

Thornhill Branch

Well, we finished our last Inspired Art Journal session with the Calgary Public Library at the Thornhill Branch.  We had a very energetic group and they were all very creative with their journal pages. It is so inspiring to see people jump in, be creative and want to continue on when they leave.  We have certainly had great support from the library staff for these sessions and we are glad we were able to be a part of the One Book One Calgary event.

Thornhill Branch Journalers

We are happy to announce that we will be leading a Fibre Arts session in the Spring at the Calgary Public Library, Central Branch downtown. We'll post further details as we approach that time.

Glenmore Square Branch

Christina won the Eco-Journal

Our second to last Inspired Journal session based on the Book of Awesome was held on Thursday at the Glenmore Square Branch tucked away in the corner of a small shopping mall. The group was lively and enthusiastic and jumped right in trying out some new found hand lettering skills and decorating their pages.

Glenmore Square Branch

Our final session of the Inspired Journals will be held next Saturday, November 24 at the Thornhill Branch  from 10:30 - 12:00. Sign up on line at the Calgary Public Library. 

The Book of Awesome - Inspired Art Journals

We've completed two of the four sessions of Inspired Art Journals at the Calgary Public Library for the One Book, One Calgary programs based on The Book of Awesome by Canadian author Neil Pasricha.

The first was at the newly opened Bowness branch in the NW and the Southwood branch in the SW. Participants were shown a number of mixed media techniques to decorate their journals and discovered that with a few white dots and some black dashes that their own handwriting was quite cool! We also wowed them with heat embossing with embossing powders and our industrial strength heat guns! Fortunately we didn't set off the fire alarms this time!

Bowness Library

Southwood Library

There are still two sessions of Inspired Art Journals remaining. November 15 at Glenmore Square and November 24 at Thornhill. You can register at the Calgary Public Library site.

Each participant is given a wonderful journal courtesy of the Calgary Public Library. For a $12 per year library membership fee these adult programs are a real bargain!

Arts Club @ the Library

Jan and I have just returned from the Saturday Arts Club at the Central Library in downtown Calgary where we gave a 2 hour workshop called Mixed Media Madness. A small, but enthusiastic group of participants learned to paint canvas boards with a credit card, use rubber stamps, embossing powder and a heat gun, and embellish their canvas with a mixture of die cuts, tissue napkins and buttons, all adhered with a healthy dollop of Mod Podge. Our theme for the session was Nature.

Many thanks to Candace at the library for all her help. Candace even dove in and started on a panel for herself. Thanks also to Scott Gerlitz, Financial Adviser for Edward Jones Financial for being our very first Patron of the Arts and giving FOG a grant to purchase art supplies for these sessions at the library.

Arts Club Participants and Their Finished Canvas

Encaustic Update

As promised last week, some photos of the encaustic projects we worked on at our last FOG session. Arlene took the more painterly approach and the rest of us did mixed media collage. As you can see our styles are quite different. I'm sure that there are more projects in the works.

Untitled - Jan S.

Untitled - Arlene W.E.

Serenity - Meredith H.

Just a Little Cog - Diane D.