This week's Wednesday Stamper theme is "brown combo". The challenge is to use brown in your background, and add another, or other, colors and something stamped. The page above is one of many that I created last weekend during Kelly Kilmer's wonderful workshop at the Frenzy Stamper in Scottsdale, AZ. It's a prepped background for a future art journal, so it's unfinished, or, in it's second life as a finished page (with it's first life in its background stage). The first color laid down was burnt sienna, and others followed. I wish I could credit the three stamps used in this piece, but I don't own them, and I can't remember their names or the manufacturers.
The Workshops
At the very last minute on Friday night I found out that I would be able to attend both of Kelly's Saturday workshops, back to back, and I got to spend a glorious day from 10AM to 7PM with only a short lunch break--we ordered-in so we could continue working--and one quick FUN trip to the Scottsdale location of Sprinkles of Beverly Hills...the gourmet, designer cupcake shop! Here we all are (that's me, far right) inside the shop! I must admit that the lemon and ginger cupcake I chose was way to sweet for my taste, and my daughter Amy and her friend Sasha split the second half of it between them and decided they'd had enough sugar in just the quarters that they ate! There were mixed reviews, but it seems that everyone who had the chocolate-peanut butter combo loved it! I ate way too many Reese's peanut butter cups one Halloween many years ago, and still cringe when I think of it, so I'll just take everyone's word for it! 
When we returned to Frenzy, Kelly noticed this heart shape in the lot behind the store....it seems that when I dumped the water from my first round of acrylics, it dried in a very artiphy-ing shape...all by itself...coincidence?? I certainly didn't plan it that way...so Kelly had me shed my flip-flops and she photographed my feet with the heart.
For more pics of our weekend, click HERE and take a peek at Kelly's blog! Also, take a look HERE at the workshop pics on Frenzy's blog!
Needless to say, we did LOTS in all those hours of work. Here are 12 and 4/5 backgrounds I created. And this is not all we did. These are simply the EXTRAs!
Other backgrounds ended up as prepped pages--their destinies earmarked for future art journals. Take a peek here! This is the group of prepped pages that my Wednesday Stamper piece was taken from:
We spent the final couple of hours binding together a funky/chunky book. Here's mine, both open and closed.
All of the pages are slightly different shapes and sizes, and some of them fold back like flaps. The content will determine itself as time goes by, but for now, the pages, in and of themselves are little works of art!
Now I'm off to create more, and have some fun adding to these!
And one last thing: If you look closely, you will notice that one of my background pages in the first slide has a rectangle cut from it. This piece formed the backdrop for the shadowbox canvas I designed for today's This Thursday It's All About... challenge, and you can see it by clicking HERE. The theme this week is "the spooky season", so if you're so inclined, come and join us!
Have a great day, Everyone!
Looks like you had a very productive weekend. good job
Posted by: Barbara | October 09, 2008 at 05:16 PM
Hey Barbara,
It was great seeing you in class!!!!
The stamps are from Hot Potatoes :)
LOVE the artwork!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: kelly | October 09, 2008 at 05:20 PM
What a cool heart!! It sounds like you had fun!
:-)
Sherry
Posted by: Sherry Wescott | October 09, 2008 at 09:28 PM
Wow Barbara extraordinary page.
Fanatstic.
Posted by: Sandy | October 09, 2008 at 09:36 PM
Wonderful page, Barbara!
Posted by: Willy | October 10, 2008 at 02:49 AM
Wow!! What a feast for the eyes! LOve those backgrounds... in fact I love it all and how I envy you! Workshops always seem to be so serious here - no idea why?
Nice to 'meet' you - I love that white streak in your hair. Accident or design? (aren't I just too nosey?) I'm going to look at Kelly's site too. I love the stamp that looks like an architectural dandelion clock... I could go on... and on... you know me!!
Posted by: Rosie | October 10, 2008 at 07:11 AM
All the backgrounds look great!!
Posted by: Hermine | October 10, 2008 at 07:52 AM
you cant beat getting together with your arty friends and eating chocolate whilst doing art. Love that heart puddle and great backgrounds will save you time in the future. Looks like you all had great fun..deffo a day for you all to remember.
Posted by: lorraine | October 10, 2008 at 04:16 PM
Great work!
Posted by: Tania | October 11, 2008 at 03:42 AM
Sounds like you had a great time hun and so unusual the heart shape your work is fantastic well done xxxxx
Posted by: carolann | October 14, 2008 at 07:30 AM