carla sonheim

Inspired by Lives and Letters

/ Jodi / 71 Comments

Inspired by Lives and Letters.

I am taking my second-ever online art class.  I was so blown away by the first one I took a few months ago, that when I learned the same artist, Lendon Noe was doing another, I had to join in again.

The class is hosted by another wonderfully-talented artist, Carla Sonheim, who hosts a variety of online art classes.

Lendon (I just love her name, by the way, and especially when she says it with her adorable southern accent) is a mixed media artist, and I have learned so many different techniques and ways to really stretch my artistic talent and creative brain from her.

This class is especially poignant, because it is not just about art for the sake of art, but it is about our art telling a story.

It is about creating art that “communicates.”

It is about  being inspired by the lives of those who are important to us and the letters they have written.

We’ve done some fun things with dying tissue paper and creating plaster pieces (which I’ve shared in some photos here) and then put them together in a way that creates a dialogue (at least to us in some personal way).

We then were tasked with searching for some letters that were important to us.  Lendon has some beautiful letters written by her father to his mother and brother while he was serving in World War II.

Though I don’t have anything that wonderfully poignant, I was able to dig deep into my cedar chest – the same cedar chest Hubby made for me when we were engaged – my “hope chest” that still sits in our bedroom almost 36 years later – and found the very first note he ever wrote to me (one he left on my car at work with a rose asking me out on a first date before he even knew how to spell my name) and another poem he wrote to me 10 days before our wedding.

It might not look like much to you, but I was so excited to give it to Hubby as a gift that I framed it and wrapped it and presented it to him one ordinary day last week.

If you are wondering what the Bingo references are all about, you can read about the beginning of our story here.

Thank you my sweet art and blogging friend Jill Kuhn at Jill’s Art Journal for nudging me into this class.  I am truly Inspired by Lives and Letters.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Autumn Art Sonnet

/ Jodi / 57 Comments

Autumn Art Sonnet.

I recently took my very first online art course at the gentle urging of my blogging friend Jill at Jill’s Art Journal.  Actually it is my first-ever any kind of art course.

The class was hosted on Carla Sonheim’s website and presented by the amazing Lendon Noe.  The short 2-week, 6-session class was on Meaning Making:  Inspired by Poetry.   They were short 20-minute recorded sessions that you could watch at your own pace and at a convenient time for you.

I LOVED it!  I learned so much from Lendon – about art, mixed media, poetry, and even about myself.

My first art love is watercolor, but I loved dabbling into the mixed media world.  And what fun it was to combine my love of words, writing, poetry, watercolor, and stamping.

In my art piece here, the lines are actually an artistic version of a Shakespearean sonnet, where verse is written in a pattern of AB AB CD CD EF EF GG.  You might notice that the lines are repeating in the same pattern.  I used a combination of Sumi Ink, Walnut ink, watercolor, water soluble pencil, and a splash of Dr. Ph Martin’s Iridescent Gold Ink.

I photocopied (directly on my photocopier) a sprig of burning bush leaves and berries from my front yard and gesso‘d it right on top of the “sonnet.”  I drew a trio of leaves directly onto the piece, stamped some patterns and words, and then “scribbled” a collection of autumn words on top with a Pilot Parallel Calligraphy pen.

I woke up early yesterday and created this piece after considering all the things I learned in the class.  It is my little mixed-media sonnet about Autumn.

The air is finally a bit crisp and cooler than it’s been in a long time this weekend. It is really feeling like Autumn.

And Autumn is quickly becoming one of my favorite times of year.  I wonder if it is because I am in the Autumn stage of life too…

Have a wonderful day – whatever season you are in or love.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi