A Joyful Christmas Celebration at Barbara's

 

Oh, what a wonderful day! Our beloved Barbara once again opened her beautiful house and art studio and treated us to a fabulous Christmas luncheon and a special craft session, during which she showed us how to create a peg doll. 

Calendar

January 13 Meeting, (Saturday), 11:30 A.M. at Marcella's. Drop-in social get-together will start at 11:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M. Business meeting will start at 1:30 P.M. The challenge for this month is any creation representing "Winter." 

The Great Christmas Party

We ate, we played, we had so much fun! Some Phoebes brought and handed out little gifts of candy. Some of the members had met and created Christmas poppers that contained treats and trinkets. Barbara also gave us party favors and brought out many of her beautiful craft materials for us to use to dress and decorate wooden clothespins and turn them into tiny one-of-a-kind dolls. It was a luncheon, play day, and party all rolled into one.

Thank you, Barbara, for your generosity, and the time and effort that went into creating a very special Christmas celebration. 

The following photos are of the dolls that were completed during the craft session. We hope the ones that were not quite completed will be brought to the January meeting and photographed for the next blog post. 

"Something Sketchy" with Deb Shatil

Former Phoebe and well-known doll maker and artist Deb Shatil presented a challenging yet fun enrichment session at our November meeting. She brought paper, ink pens, photos to sketch, and her artistic knowledge to inspire us to learn to make sketches by observing our subject matter while not watching our drawing take form. Above she is seen displaying a very successful finished sketch created by Colleen, followed by two more examples completed by Phoebes, shown below.

Deb also brought to the meeting some samples of the tiny cloth-sculptured pins that have brought her much admiration and commercial success over the years. Each one is an original work of art. Thank you so much, Deb, for the opportunity to advance our drawing skills and add your wonderful art to our collections.

Calendar

December 9 Christmas Party, (Saturday) 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. at Barbara's beautiful home and studio. There will not be a business meeting, but there will be a wonderful holiday party with fabulous food and joyful celebration.

January 13 Meeting, (Saturday), 11:30 A.M. at Marcella's. Drop -in social get-together will start at 11:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M. Business meeting will start at 1:30 P.M. The challenge for this month is any creation representing "Winter." 

Show and Tell

Harlene has amazed us again with her fabric embellishment skills. She created this long vest from black fabric and added bits of colorful fabric shapes. She then blocked off many areas with tape and filled in the design areas using Paint Crayons that are oil-based paints for stenciling and made by Stencil Decor, USA. They are similar to Shiva stick crayons and are permanent once they have dried.

Anne is continuing to create beautiful ceramic wall hangers like the face above. 

But, she also took a little diversion to have some fun by designing wild and whacky pieces using ceramic clay and various tins. A great sense of humor that is bound to brings smiles. 

Suzanne R. is dedicated to continuing to string bead bracelets that will be added to the dolls that are dressed and accessorized by the ladies who meet at the Cotton Patch fabric store in Lafayette. 

She also volunteers to pack the gift boxes which will be delivered to terminal children in Kaiser Hospital and George Marks in Oakland. 

Barbara and Betts are currently interested in creating books and samplers made from paper and slow stitched fabrics. They have been attending classes offered by textile artists Anna Corba and Mandy Pattullo, who teach in Sonoma County, USA, and in England. Barbara prefers to glue her pieces together, and her technique and her beautiful workmanship (as seen above and below) has won Mandy's approval.

Betts assembled this lovely creation, and the ones shown below.

Colleen has taken to painting, and her colorful and whimsical designs are wonderful!

Rosie is displaying another sample of the colorful dresses she and her group have been making and donating to "Dress a Girl Around the World."

Using assembly line techniques, group members focus on various steps of the assembly process. Rosie has been sewing on labels and stitching various prints together to make pockets that match the dress fabrics.

Rosie has also been making yoyos to adorn the pockets.  

Rosie is having fun teaching her tube necklace class to her students. This is a beautiful example made in her first class.

Phoebes love to collect dolls made by other artists. I think these were collected by Marcella.

This one, and the one below were collected by Shawn.

Caroline, like many of us, has been making dolls for years. These adorable ones are samples of a very successful design she has sold at art shows and church bazaars.

Donna has been tearing apart the silk and fabric artificial flowers in her stash and removing the hard plastic centers, and then reassembling them with paper centers. That way they will be less bulky to put on cards and send in the mail.

 

Celebrating 36 Years of Phoebe Artistic Creation (Part One)

 

                                  Geri's HALLOWEEN tree.
                                  Happy Halloween to all! 

On October 14 the Phoebes met in Alameda to celebrate their 36th anniversary. Everyone brought delicious food items to contribute, and our serving table was overloaded with delicious appetizers, salads, hot dishes, breads, pastries and desserts.

Daisy brought all the materials needed for everyone to participate in an enrichment session. She demonstrated how to draw the outline of a desired object with oil pastels and then paint in a colorful background using liquid watercolors.

The feast was followed by a huge "show and tell" which included our previous challenges to create "junk journals" (from Sharon's enrichment session) and items representing Autumn, fall holidays, leaves and nature.

*Please note that due to the many photos and text in this month's blog post, it will be comprised of two separate posts. Don't forget to scroll down to part 2 which will follow below this post.

                             Calendar

   November 11 Meeting, (Saturday), 11:30 A.M. at Marcella's. Drop -in social get-together will start at11:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M. Business meeting will start at 1:30 P.M. Guest artist Deb Shatal will be leading enrichment—possibly on "Sketchy Stuff" or another topic to be determined.

December 9 Christmas Party (Saturday) at Barbara's. Time and details will be announced soon.

Enrichment

Above are Jennifer, Suzanne and Colleen—busy drawing and painting as they use the materials Daisy supplied.  

Equally concentrating and creating were Sharon, Anne, Geri, Harlene and Kathy. Below are some of the completed paintings. It's definitely and quick and simple way to create a colorful painting.

Thank you, Daisy!

Show and Tell

Junk Journals

Sharon brought one of her many, many beautiful books. They are all amazing works of art! 

Each page is filled with dainty pastel ephemera. Some pieces create pockets in which to store even more decorated papers.

This book was created by Sally. Once again, a unique work of art filled with her original paintings and sketches.

The book cover above and pages below were created and assembled by Sue. This one is an amazing collage of photos, which include family members and Halloween ephemera. It is truly a precious family keepsake.

She has created several of these books over the years and they are certainly treasures!

This book was created by Suzanne R, who incorporated her favorite colors.

Obviously, an homage to her work at the Oakland Zoo!

Suzanne, you are indeed clever!

Donna gathered a handful of matching scrapbook papers and glued them in her "junk journal" for Sharon's challenge.

It was a good feeling to put to use some of her art supply stash. 

Please continue to the next post, which is the second part of the October post!