More Summer Fun on the Peninsula

As I said before, I continue to have too much fun with family and friends and being outdoors to spend much time in the studio...time enough for that when the winter rains and darkness set in....For Everything There is a Season!

In between running outside to spread more gravel and rocks, I finished Flora's portrait. I'm open to taking on more commissions...I especially like working in the large size: 4' x 4'







Brother David came over from Seattle in early June, and we drove west to Second Beach on the Pacific coast. These are Sea Stacks...AND it wasn't raining! I'll have to get Kim, from my Book Group, to explain the geology...








We walked through rain forest on the coast at La Push...of TWILIGHT fame. There were groups of young teens having their pictures taken with both the Forks and La Push town signs.


The trees seem to have mystical and enveloping personalities, as I noticed in the evergreens lining the mountainsides the first time I entered Washington as a resident...rows of watchful beings guarding the land, guiding the inhabitants...if only we will pay attention.











What more appropriate words than Majestic and Breathtaking! The driftwood trunks are three feet or more in diameter. What a Wind it must have taken, to throw them way up on the beach!



And even though I promised not to, I couldn't resist bringing back a stone or two for my collection. This one reminds me of a Venus of Willendorf in miniature. The "non-productive" fun time is still valuable, not only for refreshment, but also as an opportunity to absorb and catalog new inspirations.














We headed back into the deep woods...and what did we find, but a hollowed tree turned into a shrine for small natural offerings from visitors.





What a Magical Place!!!

Review of my Latest Book

Click on this review of my latest book to read what Roberta Russel has to say.

Class Opportunities, Exhibitions, Books

SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT: if you're anywhere near Wayne, PA, now through June 26th, Do check out this show...Support Art Dolls as worthy of gallery and museum representation.

It's an excellent chance to see my newest work up close and personal, as well as Christine Shively, elinor peace bailey, Annie Hesse, Sha Sha Higby, and more! Go and see it, take pictures, and please send me some!






One ofmy many current projects (along with painting/decorating a wine barrel for FairWinds Winery--more later) is to develop one-day classes for 2010 in CT and perhaps a week-long series for Tuscany. My goal: something that I would find fun to do.








In thinking about classes I'd like to take, the fabric journals came again to mind. What a perfect combination of paper, fabric, words, and every kind of embellishment technique known to humanity!

To do the poem on the Passion Princess cover, I emptied a whole container of poetry word beads and used all of them to construct five poem fragments on different pieces of art. This one is definitely evolving into a Romantic turn of the century melodrama, with lots of decorated fabric and beads.


Since I had been planning a class in France this summer, Romance in France seemed an appropriate second title...and when David and I go to Mexico this fall for our niece's wedding, I'll do one down there with the color and flavor of the south.

What I plan to do is show you some of my work and thoughts in progress, and get your feedback about the kinds of classes you'd like to have me teach. Self portraits have been mentioned and building abstract figures on armature wire.







I'd like to include you in my thought and design process, so give me feedback on what you'd like to see. For this page, I pieced the background, pieced the heart, did a tape transfer for the eye on the right, and a direct collage of paper onto fabric for the eye on the left and the title and picture above.

I'll show you more as the works progress. Right now, the outdoors is calling me again.

Make ART, appreciate the place where you ARE as if you were on vacation.

More Fun with Friends and Food

Here's an old pattern, but a goodie, Friends, with Polymer clay faces. The pattern is in the new edition of PAMELA'S DESIGNING A DOLL AND MAKING FACES INSPIRATION BOOK.

Spring in the Northwest, especially one as nice and sunny and warm as what we've been having seems to lead to increased time outside and increased socializing.









Mike and Katie invited Sally and me over for dinner at their totally CUTE cottage, which has probably already sold, even in this poor housing market. Luckily they will be living in Sally's new apartment (almost finished) until Mike can retire on his 62nd birthday, then off to be Warm in Sunny Arizona.




Sally has already retired from the Post Office and Katie thinks retirement is FINE! Good for them for knowing what they want and how to Go for it!!!

If any of my patients are watching, Don't worry, I can't afford to join the ranks of the retired for at least another five-ten years....but I do believe that knowing I have limited time to work on ART makes me use my time more efficiently and I'll keep churning stuff out, for the amusement and delight of my art fans...and My Self!



A friendly gathering would not be complete without the Food Picture! Thai Coconut curry beef (thanks to David H's recipe and Kafir leaves) and Katie taught me how to make salad rolls in rice paper wrappers...Gorgeous and Delicious!

The Hood Canal Bridge is Open again!!! David and I met in Sequim for the Art Walk and dinner in the garden at Alderwood Bistro...We were having such a good time eating clam fritters and fried oysters and elegant flowered salads that I forgot to take a picture for you, then my camera wouldn't work when we went out to the Pacific coast yesterday, but he's going to send me pictures.





I LOVE rocks, and they make a lot of sense here in the NW, where it may not rain for months in the summer. Collecting, sometimes re-locating, and arranging rocks in my yard is a spring/summer/fall passion. I can easily stay outside working way past 9pm and it's still light.

I'm spreading the tumbled mica you saw in a stack previously and the gravel pile, also reinforcing my spirals and symbols done in white beach rock. I see an analogy between the rocks worn smooth by time and my own self being worn smooth by age and experience.

I work to appreciate the positive aspects of aging. David and I talked about the difference between the way we look now and the way we think of ourselves as looking. He thinks of himself as twenty-five and I think of myself as thirty-five.











Me mentally, in my back yard in Burlington, VT, in the Eighties.

My back yard in Port Angeles now. I'm working on sedums up top, with interesting arrangements of rocks. I hope to vanquish most of the weeds by the time I'm in my Nineties and maybe too tippy to climb up the hill...although I try hard NOT to act my age! I'm looking forward to dancing to the Soul Shakers next Saturday at Gray's party.


The larger areas of green is some kind of ropy-rooted thing that comes up everywhere. I am working on exerting my control over Nature...I think Nature is winning, and perhaps I won't always need to act so controlling.

As with painting, I work over the whole area each year, and gradually patterns start to show up...a kind of terraccing, perhaps water-like flows of rocks with small surprises tucked within the surface. I re-located some lovely starry blue rocks from Second Beach yesterday and must find a special new place for them to dwell.