Happy Holidays from Ogden, Illinois!  This is my imaginary Christmas card portrait in front of the picture window with stained glass in my grandparents' living room.  

Printable PDF of Happy Holidays Coloring Page

Women's History Coloring Pages

I teach art at Sinergia's day program for adults with developmental disabilities.  A popular activity requested by my clients is good old-fashioned coloring.  I'm always looking for interesting, artistic, and age-appropriate coloring pages and sometimes end up drawing my own.  Here are a couple that I made last March when we were discussing women's history.

I haven't done this before, so I'm hoping that the links to the PDF files work so that these can be printed from the web.  If you try it, please let me know if it works!

PDF File of Etta James Coloring Page

PDF File of Votes for Women Coloring Page

PDF File of We Can Do It Coloring Page


And though I'm a few months late for Women's History Month, here's a link to someone else's really great coloring page: Audrey Lorde Coloring Page

Winter Wreaths

Greetings from Gloucester, Virginia!  Yesterday, I went to a Christmas tree farm for the first time.  It was pretty fun to help pick out a tree, but I have to say that it seemed pretty traumatic for the little tree, especially  the tree-shaking and hole-drilling  processes.  My favorite part was collecting the discarded branches, which we took home to make into wreaths.

 This teardrop wreath was Momma's favorite and the one she chose to hang on the front of the house. 

 We didn't have any wreath forms or wire, so we made the base for the wreaths with long flexible branches from the cherry tree (pictured below) in the yard.  We then placed white pine branches around the base and wrapped them tight with some string.  This definitely needed two sets of hands.  Once that first layer is secure, it's easy to just tuck in the sprigs of anything else you can find!

 We also had some cypress and "blue ice" from the tree farm and found these dark blue berries in the yard.  No one is quite sure what they are.

The pine cones add a focal point.  There's also a couple of tiny acorns that you can't see in the picture. 

The backyard also had some beautiful holly and cedar sprigs to offer.

This was our first time making fresh wreaths, so we're not sure how long they'll last, but Sarah the floral expert says to dump water on them to keep them from drying out.  Before we leave, I think I'll arrange some of the leftover sprigs in Mason jars.  It was so nice to be crafty outdoors.  We even met a beautiful dappled gray horse, named "Gee", and got to feed him carrots.  He was a retired racing horse; maybe we should have given him one of our wreaths!

Olek takes on the world!

To begin this adventure, I will tell you about one of my favorite current artists, Olek.  If you live in NYC, then you have probably seen her work in the form of a yarn-covered bicycle (or tricycle, or shopping cart) locked up on the street somewhere.  I love this lady not only because her art is smart and has a way of making the political personal (or vice versa) but also because of how obsessive she is about crochet.

Unfortunately, I missed her recent show at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, but they have some pictures up of "The Bad Artists Imitate, The Good Artists Steal."  My favorite piece is the Jasper Johns tribute.