Spent about 28 hours at CHA at the end of January ... oh my !!!
I still have some whiplash-like pains from whipping my head around at all the eye-candy. So many beautiful, creative, wonderful new crafting products on their way to a retailer near you. It's going to be a wild, wonderful year for mixed-media artists and scrapbookers.
Had some fun with Make 'n Takes with my friend Kat. Here's a pic of us enjoying ourselves at the Ranger booth:
Oh, and a shot of the incomparable Tim Holtz doing a demo. Wow. Up close & personal. Well, not so "personal", but you know what I mean. I hope.
Saw Claudine Hellmuth demo'ing some of her new items - she's got quite a line of stamps and a stamp "rocker" coming out -- it was pretty cool seeing her in person, finally.
One of my favorite demo's, though, was at the Faber-Castell booth. They've got the juiciest, most luscious line coming out that you can use like ink or paint on rubber stamps {or freehand} -- including a great little product that looks like it's in a fat lipstick tube called Gelatos --
WOW. You're going to love what you can do with all these new Faber Castell products. You can work with them like crazy, they're so user-friendly.
It's seriously delicious stuff.
{So now I want to design a half-day workshop around these products, I'm telling you. The rest of the day can be spent on ... art journaling? lettering? something fun and freestyle. Would you come to play?!}
Now I sit here wishing I'd had my camera out the entire time, but I just didn't. Kat and I were too busy trying them all out. {hence the links and images 'borrowed' from the manufacturers' sites.}
NOTE: due to e-blogger technical difficulties, the way I composed this post - with the F-C images IN this general area, isn't showing up. You MIGHT find the images at the bottom of the post - who knows? grrrrrrrrrrrr.
And there's so much more ...
I just received the e-mail yesterday:
"Mix & Match now in Stores" !!!
Find them close to you and give them all a try. They're smooth, they're creamy, and they're user friendly {trust me, I'm the perfect human guinea pig for testing something's 'user-friendliness' factor}.
Kat and I saw some great artists demo'ing at CHA, including Donna Downey and Brenda Pinnick. They were both at the Faber-Castell booth, and it was Brenda that 'coached' us through the new Mix & Match line. Here's a photo of all that {Brenda should've given me a look at the pic & taken another - LOL}:
 |
| Kat Baker, and me ... I really was MUCH happier than I look here! :-) |
Brenda had a new line of stamps coming out, which we played with. And now, since I let a month pass before finishing this post, they're already available right here:
http://brendapinnick.typepad.com/studio/shop-for-stamps.html
So CHA was incredible, and one of the very best bits for me was discovering the work - and the person of - Dyan Reaveley. As we walked past the {ginormous} Ranger booth(s), Kat and I found Dyan.
 |
| Dyan Reaveley ~ Art From the Heart |
Her art {read: visual} journals are amazing. She had a huge old ledger book that she'd done incredible backgrounds in, and her lettering, her images on top of those backgrounds, her entire STYLE - was like a magnet. She and her work pulled us back for 2 more visits before we left CHA.
I'm one of those timid artist types that sees a vintage ledger book and says "oh, how can / should I dare to color and gel medium and ink over ALL THAT OLD HANDWRITING?".
So I asked her. Her answer was nothing short of genius: "Why not 'art' over it all? Otherwise, it's going to sit on a shelf or on a table and nobody's ever going to pick it up again - they might glance at it, say 'oh, cool', and then - what? If it's an art journal, if it's re-purposed into ART, it's going to have a whole new life." OKAY, so she didn't say all that. What she basically said was the first part - the "why not?" part. And something like "if I don't art on the pages, then it's just an old ledger book that nobody's going to care about." She also had her father's old mathematics book from his school days. With his pencil scribbles in it and all. She'd "arted" in that, too. THAT is when I asked the big question. And THAT is when she gave me the big answer.
Yeah, I'm a Dyan Fan. Oh, and her biz card has the best quote on it:
"Always Be Kind, For Everyone Is Fighting a Hard Battle".
Her concise response to my question is what just opened up for me - my eyes and my heart - to REALLY USING all the vintage bits I've collected. And writing it into the paragraph above {paraphrasing, really, what she said} is when I first put into words - all that I got from Dyan's simple answer.
Thank you, Dyan Reaveley - you rock the art world. Oh, and did I mention that she's from the UK, and she has the most wonderful accent, and she has a studio / shop of her own, and her Ranger products are fabulous, and that someday, I am going to take a workshop - OVER THERE. In her studio. :-)
Visit Dyan here: www.afth.co.uk (that's her Art from the Heart site) or read her blog here: www.dyan-reaveley.blogspot.com ...
Oh, and if you see her referred to as "Dylan", just ask.
Okay, so I sat on this post for a month - it's time to POST it already.
Your,
~~ Princess Magpie
 |
| Mix & Match Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils |
 |
| the new colorful Mix & Match PITT pens |
 |
| the new GELATOs |
