Lake Oswego's Millenium Plaza Park Art Show

Take advantage of the wonderful weather this weekend! Jennifer Campbell is participating in this Sunday's art show (August 16th) in Lake Oswego's Millenium Plaza Park from 10-3. Come see her new creations - recycled art jewelry, assemblage clocks and more!

Two drawings

Good Pig

Views of a pill bottle

These are drawings done from an exercise in a weekend class that I took. The exercise is to take an object and draw it twenty times and frame each drawing. There are not quite 2o on the pig but that's that.

Portland Art Collective Journal

We've kept a Portland Art Collective Journal for several years. Each member adds her art to the book. The journal has been sitting on my desk for two months and I finally finished adding a couple pages to it.

The spread combines my garden sketches, hand dyed paper, stencils and free motion stitching. It says, "Come sit in my garden. Let's listen to the bees, smell the roses, see the color and feel the quiet peacefulness."

Nature Gathered - All 12 Canvases! Done and Hung

Thank you to Jan Harris and Traci Lynn Huskamp for organizing the Nature Gathered Challenge. Starting last July, we created an 8 by 8 in canvas with a different theme each month. Because of the economic times, I needed to redesign my website and build my private practice. With so little time, I considered giving up art all together. But thanks to this challenge, I squeezed in a few hours here and there to devote to art.

To see the originals and about 85 others, visit the artisits reception Friday August 7 from 7 - 9:00 PM at th Sixth Street Gallery in Vancouver's historic downtown area. (105 W Sixth Street, Vancouver WA 98660, www.sixthstreetgallery.com, 360-693-7340).

The canvases will be on display and for sale from August 1 - 30, 2009.

Learn more about the challenge and see all the art at naturegathered@blogspot.com

Thanks Jan for keeping us going and organizing the show (And congrats on your work published in Somerset Studio!)

Vintage Wooden Thread Spool Danglies by Lenall Siebenaler

I bought an old box full of vintage wooden thread spools at an estate sale over a year ago. At the time, I didn't have a plan for them, but I felt a need to possess them and percolate on how to use them in the future.

"Percolate" has become my operative word for brainstorming in the mind creatively. Percolating always takes place before sitting down to create. It is done in my travels, in the car, in bed, in my leisure time. I just think and usually I don't even realize I am doing it and an idea pops into my head.

I love to brainstorm--heck, I even do it for my friends--much to my often embarassment!! The ideas just blurt out without a thought. But that is what brainstorming is all about, isn't it? Thanks to all of you (and you know who you are) who have accepted me and my thoughts for you and taken my blurts and either made them your own or diplomatically said "no thanks you didn't want to do that..." That's what brainstorming is about too!!

The percolating phase of this project took longer than I hoped, but it finially came to fruition two weeks ago. We all know that all it takes is actually sitting down and just playing. I played for several hours and here are 4 of my new danglies. I hope you like them. They are rather quirky and eccentric. They are made using painted paper, recycled fabrics, beads, recycled jewelry pieces, wire, paint and glue.

Thanks for looking,

Lenall

Hearts in the Heat Wave

I've been taking advantage of the heat wave to sit under the air conditioner and stitch hearts. I'm really happy with how green these are--probably 95% is from recycled materials. The bits are mainly old clothes and linens that I hand dyed. Designer samples form the base, and even the batting came from Goodwill. The first 2 are larger 12" hearts, and the second 2 are 5".

Orion Nebula

"Orion Nebula" is one of the 8" X 8" pieces that I produced for the Nature Gathered challenge.
It combines acrylic paint and gold ink handwriting. About the time I was doing this painting I was
listening to an old series of taped lectures by Stephen Hawking, so I added quotations and ideas from
the tapes to the painting. It reflects my fascination with space. I hope you can come to the 6th Street Gallery in Vancouver during August to see all of the art that the Nature Gathered group produced.

Pod Series #3

I've been enjoying the quiet days of summer and feeling very creative lately. I'm busily stitching, drawing and painting. For now, here is another in the pod series I've been working on. This is acrylic on 30"x40" canvas.

Little Art Quilt

Little Art Quilt 18"x 19"
I took a photo of a Cedar Waxwing at McMenamins Edgefield a couple of weeks ago and then put it in Photoshop where I really played with it, I printed it on some canvas I had prepared and made this little quilt. I have been taking photos with a new camera and trying to teach myself Photoshop, this is the first step. To see more detail click here to visit my blog.

Banners for our Studios

Yesterday, PAC member exchanged banners made of fabric, paper and plastic- all different styles that reflect each artist's personality and artistic voice. Artist names are located below their banners.

Tory Brokenshire

Z'anne Bakke

Tammy Vail

Suzie Wolfer

Suzanne Reynolds

Robin Olsen

Maggie Kolkena

Lorraine Jones

Lenall Siebenaler

Jill Lawrence

Jennifer Campbell

Jan Harris

Fran Boston

Debi Koenig

Cynthia Mooney

Paula McNamee