JO FIRTH-YOUNG

21 June 2013

The Leigh Art Trail & Southend Adult Community College

... every year the shops and Artist Studios of Leigh-on-Sea display the work of local artists... as part of this massive art exhibition Southend Adult Community College (SACC) displays the work of students.
The Student Exhibition used to be much bigger - displayed on 2 sites, taking up several (lots of) rooms - coordinating/hanging the exhibition used to be my job (but I gave it up) so this year it was quite refreshing to only be responsible for displaying my students work... I don't miss the stress involved but I do miss the interaction with everyone and seeing the pleasure and sense of achievement the students get from seeing their work displayed in an exhibition.

The work of students on the 'Dimensional Cards' class:

The students created some lovely pieces over the five week course... lots of measuring, folding, cutting & creating. Well done to the students - the work was well received. :o)

Sorry I don't have photos of the other exhibits - but I'm sure if you headed over to the SACC website there would be some there. :o)

Anyone fancy a JOFY-painty day?....

... if so there are still a few places left on my class at Artistic Stamper this coming Saturday...

Contact the shop to book your place - I look forward to seeing you!

Father's Day was a happy day...

... it was also a busy day.. 2 Dads to visit...

First was a visit to Matt's parents....Matt's Dad - here's his card:

(I love paper piecing to decorate the boat - can alter the sail's patters to suit the person.)
Toddles the tortoise (oldest member of the family) put in an appearance - basking on the warm patio... wierd but wonderful creature lol

They have a peony bush in their front garden:

How beautiful and 'juicy' is that flower! Love it - I'm going to try and grow some of those! A garden full of those would make me VERY happy!

Then it was off to my parents.. here's my dads card:

... an easel card - I like how a normal single fold card can be adapted so simply into something dimensional... I love this PaperArtsy image.. and of course a button or two..
... I 'attacked' the stash for these letters (basic grey)

... and as we were leaving the youngest members of the family couldn't resist posing in our car.... COOL DUDES!! lol
Not sure about the 4year olds driving abilities though - his legs barely reach the end of the seat let alone the pedals!

I hope you all enjoyed Father's Day...

Loves me... loves me not...

... loves me!!
(also - do not adjust your sets - this is a minimal colour sepia toned sort of blog post!)

I made these three flowers while experimenting with the stamp (flower from JOFY13) - stamping and layering up the images to see how they looked... and then they needed to be put somewhere so that I didn't lose them or to save them from being squashed etc etc etc.... and what better place than a tag!

They look so different when stamped onto vintage letter paper....a little bit shabby and distressed.

Another 'what-happens-if...' sort of tag:

I love it! But its not quite as I'd intended - the flower heads (JOFY14) were coloured with Walnut Stain Distress Ink - which as most of you know is quite dark and quite brown...... but the ink wasn't strong enough to stay on the surface that had been painted with Fresco Finish paint and so it got sort of sucked into the paint leaving the stain that you can see - the leaves were coloured with a Distress Ink too (but sorry, I can't remember which) - so not quite as dark & sepia as I intended but I still like it a lot. :o)

I'll be back with more colourful posts later in the week....

say it with flowers...

... love these slightly wierd and wonderful flowers - and they're not quite 'right' - a bit like my Critters!

Is it a tree or is it a house...

.... its a 'tree-house' of course!

... and not a very big one either - just 16cm from base to leaf tip... I think estate agents would call it 'compact and bijoux' :o)
Created using images from JOFY15

Craft Barn Extravaganza....

... is where I spent last weekend demo'ing my little socks off and enjoying every minute.

Its taken me a while to write this post - life kept getting in the way - kept going back into the 'drafts' box...! lol but now, eventually (lol), here comes the catch up...

It was the first extravaganza at The Craft Barn's lovely new location - 3 marquees nice and close to the shop... really nice set up.

Here's my demo desk - tidiness is always a bit tricky during demo's (for me anyway) and so I decided to display my samples vertically rather than horizontally:

The shelving unit on the right was an ebay purchase- best £15 spent! lol- and it folds up flat. genius! I forgot to photograph behind the desk but that was really organised - tiers of wire baskets holding all the necessary bits and pieces.

Here are some of the samples from the day - keeping them nice and simple. I demo'd my 3 new A5 plates and 6 new minis...