Gloria J Zucaro's "Catching Up"

I love Sundays.  Although I do not go to an established church, I often during my days each week say "thanks" to my creator for small miracles and pieces of goodness in my life.  

Today I am posting pictures from the card-making class I attended this week at Stamp,Scrap N More in Mundelein.  I have made many cards but no layers, always with ink drawings and watercolor, or just tangled drawings in ink.  This was a structured class with "kits" for 5 cards. The woman leading the group had done a lot of the cutting out of materials and putting of each kits' supplies together in individual bags.  Thank you, Georgina! The reason I wanted to take the class was to learn the techniques and tools needed.  I did learn a lot about proper stamping techniques, applying fabric, metal, and paper and what glues to use, and the order in which to do these things.  Here are the cards......Have a wonderful day :>)

Gloria J Zucaro's "City Rain"

I started this oil painting wanting to paint a rainy day in the city, using one-point perspective, but also people with colorful umbrellas.  I had no specific reference, so had to gather pictures of cars, buses, people with umbrellas, buildings in the city, reflections, etc.  I took my time and I am satisfied because it conveys the mood I wanted.   I am posting this to Paint Party Friday and to The Daily Paintworks Have a look at all the creative work going on at the party.

20"H x 16"W 

$400.00 Framed

$75.00 S&H in US

Gloria J Zucaro's "See More"

Here are the next eight in the Theme ATC's "Glasses".

Gloria J Zucaro's "ATC's Theme Glasses"

I had a lot of fun with this month's theme.  I used catalogs, old story books and magazine ads for the basic background pictures.  Then I added gesso, paint, glitter, line drawings, and of course the glasses!   Here are a few of the 21 cards I made.  There were fewer than usual artists present, so I only traded 5.  That means more for you to trade with me if you would like! :>)

Gloria J Zucaro's "ATC Theme Umbrellas"

April's theme with our ATC group was umbrellas.  Here are a few I did just before leaving on my road trip with my Mom. We had our May meeting last weekend, so I will post those another time.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Many Thanks"

A strange thing happened.  I went on my trip and really enjoyed the respite from all the online challenges I had been doing for over a year.  When I returned in early April, I found that when I started looking at the challenges again each week, I felt a strong resistance to doing them.  True, I have had family and other life issues lately,but definitely my first real artist block.  So I am starting back slowly with odds and ends of projects.  Here is a small 6 x 6 cotton canvas panel I learned how to texturize last weekend.  First we added a very thick almost paste-like matte medium and then while it was wet we layered papers, eyelet lace, bottle caps, corrugated cardboard, torn paper pieces, buttons, pieces of different artificial flowers and string.  They were all coated with the medium as well.  We used a heat gun to dry the surface.  Then we completely covered the entire surface of each piece with white gesso.  Dried it, then sprayed the surface with two colors of spray inks.  After that was dry, we dry-brushed on black acrylic and highlighted the edges of things with the gesso.  We did that two-step process a couple of times until we were satisfied with the depth it created.  Then we glued on the rhinestones.  It was fun and easy and could be applied to larger art pieces.  The class was held at Stamp, Scrap 'N More in Mundelein,Il.

Then I was really pleased to get a wonderful journal as a gift from Judy Shea who is a wonderful multimedia artist at http://thekeytomyart.wordpress.com.  My name was a random pick from her comment list.  Here is the gorgeous journal.  I love the gilded edges and all the beads and colors.  Oh, and Judy also makes her own button shapes and other pieces to add to your journal pages and covers.  She sent those along as an extra special surprise.

Thank you so much, Judy!  I am a happy camper!

Next, a big "Thank You" to my daughter for the time she spent before Easter to buy these kits from Ebay and for putting them all together for my Easter hostess/Moms gift.  They are so beautiful!  When my children were young, we would go to a craft store in East Dundee, Illinois called Lee Ward's to buy these kits to make holiday ornaments together.  So these hold great memories, too.  I still have them on my mantel.  Thank you, Lucy! :>)

I am posting this to Paint Party Friday, as I have missed a whole month or more!

Gloria J Zucaro's "Just A Few"

Today my oil painting is of a crocus and other small Spring flowers nearby.  Even though our weather is very chilly and gray and rainy, I see some of my tulip bulbs have started to emerge.  My painting is from a photograph by Lee Brown the host at A Day Not Wasted and is the challenge photo for April.  I am also submitting to the Daily Paintworks challenge of "Market Day" which is our interpretation of flowers, fruit, people and tents.  Carol Marine offered a photo from her visit to a San Francisco market.  I chose to concentrate on one flower grouping instead of a whole scene.  I am also linking to Paint Party Friday.  All of these sites have wonderful artwork, so take a look!

10"H x 8"W on Board

Auction at Daily Paintworks for one week.  $75. plus $10. S&H in US.  Other countries email me 

Yesterday I worked on my class lessons from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer about using deli wax paper in collage and art journals.  I drew small flowers and shrunk them even smaller on my printer to use inside of some umbrellas for my Artist Trading Cards this coming weekend.

Here I was testing all my supplies on the waxy side of the paper to see how they reacted on the slick surface.  I wrote the name of each pen or pencil, paint or stamp pad.  Below I repeated each mark on the dull side.  After I finished that, I used tape to run my wax paper through my printer, copying off small drawings  and altered famous paintings covered with sketches or stencils.  Click on photos to enlarge.

If you love all sorts of mixed mediums and journaling or fabric art, please visit Julie's site.  She has all sorts of on-line classes to pick from.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Three A Day"

After three weeks I am back from my road trip with my 92 (years-young) mother.  She is always ready for a new adventure.  We met in Chattanooga, TN for a family wedding, both flying in for the occasion. 

We attended the rehearsal dinner along with everyone else who was from out of town at the "Blue Water Grill" hosted by the groom's parents.  We were served great food and the wedding party entertained us with funny stories about the bride and groom.  

The wedding the next evening was at "The Church on Main", which is actually no longer a church but an event venue.  The old building had been stripped down inside to show the brick and rafters, but was still enclosed by beautiful arched windows and the old wood flooring.  The front half of the space was separated off with white curtains and was set up with a stage and seating for guests.  The back half was closed off until after the ceremony, but was set up as a buffet with food, bar and wedding cakes(bride's strawberry..groom's oreo) areas to be enjoyed after the vows were taken.  The stage at the front had a white curtain to hide the band set-up which would be revealed when time to dance.  In front of the white curtain there were three beautifully painted aqua wooden doors hinged together decorated with small lanterns and a painted wood cutout of the bride and grooms' initials.  There were 8 bridesmaids and groomsmen and a tiny ring-bearer, the son of the grooms' brother.  All the ladies were dressed in the color tangerine, and they all wore turquoise jewelry.  But the really unique thing is that every single one of their dresses was a different style that they each chose themselves to suit their own taste.  All their jewelry was different, too!  So cool!

My cousin , the mother of the bride, and her husband invited everyone over for a huge brunch feast the next morning, then Mom and I left on our road trip to Alexandria, LA to visit my sister and brother-in-law for 4 days, then on to San Antonio TX where my Mom and brother live.  I stayed with Mom for a week and flew home to Lake Zurich, IL which is Northwest of Chicago.

See a couple of pictures from the wedding below...

The backdrop for the ceremony

The guests on the grooms side waiting

The bride and her father

Two pastors and the groom, and the grooms father in back

The ceremony with the brides' sister(the matron of honor), another bridesmaid in left front.  The brides bouquet was tangerine flowers in a beautiful tight nosegay. See the photo of the bride at top.

One couple in wedding party exiting after ceremony ends.

And finally my entry at The Artist's Playroom called "Three A Day" done on my IPod Touch 5 with the ArtRage app.

Our theme from Jennifer Mclean this week is "fruit".  Many times these three fruits are the ones I try to have everyday.  Have a great day!    gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "I Think I Fractured Something!"

How much fun was that!  I did, I did fracture something and it didn't hurt a bit.  I was using Julie Ford Oliver's technique in our last "Contemporary Impressionism" class taught by Ann Feldman at Mainstreet Art Center.  I had bought Julie's Art Byte video on the Daily Paintworks site and watched it with fascination.  But I did not try the technique until Friday with Ann. There were 5 of us in that class and we all used as our reference a still life photo that Ann brought in. It was amazing when we finished to see how differently we all applied our fracturing tool.  Julie has devised a small squeegee and Ann made one for each of us in the class.  If you like the looks of this technique, buy Julie's video on the Daily Paintworks, or come in to Mainstreet in Lake Zurich, IL and take Ann's next class.   Below I have pictures of each of the paintings done in that class.  If you go to Ann's site, you will see her version that she posted today.  Be sure to click on the images to see the really neat details.

By Ginny Breecher

By Carol Breyer

By Maryann Pailey

By Linda Rubens

By Me, Gloria J Zucaro!  Mine is 10"H x 8"W on a previously painted surface.