PopUp Workshop!

Coming up soon on Sunday, March 29, 2020 with CBBAG at 180 Shaw St. in Toronto.

All day PopUp Workshop with Painted papers - learn lots of cool pop up techniques and go home with your very own 3-D Accordion Book.

Click here for details.

Also - on Saturday, March 28th, Surfaces: Painted Paper Workshop. Enjoy a full day of messing about with acrylic paints to create wonderful decorated papers for all your artistic needs. 

Click here for details.

Uprising - The Movie

Did a quick video of my very large PopUp Sculpture, Uprising, for PopUpTober. 

Summer Projects

Trying to get odds and ends used up and finish some projects that were started and abandoned. Sometimes everything goes together beautifully but most often it's a struggle!

I've got several of these small (5 1/2"x 11") folios on the desk at the moment. It will be great to get them done and on display.

Parallel Fold Pop Ups

I was digging through my box of WIPs and came across this piece. It's cut from paper that was splattered with paint, then folded and smooshed for symmetry and to give the paint cool textures - something I often do with my papers. Then I cut into the negative spaces  - I love the shapes I get from this method - they're really interesting to me. I play with the cut papers until I'm happy with the design and then start gluing. It's a simple parallel fold pop-up - made more complex by the 'random' shapes. 

Catching Joy

I had some fabulous news regarding this piece I made for the Catching Joy exhibit at Neilson Park. It was purchased by the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at UofT to add to their fabulous collection of moveable books. Apparently my work is slated to appear in an exhibition of moveable books at the Library sometime in 2020. 

I am honoured and amazed! 

She Tried to Catch Tickles

Catching Joy is a themed exhibit opening Sept.11 - 30 at Neilson Park Creative Centre.

Artists were given a line or two from the book, Joy by Corinne Averiss, and asked to create an artwork based on them.

My lines were, "She tried to catch chuckles. Then she tried to catch tickles." I had a lot of fun thinking about the visual imagery conjured up by the words and the overall theme of the book. This piece is 28"x11" and 8"high. The spirals are becoming my specialty...

Recent Works

I've been working with larger formats lately - requiring the paper to be reinforced, even though it's a heavy 2-gauge stock. It's more difficult to cut and use my punches on, and when I glue pieces together to make them stronger (mostly for the upright pieces), the paper warps toward the glue side. So it's been interesting, technically, to make it work and because of the tendency of the paper to droop - some happy 'accidents' have given more interest in the finished results. A lot of this is 'found' paper - leftover from other projects. I really hate to throw it out and the negative shapes are so beautiful. So the scrap heap becomes art! I am enjoying the grunge textures and using water-soluble graphite to muck up the the paint a bit. 

These pieces are about 24"x12"

Uprising

 Uprising is an over-size painted paper pop-up I created for the Etobicoke Art Group Highlights Exhibition, which is on right now at Neilson Park Creative Centre. It presented a number of technical difficulties, in part brought on by the haste in which I made it. Waiting for glue to dry made me a little impatient, but overall, I think I'm happy with the results. It was placed by a corner window in the Main Gallery. I happened to visit on a sunny afternoon and the effect was magical. The light created really interesting shadows and intensified colour on the undersides of the structure. 

 Pop-Up Accordion Book Workshop

Timed and designed to beat the Winter Doldrums - a Pop-Up Workshop! Make something to make you happy - join me at Neilson Park Creative Centre for two days of making paper pop-ups collected into an Accordion Book. Saturday and Sunday, February 24 & 25. Check it out here. 

New Works

A nice long break over Christmas has afforded me time to get back to my beloved paper pop ups. I've been playing with doodles from my sketchbook (and on every scrap of paper in the house) and transcribing their loopy energy into 3-D, together with spirals - which I love cutting out (very Zen!). I have boxes full of hand-painted papers, which I make in the summer when I can work in the back yard. It's lovely to be in my cozy studio on these cold winter days, enjoying working with papers created during sunny, warm times.

Loopy Doodles

Leaf Trails

PopUp Workshop - November 11 at Meta4 Gallery

Join me for a great day of Paper Engineering at Meta4 Gallery in Port Perry.

Everything is supplied, including a delicious lunch at a local restaurant.

Using colourful hand-painted papers, you'll learn how to make a  Pop-Up art piece that moves when you open and close it. 

 You will finish the piece with backing boards so you have a lovely work of art to display. 

These gallery workshops are a lot of fun and well worth the drive to Port Perry. Bring a friend and enjoy a day of creating with me! 

Paper Engineering at HSAD

Summer Workshops 

Another brilliant day of messing about with paper at the Haliburton School of the Arts. We went to town with sculptured popups and platforms. Everything from colourful creatures to architectural abstracts and flights of fancy and fantasy. 

I'm always amazed at the fabulous ideas that pop up at these workshops. 

The energy was high and the work was inspiring!

Unfortunately, something went wrong with my camera and I was disappointed to discover I had lost many of the photos I took of the work that was created. 

Sculpted creature

Architectural Platform

Hand-painted paper Abstract

Frog on a Lily Pad Platform

More Hand-painted Paper

Abstract Platform

Sun Sculpture

Small Things

I set myself a small project a few nights ago that I completed in an evening. 

A couple of weeks ago I was showing my work to a book artist, who in turn showed me her work. She told me that her time was at a premium, so when she wanted to make something, it had to be done within a couple of hours. I put off projects because I start thinking everything has to be epic - but nothing gets done unless I have loads of spare time - which I don't! So I took inspiration from the 'quick and dirty' method - 2 hours and it's done. There's a lot to be said for making fast artistic decisions and using what materials are at hand. It's also a really great way of using up some of those beautiful scraps that I can't bear to throw out. And at the end, it's so much more satisfying to have a little concertina popup book in hand, than to say I binge-watched yet another series of detective shows on Netflix...

Prow

Sculpted paper,spirals and layered pull-up constructions

Tide Pools

Platform PopUp - Top View

Tide Pools

Platform PopUp - Top View

Side View

Tide Pools

Parallel Layers

Block City

Simple structures can create beautiful abstract designs. Using contrasting colours on the front and back of the paper can give you lovely effects.

Fiesta

A Platform PopUp with central tower. Hand-painted paper.

What's Left

Platform PopUp with central tower. Hand-painted with acrylics.