I met a most generous benefactor who donated 400+ books to my already-insanely-huge book collection. Imagine how much fun Troy had hauling those books to the house – haha! I displayed the ones I want to keep in my bookshelves and the rest joined my stack of books to alter. Of course, I wasted no time in playing with them.

Naming artwork is tough enough but something as abstract as book sculptures presents a greater challenge. Guided by the forms that inspired the folds, I decided to have fun with my titles. I currently have three working series – works in the first series (Fundamental Theory) are named after mathematicians like Archimedes and Pythagoras, works in the second series (Construction and Deconstruction) are named after architects like Meier and Calatrava, and works in the third series (Lines and Rhymes) are named after poets like Browning and Frost. Geeky, I know! I actually have a fourth series – but I’m not ready to share that just yet – hehe! You can view some of my new works for the first three series here.

Anyways, on to my exciting announcement! I got selected for a group art show, among with 9 other artists, to exhibit at Gallery 207 in Santa Ana, CA. Gallery 207 is located in the historic Santora Arts Building and the opening reception will coincide with the popular Santa Ana Artwalk. I’m also going to be a featured artist in an upcoming issue of Artist Portfolio Magazine. Yay!

Fabric flowers are all the rage these days – you see them on jewelry, on clothing, and even in home accessories like on decorative pillows. And as I showed you last week, I did several fabric flower bib necklaces – which are also currently very trendy! Here’s a look again at the first flower bib necklace that I made:

I also mentioned last week that I made some video tutorials on how to make different kinds of fabric flowers, including how to incorporate them on necklaces. I finished editing my first video, and I’m very excited to share it with you! This first video tutorial shows you how to make the fabric flower bib necklace shown above. Now, this project does involve a little bit of sewing but I promise you that it is very easy and will take you no more than half an hour to make.

Here’s the list of supplies for this project (which I forgot to include in the video):

• cotton fabric (scraps will work)
• felt (about 8″ x 5″ should be enough)
• necklace chain (I used a 16-inch chain)
• glass pearls, beads, or other embellishments
• fabric scissors
• needle and thread that matches your fabric
• glue gun

You’ll have a better idea on how much fabric and felt you need after viewing the video.

The design of the necklace is very dainty – perfect for my teenager! Of course, it will look good on anybody! :D

I also used the fabric flower to give a nice accent to a couple of pearl necklaces! The burgundy looks really nice on Mica but Rinoa is super thrilled that I made her a pink one!

I hope you enjoyed the video – comments are very welcome! And if you try out this project (which I encourage you to do), I’d love to see your finished piece! Ciao!

Here’s one of the paintings from my new encaustic mixed media series “Perception” which features vibrant colors and the intaglio technique. It is currently hanging at Wired Cafe in Rockford, IL.

Perception Series (Opus 4 No. 4)
encaustic mixed media on wood
Johwey Redington
22" x 26"

It is Spring Art Scene this week (in Rockford, IL) and I’ll be showing with other members of the Rockford Art Guild at the Veterans Memorial Hall. I hope to see you there.

I’m also contributing to the 50/50 show hosted by the Pirate Ninja Print Shop. It features 50 artists and 50 works for $50 each. This one is promising to be a good show as well!

I’m swimming with the tide and made my own flower bib necklaces – since they seem to be all the rage these days and my two daughters love to accessorize! It’s easy to go wild with the flower arrangements when making a bib necklace but I like to keep my designs dainty so Mica can where the necklaces to school without being gaudy. (She’s actually wearing the lace necklace today.) And as you can see, I love the look of pearls.

Lace Flower Bib Necklace

Rosette Flower Bib Necklace

I did several necklaces which showcase different kinds of fabric flowers. The ones above are just two of my favorites. I also created video tutorials on how to make them. (Yes, I’m slowly conquering my fear of ‘talking in front of the camera’ and started making videos. I figured, the necklace tutorials are good warm-up video projects for me.) I’m in the process of editing them but I will be sharing the videos here in the blog very soon – so please watch out for them.

I’m super thrilled to be the featured artist this March at Wired Cafe in downtown Rockford, Illinois! Thanks to my very supportive husband for helping me hang my artworks on the walls last Thursday. I couldn’t have done it without him.

We had an opening night last Friday, but unfortunately, we experienced a snowstorm which prevented a lot of people from leaving their houses that night. Nevertheless, I thought it was a fun night, especially with Michael and Naomi providing the crowd with some relaxing jazz tunes.

So stop in the Wired Cafe anytime this month to check out my art exhibit and treat yourself to a delightful breakfast or lunch. Be sure to try their granola yogurt parfait – so good!

Below are some of my recent encaustic mixed media paintings – all done on birch panels that Troy braced. You can view more in the gallery. These paintings and several others will be hanging at the Wired Cafe in Rockford, IL for the whole month of March. If you live in the area, I’d love it if you can come check it out.

Winter has been mild this year – still it is not helping me blog any better during my least favorite season. There’s just something in the cold, bleak air that inhibits words from forming in my head. That is not to say that my year is not off to a good start. On the contrary, I’ve been very productive and am looking forward to some exciting events in the next few months. Anyways, I just finished my Paris Travel Journal which I worked on in between other projects and responsibilities and after my recent visit to the lovely city. Here’s a look at some of the pages:

We’re major proponents of art and creativity at our house. And everyone in our house has been inspired by Johwey’s adventures in encaustics. A month or two ago, I was melting crayons with a hot iron and using the iron to ‘paint’ in a sketchbook. Rinoa was very interested and really wanted to try it. Sadly, I refused, as a hot iron and liquid wax were already pushing my danger limits. Putting a hot iron into the hands of a 7-year old wasn’t something I was willing to try do (yet).

We did agree to try something similar though. For our first attempt at this pseudo-encaustic art, we wanted to keep it simple. We took a trip to Target, our favorite non-Walmart store, and picked up a couple big boxes of crayons.

Rinoa took out the colors she didn’t want to use, like brown and black, and arranged what was left in a pattern of her choice. Her chosen pattern was essentially a backwards rainbow with a couple white crayons mixed in.

We glued them to the top of a black canvas using normal white craft glue. We took turns glueing each crayon and we played a game of ‘whoever gets the white crayons wins’. She had the ability to see 11 turns ahead and realize that I was going to get the 2nd white crayon, so she made the decision to rearrange the crayons a bit.

After the glue dried, we put the canvas up on an easel and used a hair dryer to melt the crayons and blow the hot wax down the canvas. The melted wax mixed naturally with the neighboring colors and created the effect.

There were no injuries, and the mess we made was minor. The project was a lot of fun and the result is a lovely piece that we’ll cherish almost as much as seeing our creative, innovative, and intelligent children grow up.

encaustic mixed media on braced panel

For my third encaustic painting, I actually had to scrape the board clean twice because I wasn’t liking where the artwork was going – a testament to how forgiving encaustics can be! Gotta love that! Of course, while I was working on this, I was getting frustrated – calling out to my muse and thinking she went on vacation that night without notice! lol! But all is forgiven since I’m happy with how it turned out!)

I am smitten!!! And what could be better than playing with hot wax and a blow torch on a cold, snowy day? lol! (This is my second cradled panel for a series I’m hoping to complete.)

encaustic and mixed media on cradled panel