Surface Design In*ter*face/Sofa to Love

If you aren't a member of SDA, the conference coming up in San Antonio is reason enough to join. The speeches, exhibits and panels are fab, and the city will be filled with fiber art. AND, if you can, come early or stay late for one of the workshops -- from jewelry to magnetic fields to amazineg skyscraper sized weavings, ther eis something planned to feed every creative spirit around. I suspect the city will have a wonderful web of buzz and energy holding up the streets!

The workshops that are low in enrollment will be cancelled April 15, so if you have not yet signed up, take a look here on the SDA conference site. 

Here's a tantilizing look at one artist who is teaching: FerroFabric by Jenny Leary, and more here on her award-winning collaborative blog, Puff&Flock.

And, as the internet is such a gift-giver, here's a totally unrelated post from other members of Puff and Flock, a sofa to love:

And here's more from Jenny: (icecream is a bonus,love the music)

Art Advocacy Week with YoYo Ma

Here is a notice that showed up in my email today. I have heard on of YoYo Ma's wonderful talks before and I bet these will be just as great. YoYo has initiated a wonderful arts education program, in addition to his championship of music as an international connection. 

One of my favorite quotes from him:

"The thing that I've always been slightly frustrated with, was that the idea of a CD is kind of confined to a material possession that you can put on a shelf. And the idea of music, for me, is always about both the communication and the sharing of content. And so the interactive part is missing."

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/y/yoyo_ma.html#OXRYmXMI8UGE2V5k.99 

Tell your friends about this SHARE THE PHOTO  It's Arts Advocacy Week We have two special events taking place in Washington DC, and you can participate from anywhere in the world. Monday - 6:30 pm EST - Yo-Yo Ma delivers this year's Nancy Hanks Lecture titled, "Art for Life's Sake: a Road Map from One Citizen Musician" Tune in live here:  http://links.causes.com/s/clJYgq?r=zrnS Tuesday - 10:30 am EST - Yo-Yo Ma and , Matt Sorum (Guns N' Roses) - google Hangout http://links.causes.com/s/clJYgq?r=zrnS Send questions in advance via twitter using #AskYoYo or email them toartseducation@artusa.org

  Hope you'll be able to fit it in your schedule, too!

Artful Getaway on Airbnb!

The sleeping porch -- great for naps and birdwatching

Are you looking for a wonderful getaway in the Texas Hill Country? We've decided to try booking a private suite of rooms at our house on Airbnb.com, both to fund some new projects, and because on our Airbnb stays in Madrid and Barcelona, we had such a wonderful time with our hosts. These kinds of "home stays" provide wonderful opportunities to make friends and find out about people's different lives around the globe. Of course, you may live almost next door in San Antonio, but we'd still love to have you as a guest. Check out the site on Airbnb -- it's a great way to find places to stay near to home and around the world. We are total believers in the site -- the interface is great, the security features wonderful, and for hosts and guests, the booking system is secure, easy and safe. 

In addition to the suite of rooms (bedroom and sitting room with fold-out futon for a second bed, bathroom with large shower) you'll have access to the kitchen, breakfast each morning, pool and hot tub, sleeping porch for naps and dining and the media room with its big flatscreen and netflix or DVDs. And if you'd like to include a private or small group art workshop or access to use the art studio and its big work tables, just ask and we'll see what works for all of us. 

Our calendar of available dates is on the Airbnb site, as well as rates, restrictions and house rules. Hope you'll check it out!

Art App of the Week: Drawing Pad

How to choose? How to choose?

(And how to remember -- if you checked in earlier, I had the name of the software wrong, and the wrong list! Drawing Pad -- not free, but it is only $1.99 with some optional in-app pruchases, like coloring books, available.)

As I work towards getting my iPad on-line courses up and running, you'll find a weekly APP reccommendation here on the blog on Fridays, each with a few examples of drawings, photos, journal pages and more. 

I admit to an ongoing addiction for new apps -- OK,  consider it a line item in my art supply budget! Consequentlyly, after sampling free and paid versions of several hundred, I've found some really great ones and some real dogs. Some are simple "one-trick ponies," others are perhaps too expansive and overwhelming that unless you devote a LOT of time, you'll find them a bit overwhelming.

The iPad is such a powerful, intuitive creative tool, and the mobile software designers out there are certainly running though the paces. When my online course launches (next month, I hope), the format will include step-by-step tutorials, specific projects with step-outs, adaptations for use as fiber art tools -- both as part of your process and your works of art. If this sounds interesting, I hope you'll sign up for my newsletter HERE, in order not to miss the launch of the online series of workshops -- they'll start with an "iPad for Art Basics" and proceed through Photo Editing and Manipulation, Drawing and Sketching Tools, Keeping Track, Art Journaling, Photo Filters, Collage Tools and -- who knows!

This week's app is Drawing Pad. The interface is bold, easy to understand (the tools are in drawers, so explore them carefully! Some of the drawers give you the option to scroll right and reveal a whole other set of tools, colors and options. You can import a photo from your own camera roll and use it as a guide to trace or alter or paint, or you can start with a blank "sheet" of paper. If you wish, you can import a photo, sketch over it, then go back and change the paper to white or another color and have only your sketch! It's a very SIMPLE layering process, with only two layers. Of course I have other tricks for this -- to make it a multilayer tool. but you'll have to wait for the workshop for that!

Save the images to your email or camera roll or FB, Twitter, or an album inside the app -- think of this as a kid-friendly (for the kid in each of us) sketching and painting tool. I

These tools in the main drawer are options for saving, erasing, coloring book, colors of paper, stickers and, scrolling right, different tools.

 Sketching on top of a photo of San Fernando Cathedral, then replacing the photo with plain paper.

Sketching on the road.