goodbye winter....welcome back blue skies.....and blossoms

Stencil I made for cloth bags for annual easter egg hunt and Easter gathering this weekend. Sometimes its just the little things..... Have a wonderful weekend!

A little printing on cloth bags...just to see...experiments for other projects.

And finally finished one mitten. As a newbie I was all thumbs doing "the thumb", but I think I finally have the hang of it:) 

Here's a nice blog of vintage children books I found over at Naomi Wilkinson's Pinterest site.

I love Naomi's illustration too! So nice to discover new illustrators!

Margaret Margaret Kilgallen was born in 1967 in Washington, DC, and received her BA in printmaking from Colorado College in 1989. Early experiences as a librarian and bookbinder contributed to her encyclopedic knowledge of signs, drawn from American folk tradition, printmaking, and letterpress. Kilgallen had a love of “things that show the evidence of the human hand.” Painting directly on the wall, Kilgallen created room-size murals that recall a time when personal craft and handmade signs were the dominant aesthetic. Strong, independent women—walking, surfing, fighting, and biking—are featured prominently in the artist’s compositions. Her work has been shown at Deitch Projects and the Drawing Room in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Luggage Store in San Francisco, Forum for Contemporary Art in St. Louis, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Kilgallen’s work was presented at UCLA Hammer Museum. She died in June 2001 in San Francisco, where she lived with her husband, Barry McGee. (source:http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/margaret-kilgallen) You can read more about her here.

Barry McGee is a lauded and much-respected cult figure in a bi-coastal subculture that comprises skaters, graffiti artists, and West Coast surfers, Barry McGee was born in 1966 in California, where he continues to live and work. In 1991, he received a BFA in painting and printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute. His drawings, paintings, and mixed-media installations take their inspiration from contemporary urban culture, incorporating elements such as empty liquor bottles and spray-paint cans, tagged signs, wrenches, and scrap wood or metal. McGee is also a graffiti artist, working on the streets of America’s cities since the 1980s, where he is known by the tag name “Twist.” He views graffiti as a vital method of communication, one that keeps him in touch with a larger, more diverse audience than can be reached through the traditional spaces of a gallery or museum. His trademark icon, a male caricature with sagging eyes and a bemused expression, recalls the homeless people and transients who call the streets their home. McGee says, “Compelling art, to me, is a name carved into a tree.” His work has been shown at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and on streets and trains all over the United States. He and his daughter, Asha, live in San Francisco. He recently had a mid-career retrospective. (source http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/barry-mcgee