Published Artists in San Diego - Lisa Bebi, Julie Prichard, Suzi Blu and Pam Carriker

Group Photo in Escondido

Suzi Blu
Meeting Suzi Blu all started with Suzi's online classes at Les Petit Academy. I had seen her promo for her Beginner LesPetit Dolls class and her work in magazines and wanted to make this face! I told my friend Deborah and she went to the site but she decided she wanted to take Suzi's "The Goddess and the Poet" online class. The words "poet" threw me off but I listened to Deborah and signed up for that class immediately. This was the beginning to an entire new world opening up to me.

When the Petit Dolls class opened, I signed up for that one too. And then the Marie class began. Suzi has so many incredible videos and PDFs for her classes. She wants you to download them to your computer and keep them for life! She maintains that theses videos are her class and you paid for her class. Now, she doesn't keep the chat and all the other things that are available while you take her classes open forever. There are beginnings and ends to her online classes. She also takes it as a compliment if you start with her techniques and add your own touches and then are fortunate to get published. As long as you are not just directly printing out her sketches, coloring them in or selling them and then publishing them as your own.

Suzi's classes were featured in Sept/Oct 2009 Somerset Studio magazine, page 72-75. Be sure to check out her classes. They are awesome! Love her, love her classes.

Pam Carriker
Last Friday I visited Suzi Blu at her new home. She is very new to the San Diego area, her home being New Jersey. When I got to her place I realize that she was really close to a stamp store. I also knew that there was a class going on where Pam Carriker was going to be teaching. Plus, I knew that Lisa Bebi and Meridith Cummings would be taking the class. So I suggested we go up and see what was happening. Well, they were all thrilled to meet each other and iPhone photos flew and everyone seemed to be "twitting."

There I learned that Pam was going to be teaching at Escondido Arts Partnership Municipal Gallery the following day and was told that there was room for me in the class. Well, how often do you get to take classes from someone who is a regular to Somerset Magazines and lives in Missouri? So, I was there the next day to take her class. The class an project that we did is featured in Cloth, Paper Scissors May/June 2009 issue, page 50-53. We made this project. My canvas is seen above.

Pam and Sally

I would like to tell you two things that I loved about Pam's class - she knew exactly how much time to allow us to be taught and complete the project. We were not rushed and we did finish! Plus, she provided all the materials including a tracing of her "woman's face." We did not have to use this and was encouraged to draw our own if we could. It was mainly the outline of the face and body since we obscured the features with a thin watered down coat of gesso. (The eyes were the hardest part for almost everyone where I found the lips to be the most difficult.)

A painting technique that Pam taught us and that we all struggled with, was her shading technique and how to work the angled brush. She shared the paints and colors that she likes to use and how she achieves her soft background effects. Very nice class.

Pam is also featured in the Jul/Aug 2009 Somerset Studio in an article entitled "Sisterhood of the Traveling Canvas."

Her journal that I spoke about in my previous blog is Winter 2009 Somerset Journaling. She has a 6 page spread with many tips and photos of her journal. But, I am telling you again, the camera just could not capture the true beauty of her journal in person. I guess she is working on a journal where all the pages are black (the initial pages that is). It seems to give a different depth to the pages. Very interesting.

Julie Prichard
Julie Prichard's online Super Nova Journal class is fun and takes you step by step how to produce a layered journal page. This has been such a crazy two weeks, I haven't had a lot of time to watch the videos as they come out and keep up with the class - even though I promised that this time I would. But, so far, so good.


I did not make Julie's journal since I already had journals waiting to be filled with art. One I made a long time ago with the teacher that first helped me to be comfortable with acrylic paints - Kelly Kilmer. Her laid back teaching style and generous nature with products and collage materials started me on the road to loving altered art more than anything else. Kelly likes to use Wausau paper from Kelly Paper (I don't think there is any connection there).

The larger journal I made from instructions I downloaded from Teesha Moore's website. I even ordered the Fabriana paper to make this journal. The paper is awesome.

Julie's work is also featured in Somerset's Winter 2009 Journaling. She is found on pages 88-93 and also on pages 130-133.

Lisa Bebi
Lisa Bebi "Paint Over" class out in Rancho San Diego at the library out there really started Suzi meeting Lisa, meeting Pam. Lisa had taught a class at my home to 10 of my friends - her paint over class. I learned that Lisa was going to be doing a demonstration at the library and decided to drive out on a Monday. There, I found my good friend Diane Chen.

In the end, Diane, me and Nina Reeba ended up taking her class again. I wanted to finish my triptych that I had started. I the one of my natural father and one of my natural father but I needed one with me. It is still a work in progress. So is the triptych that I started of me and my baby dolls. When I finish them I will post them, but for now, I have a lot of canvases and ideas from Lisa that are not finished. My bad - not the artist's fault.

Lisa seems to be in every issue of Somerset. But, my personal favorite is the Spring 2008 of Somerset Workshop. There you will find four articles with28 pages of step by step instructions and a gallery of her works.

Pam Carriker adventure with Suzi Blu

Sally, Pam and Suzi

Today was quite an adventure. I got to visit Suzi Blu at her new digs which she is in the process of renovating with the help of the nicest neighbors. We visited and she was nice enough to look over my sketches and ideas of the work I have been doing in her online classes. Plus, she made some excellent (of course) suggestions as to how to improve my Good Witch and Bad Witch canvases.

We had to run a little errand to Home Depot so that her wonderful neighbor could complete hooking up a brand new toilet for her. When we got back, I asked her if she wanted to visit a store that is so close to where she now lives - The Stamp Addict. I told her there was a class going on and that I knew that Lisa Bebi was taking the class along with her artist friend Meridith Cummings.

She was very excited to meet Lisa Bebi and so off we went. I had no idea who was teaching the class. When we entered and Suzi saw who was teaching, she screamed and was so excited - Pam Carriker! Well, Pam had never meet Suzi was even more excited to meet her. It was a love fest and Pam had to have a photo of she and Suzi and then Suzi had to have a photo of the two of them and then I had to have a photo of me with them!

Then Lisa returned from a short errand she had to run and was delighted to find that we were there and to meet Suzi also.

What did they talk about? Well, they talked about the paper. What paper do you use? What paper do YOU use? It's all about the paper.

About Pam's work. OMG. Her journal was the most beautiful book ever in person. And I say in person for a reason. I ran home after dropping Suzi back home and making arrangements for us to get together today again and to show her around San Deigo (she now has a car). I got out the Somerset Journaling mag and the first article was of Pam's journal. The article was wonderful but the photos could not do justice to the book. Not the photographer's fault. I really dont' know how to explain it but Pam's book in person and her drawing and artistry seen in this journal was incredible. If you ever get an opportunity to meet Pam in person and see her work in person - do not miss it. The pages are so smooth and yet there is such depth. You know, I am out of my field to even explain what makes her pages so beautiful. I will stop now. but, just know, that the photographs do not do the pages justice! And what a nice person she is also!

That was my day, my friends and I didn't want it to ever end. . .

p.s. Pam showed us a new journal she is using that all the pages (paper) are black. Very kool.

Photos for Lisa Bebi's Paint Over Class

"Do you like my hat?"

Today I am getting ready for my Thursday class out at Rancho San Diego Library. It is Lisa Bebi's Paint Over class - revisited. In the spring, Lisa came and taught a class at my home. In it a created theses two canvases. This Thursday I will add this to the mix.

Then I am thinking about a series of me behind my home in Glendale, California at 315 Riverdale. It seems like it would make a fun triptych. We'll see what Lisa says and if I have them the correct size.

There are also theses two photos of myself where I am smiling.



















Then there are theses where I look a little possessive of my dollies. One of them has a particular expression on my face that I recognize.

There's that look. . .

Finally, there is this photo of Kari and Erik taken at Wrightwood, CA in 1983. Erik is 7 years old and Kari is 5. Only my family will realize that something is missing from this photo.

Erik and Kari

Thread Spool and Flower Swaps

Jackie, Pat, Elena, Sally and Georgia on the far right

Well, today was the day for our Thread Spool swap. We are missing Mariam and Deborah. We have been meeting at Milton's Deli in Del Mar for our lunch and swaps. Good food and good friends - what could be better?

I found this a particularly difficult swap. I think I became discouraged when after creating a Petite Doll face on a tag and scanning and printing it on shrink paper and shrinking, the colors got so much more dark and orange. This threw me off. I finally started decorating all the different size and shape thread spools I had gathered. Each one was different. Then, what to do with the little girl faces? I tried to deal with the color by using colored pencils to change the hair color.

The one thing that has remained true in my life - that which I struggle the most with and have the most difficulty with - the one I like the least - happens to be the one that everyone else likes the best, and since that particular girl ended up with black hair - Elena snatched it right.

I had tried to work with hot glue and ended up with a big mess and deciding that hot glue is not MY friend. To cover everything that I hated, I ended up sprinkling the German antique silver glitter all over the sides, of the thread and paper that was below. That is probably what attracted Elena to this spool. Elena is the Glitter Queen for sure.

The others were just finished using scraps of everything in my art room - since the spools are so small. In the end, amazingly, they all came out with their own little personalities and once I gathered them all up, I ended up loving all my little girls!

Sally's spools in the bushes. . .

I took theses photos in front of my car when I parked at Milton. I thought the ice plant would make a great background. Obviously I was wrong. You can't really see the spools very well, unless you click on the photo and it enlarges. Live and learn. That is why I am so looking forward to the photo class I am taking in Utah at Sparks in November. Composition is everything - obviously. . .

Spools on Display

Here is a photo of all the other exchanges. The most fun about all theses swaps is how everyone has a different idea as to what they are going to do with their project. There are so many different directions to go, even though on a personal level, each one of us might only see one path to completion.

Sally's flowers that didn't make the cut

While I am on the subject of swaps, there was a Flower Swap at Pink Pineapple's Scrapbook Club. We had to make 27 flowers for the exchange. I some how got short changed and sure didn't get 27 flowers back. This 1st photo shows the kind of flowers I made from fabric by cutting circles and heating the edges over a candle for them to curl. I learned this technique from Deborah who saw it online somewhere. These are not all finished, but you get the idea as to what I made.

Flowers I received in exchange

These are what I got back in exchange. It was really a fun exchange and once again you got so many different flowers created so many different ways. Check out the little fairy flower. So very cute. I wonder what the ones I didn't get looked like. . .