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Book Signing @ The Ink Pad – Meet & Greet Nat!

Meet me at The Ink Pad in NYC for a book signing with my new book Artful Adventures in Mixed Media! Pick up a personalized copy of the book and go on an Artful Adventure with me :) To add to the fun, there will be some special prizes for the first 5 in-store preorders and first 5 in-store purchases of the book.  Drop by, say Hello, and pick up your copy!

Wednesday, June 7, 2017: 4pm – 7pm

See you there!

And for those of you who cannot make it, order a FREE signed Bookplate from the n*Store for your copy of Artful Adventures in Mixed Media. I will even personalize it for you if you let me know in the notes section of your order.

 

Nat

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Workshops at Scrapbooking Forever in SoCal

I’m super excited to be teaching 3 workshops at Scrapbooking Forever in Westlake Village in Southern California:

September 9, 2017, 10:00am – 6:00pm: Artvergnugen – Art Journaling Workshop

It starts the moment you sit down, an experience that is distinctly art journaling. A quick exhilaration, a sense of control, the art media’s surprising responsiveness as if they were simply an extension of you. There is a word for this creative experience: Artvergnugen! Artvergnugen is what makes your journal a piece of art. Join me and play with different art media and supplies; discover fun layering techniques with stamps, stencils and acrylic paints. Let’s talk about colors, composition, love-it or list-it to truly reveal your own style, and learn techniques, tips and tricks to take your art journaling further and turn it into Artvergnugen.

Register Here!

September 10, 2017, 9:00am – 1:00pm: Walk With Me – Altered Book Workshop

There is something so beautiful about a book – the cover, the spine, the paper, the typography and it makes a beautiful companion on a journey. Walk with Me and give an old and maybe discarded book a new colorful life. Learn fun stenciling, stamping and book altering techniques, how to draw when you can’t draw and use the book as a wonderful substrate to create a beautiful keepsake. Use acrylic paints, and inks and fun tools and techniques and be ready for a fun ride.

Register Here!

September 10, 2017, 2:00pm – 6:00pm: Master Art Express – Art Journaling Workshop

Imagine you could take a trip through Europe and at each stop one of the many masters of European art would materialize and invite you to explore their art to implement into your art journal. Let’s take this imaginary trip together and explore different European artists at each station, taking their artwork as an inspiration for mixed media techniques and colors. We will discuss why some things work and why some things don’t work and will solve the little “problems” that sometimes occur while creating art. Work with acrylic paints, acrylic inks, different tools and materials and gain a deeper knowledge about the versatility and possibilities of your art materials. Let the travel itself be part of the journey and take the elements of art in to push your own art journaling style just a notch further.

Register Here!

Can’t come to Southern California, but want to take a class with me? Check out my In-Person- Classes Page – where I am constantly updating where I will be teaching in the next couple months.

Nat

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Whatevers Part Three – In the Garden

A couple years ago my friends Vic Chrisman, Cat Scanlon and I founded The Whatevers, a Creative Storytelling Project. In a nutshell we decided to give old discarded photos we found a new life by telling the story of those shown. The three of us wrote an article for the recent Cloth Paper Scissors Issue – and we decided to revive the Whatevers every Wednesday this May on our blogs :)

Here is my project for this weeks’ photo

“Betsy’s community garden was a little piece of happiness for the kids n the otherwise quite kid unfriendly city.” …”Rolf became a florist, Fred became a landscaper, Matt became a Park Ranger and Betsy…never stopped planting seeds.”

This spread was actually a demo page for an image transfer class I taught a while ago and I was waiting for the right occasion to use the background with the buildings for. I painted the sunflowers onto the background.

I printed the photo out on printer paper and cut the persons out and applied them to the page. I painted over them with acrylic paints and markers and then added the journaling.

Now let’s check out what Vicki and Cat did with the photo and in case you want to play along with us -here is the original photo for you. Share with us what you came up with on the Whatevers Facebook Page or leave a link in the comment section :)

Here are the supplies I used for my page – some links are affiliate links:


Nat

Comments (5)

  • collette marcsis

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    I absolutely LOVE The Whatevers! I love the creative stories and how different three people can use the save photo. I admit I’ve spend a lot of money on “Found Relatives” and then they just sat. Thanks for the inspiration to start using them in my journal.

    Reply

  • Janelle Rourke

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    I am so happy to see the Whatevers again. I loved playing along!

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      yeahhh – hope you will play with us again for this month. We have two more coming :)

      Reply

  • Cat

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    I am absolutely in LOVE LOVE LOVE with this. It’s perfect in every single way, I love how you added the hand painted flowers in the background. It’s stunning. Did I mention I love this? :-)

    Reply

    • nathalie-kalbach

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      Awe- thank you my sweet friend! I do love yours so much too – and Vic’s !!! This is so much fun!

      Reply

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Out and About – Cheiron Brandon

  

Hello from the Creative Squad!  This month the Creative Squad will be playing along with my Stroll Challenge and today Cheiron Brandon is sharing a really cool canvas panel using my Stroll Through the Hood #2 and Embroidery stamp sets, and working with the prompt word Sky and the theme Out and About – Sometimes it’s hard to see all the cool and inspiring stuff that’s right under our noses. This month we hope you will join us in our 30 day Stroll Challenge and get Out and About where you live, and find some local inspiration.

Hi there! It’s Cheiron here and I hope you have been having fun with the Stroll through the Hood photo prompts this month. The word today is SKY and here is the picture I was inspired by. It is taken straight from my “hood” in New Jersey. Not the neighborhood I thought I would ever live in, but living here allows me to have a dedicated studio space. In my hood, I try to find adventure in the little things each day.

For my project this month, I decided to create a small canvas panel with some iridescent gelatos.

I started by scribbling some gelatos onto my panel.

Then I blended them into the canvas, added darker shades to highlight the edges.

To create my “sky”, I used a baby wipe through Nat’s Kassel stencil to remove some of the color from my canvas and reveal the white underneath.

I added more color and blended the edges even more.

Then I added Nat’s Star Fish stamp.

I then stamped the Grannies stamp and the Warehouse stamp from Stroll through the Hood 2 and added some crackle texture paste through Nat’s Beacon stencil to make the sky come alive even more.

I added Nat’s Running and Cross Circle stamps, and some word stickers to complete my canvas.

Thank you Cheiron for such a beautiful piece. Cheiron used the following supplies (some are affiliate links):



Play along with us this month and join the 30 day Artful Adventures Stroll Challenge! I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me how you used my stencils and stamps with the theme and email me an image – I would love to share your projects in my “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.

Nat

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Find Your Fire !

I love making art, I love being creative, I love to craft. I often think how lucky I am that I found my fire! I would have never guessed that this is where my path would lead me in my later life. I hope everyone can find their fire!

What is yours?

Nat

Comments (1)

  • stresso

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    What a great spread! Thanks for so much inspiration to find our fires too.

    Reply

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Gone Destination – Painting

I wanted share with you my painting “Gone Destination” which I had painted for one of the chapters of my book Artful Adventures in Mixed Media. The painting shows “Pearl Paint,  an art supply store, I used to visit often in NYC when I was still living in Germany and once in a while visit my family in the States. I loved this place and I loved the building. I was very sad when it closed down.  The paining is part of one of my chapters in my book where I show how and why I created the background – and what it was inspired by. I was pleasantly surprised that this was picked as the cover image for my book by the publisher (you see as an author you do not have a lot of say on that ;) ) . A student of mine, Julie B., really wanted it and so it is now on it’s way to California. I am so happy to know this painting that is so special to me will have a new loving home.

Speaking of Artful Adventures- are you playing along in the Stroll Through the Hood Challenge and Free Classroom? It is so much fun and I love seeing all the different “hoods” of those participating from all over the world, from all kinds of different neighborhoods- rural, urban …It is like an inspiring mini-vacation! Check it out if you haven’t yet and join the fun!

Have a wonderful day!

Nat

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Stroll Through the Hood – May 2017

Time for a Stroll Through the Hood . Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and to get new ideas to create something. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks. BTW, I hope you have joined me so far in the Artful Adventures: Stroll Through the Hood Challenge and Free Class – it is so much fun! Come and celebrate my new book Artful Adventures in Mixed Media with me!

I am sneaking in the photo above- this is from a Federal building in Newark ….kind of my hood ….you can see Jersey City and Manhattan – isn’t that a cool view?

Now …what have I been doing in this building?

well…along with 57 other people from 20 different countries I became an American :)

My friends and I also spent a day together in Branch Brook Park close to Newark which has apparently the largest collection of Cherry Trees in the United States …4300 …unfortunately not all on one spot- LOL – so we were quite on a hunt on this trip to find the best spots – but it was worth it and soooo beautiful.

I love cherry trees – too bad it is almost over with the blossoms.

This is part of a ship on the dry dock at Liberty State Park  – I love the colors and the texture- yummie!

Little picnic waving over to Manhattan

enjoying the flowers

thinking about this sign and taking it as a message to Earth …because seriously this looks like we do not love earth at all on this particular spot

and loving once more the many different man holes in Jersey City. Love the star with the pattern around it.

Now these photos are not part of the Stroll Through The Hood Challenge– but I told you – I do this regularly :) You can find all my former strolls here if you wanna see more about where I live.

 

Nat

Comments (12)

  • justbaa

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    Awesome, Nathalie!! Congratulations on your American Citizenship!!!

    Reply

  • ARHuelsenbeck

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    Congratulations on your citizenship, Nathalie!
    I used to live in New Jersey. Your photos made me nostalgic.

    Reply

  • Leap Year Baby

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    Just want to join all the others in congratulating you on becoming an American citizen.
    Love your strolls through the hood and the cherry blossoms are awesome!
    Can’t wait to get your book very happy for you!

    Reply

  • creativetrying

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    Congrats on becoming an American citizen. Enjoyed your stroll … especially the Cherry Blossoms.

    Reply

  • scrapinsue

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    The texture on that ship is awesome. I would love to have it be the background for patterned paper.
    Congratulations on becoming a citizen of the U.S. It’s a great country with some interesting politics going on at the moment (as I’m sure that you noticed).

    Reply

  • Gloria

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    CONGRATULATIONS on becoming an American Citizen.

    Reply

  • Susan

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    congratulations!!! becoming an american is a lot of hard work. thanks for sharing your stroll, too. it is always fun to have a staycation … i really enjoy all that you post!

    Reply

  • CJ Henderson

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    Yay you!! Congrats and such a beautiful stroll through “the hood”?

    Reply

  • friedaquikter

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    The views in your hood are spectacular from both close-up and afar! Specially in that glorious weather. Love strolling with you.

    Reply

  • DK in AZ

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    CONGRATULATIONS on becoming an American citizen! And on your new book too!

    Reply

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