Author Archives: Claudia McGill

About Claudia McGill

A person who does art and writes poetry. That's me!

Not Another Paint Brochure…!

Yes, I am afraid it is. But from a different manufacturer, so the paint names are different, too. It was a three-page folder – here it is all folded out.

Here it is one page at a time.

And, I must warn you, I have stacks of paint cards in various shades of white (I was trying to choose a shade to paint my kitchen cabinets), so there may be more…

Small Artist Sketchbook 2022 – Pages 66 and 67

We are on a journey through another one of my small artist sketchbooks. As with all my books of this type, I take a sketchbook and fill it with whatever I feel like doing at the time. No planning, just enjoyment.

This book was done between August 2020 and February 2022, more or less (I date each page as I do it).

I don’t go through the book page by page in order, though in general the earlier images are at the front and the later ones following – but sometimes I skip pages and come back later, or do some other thing. No reason, that is just how I do it.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s today’s page spread.

Here are individual views of the pages.

If you have any questions as to the materials or techniques I used, let me know. I love to answer questions!

Beauty in Ordinary Places…

… like a carwash!

I don’t like going through the carwash, so when I do, I take photos to distract myself. There are some beautiful sights to see, even as the thudding noises scare me and swishing and spraying water blasts are buffeting the car.

If you use your imagination, what do you see? Landscapes, clouds, sea monsters, large plants, a creature with glowing eyes? Think about that and not about what would happen if those large brushes reached inside the car…

I’m showing you the most interesting and to me, beautiful, shots here. If you want to see the whole trip, check it out here on my personal blog, Sometimes You Get So Confused.

Then and Now : Paint Brochure Version

You know how every so often I like to illustrate paint names. I create a little gallery from a paint brochure. As you may also know we have recently moved to a new house. Our kitchen cabinets are going to painted and white is the best color for the room (if I were simply picking a color I would choose pink but no one else sees it my way).

I picked up a white paint brochure, looked at the color names, and thought, Hmmm, these seem familiar…

I decided to illustrate these names again but without looking at the previous card. A few nights ago, I got to work. Here is the one I just did:

Here is the earlier one from fall, 2021:

Here they are side by side.

I think it’s interesting to see what the color names prompted me to draw then and now. Some are quite similar and others – no!

Small Artist Sketchbook 2022 – Pages 64 and 65

We are on a journey through another one of my small artist sketchbooks. As with all my books of this type, I take a sketchbook and fill it with whatever I feel like doing at the time. No planning, just enjoyment.

This book was done between August 2020 and February 2022, more or less (I date each page as I do it).

I don’t go through the book page by page in order, though in general the earlier images are at the front and the later ones following – but sometimes I skip pages and come back later, or do some other thing. No reason, that is just how I do it.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s today’s page spread.

Here are individual views of the pages.

If you have any questions as to the materials or techniques I used, let me know. I love to answer questions!

Art for a Cause – Three

You may remember that not long ago I participated in a class consisting solely of warm-up exercises (Mixed Media Warm-Ups, three posts). It was taught by Marcie Wolf-Hubbard. In this class, she told us about a collage challenge we might be interested in: Art for a Cause, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Program at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. (click on the link and it will take you to more info about the event as well as to the main page of the program).

I don’t know anything about this hospital – I don’t even live near it. But I was impressed that the role of art in healing was considered and respected. I myself have experienced its therapeutic effects during some serious health issues I have had in the last 8-10 years. Art never fails to help me.

OK, here is my third and final group. (Note – the collages don’t have borders around them – I added them in these photos to make them easier to distinguish from the background.)

I enjoyed finding images in the random assortment of the cut squares and building on them.

Art for a Cause – Two

You may remember that not long ago I participated in a class consisting solely of warm-up exercises (Mixed Media Warm-Ups, three posts). It was taught by Marcie Wolf-Hubbard. In this class, she told us about a collage challenge we might be interested in: Art for a Cause, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Program at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. (click on the link and it will take you to more info about the event as well as to the main page of the program).

More about the Art for a Cause event – the collages will be displayed at the hospital and then given to patients, staff, caregivers, and anyone in the hospital community. I like that idea a lot.

I have also noticed that the hospital also offered some activities in which people could make collages. The healing properties of art and making art were once again in action.

Here is my second group. (Note – the collages don’t have borders around them – I added them in these photos to make them easier to distinguish from the background.)

I’m going to point out a feature of my collage work. Wrinkles. Some artists don’t like them, but I’m fine with them. If the paper wants to stretch and wrinkle, I say, who am I to argue?

Art for a Cause – One

You may remember that not long ago I participated in a class consisting solely of warm-up exercises (Mixed Media Warm-Ups, three posts). It was taught by Marcie Wolf-Hubbard. In this class, she told us about a collage challenge we might be interested in: Art for a Cause, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Program at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. (click on the link and it will take you to more info about the event as well as to the main page of the program).

It was tied in with World Collage Day on 5/13, which I didn’t even know existed. But of course you know that the whole idea appealed to me right away. Here is how things went.

In Marcie’s class, we incorporated a warm-up exercise into preparing for collage work: we took a largish piece of paper and randomly collaged on it. Then we cut it into 4″ x 4″ squares, which was the size of the requested artworks. It was up to us where we went next with them. I decided I’d like to meet the challenge and I made and sent 14 artworks. I’ll show them to you a few at a time.

Here is the first group. (Note – the collages don’t have borders around them – I added them in these photos to make them easier to distinguish from the background.)

Small Artist Sketchbook 2022 – Pages 62 and 63

We are on a journey through another one of my small artist sketchbooks. As with all my books of this type, I take a sketchbook and fill it with whatever I feel like doing at the time. No planning, just enjoyment.

This book was done between August 2020 and February 2022, more or less (I date each page as I do it).

I don’t go through the book page by page in order, though in general the earlier images are at the front and the later ones following – but sometimes I skip pages and come back later, or do some other thing. No reason, that is just how I do it.

Let’s take a look.

Here’s today’s page spread.

Here are individual views of the pages.

If you have any questions as to the materials or techniques I used, let me know. I love to answer questions!

What is Home? Five

As I am preparing for our move to a new house, here are more houses from my past work.

Home means something different to each person – we all have different physical locations, memories, structures for our homes – and yet I think it is one of the most important concepts there is in our society. I know that my home, not just my house, but my home, means everything to me.

As I moved away from fabric work around 2000-2001, I took up collage work, and I did a few portraits in collage. But I eventually adopted the policy of not doing any commission work – I was busy enough with my own projects and could sell whatever I made, no longer needing the portrait work to keep me going. And to be honest, commission work is nerve-wracking. I just didn’t want to do it anymore.

The best-laid plans…


I did this house in paper collage. The buyer saw me at a show when I was still accepting assignments, we discussed the project, and nothing came of it until a year or so later when they contacted me, by which time I had decided no more…but. After some negotiation I agreed to do this one more house. It was a beach house in North Carolina.


Oh, guess what. My firm resolve to do no more commission work wobbled again. I made this portrait of a townhouse on Spruce Street in Philadelphia because the buyers had bought several other pieces from me and they were so nice about how they asked…Here it is. I really think this is the last one.


I believe you have seen most if not all of the commissioned portraits I’ve made over the years. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t done a lot of other pictures with houses as the subject. Here is a small selection of portraits in collage.

All of these are real places, if not exactly adhering to color scheme or setting.

They are all somebody’s home.

Thank you for going along with me on this journey. As you might guess, it’s brought up a lot of memories for me. I will take them with me to my new home.