Artsyletters

08/25/2026

My second Scrappy Shak Fall Retreat in Helen, Georgia, this past weekend with Melanie and Diane and the whole fabulous team of Goddesses in Purple. Thanks to Catherine Pooler and Erika of Catherine Pooler Designs for the great feature sessions (and they brought along a bonus - designer Emily Moore). Thanks to so many talented Scrappy Shak in-house designers and friends for leading "Make and Takes" and other workshops, including Nancy Ackerman's fun painting class.
Lovely creating and conversing as always. (The welcome party theme this year was "Dirty Dancing," btw.)
And, new digs - the recently refurbished Unicoi State Park Lodge.
Also this year, Melanie shared her hot-off-the-press book about her last year advocating for her hubby Roger during a health crisis, after spending years as a hospital administrative exec in the area of patient care. The book is titled SITTING IN THE CHAIR.

08/21/2026

I’ll post more about these images soon, but here’s an altered playing cards series inspired by Shelley Rhodes’s “Fragments” class at Take Two Art.

08/21/2026

Altered playing card series inspired by Shelley Rhodes’s Take Two Art “Fragments” class; will post more about these images soon!

07/27/2026

Let this shark bookmark with a vintage charm circle your pages til you get back....https://www.etsy.com/listing/4544621088/shark-bookmark-with-vintage-charm-and

07/04/2026

Happy 4th/Happy 250th!

05/29/2026

America's 250th is this summer! Here's a new bookmark set to help you get your semiquincentennial celebration on. Both feature vintage eagle illustration images and original art including gel plate prints. The “250” was originally stamped from antique classroom rubber stamps. The “We the People” celebrates the US Constitution (1787) with a stenciled image and a copy of the actual Constitution in the background. Click here to see in my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4513178037/america-250th-anniversary-bookmarks-set

05/21/2026

Had to get my medieval on for this last piece I made for Catherine Rains’s “Collage Joy” online workshop series this spring. The course was such great fun! This is an 8X8 collage on a cradled wood panel.
© Robyn Hood Black

05/19/2026

A 6X6 cools & neutrals collage and an 8X8 one with warms & neutrals. Catherine Rains's Collage Joy series has been great fun this spring. 🎨 (I always veer a little off-script with the projects....)

05/02/2026

Fun "Glue and Go" collage session today with Catherine Rains as part of her online Collage Joy series this spring; this fast-paced exercise is great for those of us who, ahem, might "overthink" a bit....;0)

04/24/2026

Happy Poetry Friday! The last of my weekly videos on "Poetry and Art" for National Poetry Month is up and running over at my author blog. This week's word/theme is LIBERTY. Thanks for your patience as I've been testing the waters with this project; I'll be launching bite-sized versions with a similar twist through artsyletters® in a bit. Here's the video of how I made the journal cover:

Poetry and Art Week 4 RHB Liberty Journal