Words and stuff

Hi everyone!

So today I was all about words and stuff (and more words, etc...thank you, Matt, for putting this phrase in my mind!).  Words belonged on my study in texture piece, but I somehow needed to get the words in my mind onto the piece itself.  I had found a template (thank you eBay!) for the font I wanted to use for the words, but was way nervous about trying to letter the words myself (I couldn't use the template on such a bumpy surface, as I wouldn't get enough coverage with paint [or any other medium for that matter] through the template to make the words look right).  Here's the template:

So today I said "what the heck" (well, sort of...this is a "G" rated blog after all :-) ) and just put my marker on the piece and lettered away.  I would eyeball each letter on the template and just copy it to the best of my ability onto the surface.  I used a black marker that has a paint brush-type end on it so it allowed for some flexibility in trying to get the letters written on the bumpy surface.  Here are the results:

While the words are far from perfect, they don't look too bad.  I'm just proud of the fact that I just did it without thinking too much about it.  Yay me!

Now I need to determine how I want to finish this off.  I'm not what I am going to do, but that's okay.  I'll figure it out!

Now I'm off to have some fun words and stuff with my husband to prepare for the week ahead!  Until next time, think about your words and stuff and make them as gentle as possible!

Treasures from the deep

Hi everyone!

It has been a busy couple of months for me.  I have been to visit my parents with Joe, put in many hours at my "day job," gotten married, and taken a lovely honeymoon with my husband (seems weird to call Joe my husband now...I love the fact that we are married, but the titles "husband" and "wife" don't seem natural yet).  All of this has left little time for me to be in my studio.

However, my studio has not been far from my mind.  I have just spent a couple of hours putting away the goodies I have acquired over the past couple of months (yes, there is always time to go to the craft stores!).  I also spent quite a few hours cleaning one of the greatest treasures I brought home from our honeymoon (besides my wonderful husband!)...shells!

Joe and I visited Sanibel Island on our honeymoon.  In case you don't know, Sanibel Island is known as the seashell capital of the world.  And there is good reason for the title...it seemed like there were more shells on the beach than sand!  I brought home six gallon-sized baggies full of them!  So much fun to collect, but a lot of work to clean them.  Here they are all laid out to dry:

That part of our sidewalk is about 6-7 feet long...that's a lot of shells!

I want to incorporate these somehow into the art I make, so I am going to have to think about how I want to do that.  Meanwhile, these treasures from the deep made me think about another treasure from a different deep...how I want to express myself and create art.  I've lost a little focus over the last few months, so I want to dig deep and find that girl who feels comfortable creating and expressing what she really needs and wants to, all despite what anyone else might say.  I am ever hopeful of being able to do this (as I am an ever-hopeful kind of girl :-) ).  Perhaps that treasure from the deep will be as beautiful as these shells are.  I think it can be.

Until next time, be sure to listen to what your heart tells you so you can let your inner treasures shine, too!

Stay tuned

Hi everyone!

I'm back with a brief note to say I'll be back in the studio very soon.  I'm excited to bring you more creativity and fun in just a little while!

Until then, take care of yourself, leave time in your life for the people, pastimes, and things you love, as well as a little time to rest, relax, and dream.

Stay tuned for more soon!

Happy Days!

It's all about playing

Hiya peeps!

I have been absent the past couple of weeks.  While I am sure no one really noticed, I did.  I hated it.  I wanted to be here, but my real job has been taking up so much of my energy - physical, mental, psychic - that I took a break.  The bad thing was that instead of putting my real job into perspective and balancing that better, I took a break from what I really want to be doing which is playing in my studio.

So, while I still have much work to do at my real job (which is great, just a bit overwhelming), I am taking a break from it and playing instead.  Awesome!

My study in texture piece now has some work done on the back.  I painted and added fleur de lis.

I don't think I'm done with the back yet, but I like the direction it is headed in.  I'll be sure to share my next steps as they happen!

So, I am on a mission to balance my real job with the things that make me the happiest (spending time with Joe, taking care of my health, arting, reading, writing, and occasionally doing nothing at all).  I'm worth it.  If you are struggling with the same thing, remember you are worth balancing things, too.

In light of my new mission, Joe and I actually went for a walk in this beautiful in-city park yesterday.  It was inspiring to see the gorgeous blues of the sky combined with the deep greens of the foliage and red of the rocks.  The picture hardly does it justice, but it is lovely nonetheless.  I hope you enjoy seeing it as much as I did being there!

I'm off to go play for a while.  Until next time, I hope you find time to play in your lives, too!

More is in, but there isn't any place to put the more!

Hiya everyone!

I've actually been avoiding my studio a bit lately.  Can you believe that?!  There must be something wrong.  And sure enough, there is.  I have been accumulating all kinds of goodies lately (I love garage sales and consignment stores!), but I haven't been purging anything.  I'm putting more in, but there are no more places to put the more!

At today's garage sale, I picked up some of that magnetic poetry you see everywhere (the artist's set, no less :-) ), and I used it to help put words to how I was feeling:

You see, even though I am a mixed media artist which means I need, well, lots of "media" to do what I want to do, it is good to go through the stash once in a while and move out the stuff you no longer find beautiful or useful.  It feels good to clear things out (less weighing me down), but it also feels good to share some good stuff with the world.  It could be that another budding mixed media artist is out there checking out the goodies I donated to the consignment store and deciding to purchase a few things to beef up her stash.  And the cycle continues.  

In addition to figuring out why I was avoiding the studio, I did add a few more fleur de lis to my texture piece: 

I am still adding them same way I did before...I took some copper block printing ink, spread it out on a paper plate, stamped my fleur de lis stamp in it, and then stamped the image on the piece.  I'm liking it...I hope you do, too!

So let's hope my studio is now back in psychic balance with a little less stuff, and I can spend more good times in there.  

Until next time, I recommend cleaning up and clearing out your space so that you can breathe once again! 

Happy Days to you!

Inspiration is everywhere

Inspiration...it's everywhere.  You just have to look around you.  You have to stop for a minute and actually open your eyes, focus on the present moment, and see.  I did it twice yesterday.

First, I was eating breakfast, looking at a visually beautiful magazine. I couldn't help but cut out the pictures I found to be gorgeous so I could use them later when I needed my spirits lifted or some inspiration to help me with color choices, composition, etc.  Just looking at these pictures makes me want to make something, anything, that might be as beautiful as what is depicted.

Second, Joe and I went to the Renaissance Festival (of course, as the Renaissance Woman, I had to go to the festival :-) ).  What a great place to get inspiration!  Interesting people doing interesting things, all out of the ordinary because we were, after all, supposed to be in the Renaissance.  

The king's court welcomes visitors at the start of the day:

Mostly I was inspired by the music that was played, especially by one band called Celtic Legacy.  They played everything from the standard Celtic music you would expect to The Lion Sleeps Tonight:

Can you guess which costumes they were wearing when they played The Lion Sleeps Tonight?!  :-)  How fun is that?  They took something normal and ordinary (although a great song for sure) and made it extraordinary by playing the song on instruments you'd never expect.  

It was also fun to see all of the different arts and crafts for sale.  I'm in heaven shopping in a place like that not only because I see all kinds of goodies I want, but because I get to see different artists' takes on the usual and customary.  My favorite thing this time was the sales display for piggy banks:

So clever...I bet these folks sold a ton of the piggies simply by thinking outside of the box in how they displayed their wares.  

And all of this inspiration occurred in just a few hours of my day yesterday.  So I not only have some great memories and mementos from from the day, I have a ton of inspiration to draw upon whenever I need it.  It pays to keep your eyes and mind open to see and feel the great things going on around you, whether it is something simple like a beautiful magazine to a more rare occurrence like the Renaissance Festival.

So, until next time, keep your peepers open and brain ready for the beauty around you!

Happy days!

Not in the mood

I, like most people, live a very busy life.  And sometimes when I have down time that I can use for something fun like playing in the studio, I don't want to.  I'm tired.  I'm cranky.  I'm not motivated.  I'm tired.  Did I mention that I'm tired?  These days really stink because I don't have a lot of time to play (too many other things I need to do like work...work sure gets in the way of having fun sometimes :-) ).

This is where I am today...tired, a bit cranky, and not motivated to do anything but sit on the couch and veg until tomorrow.  Yuck.

So, I haven't done much in the studio this weekend.  I did put another coat of red paint on the edge of my study in texture piece, so that's good.  I did start to work on the piece of copper I have to do some faux etching on:

I cut the edges and bent them up a bit and then used a hammer and a screwdriver (slotted) to make the dimples you see above.  I am going to etch the following stamp on the copper:

I hope to do this sometime this week.  I'll let you know if I get there.  :-)

So for now, I think I'll end for the day.  Perhaps I'll mosey over to the couch and lay there until tomorrow.  :-)

Until next time, may you have more motivation than I do today!

And the next step is...

...adding a fleur de lis or three or four!  I love fleurs de lis, or as Joe and I call them, tour de Frances ( :-) ).  I always have.  So, when I looked at my texture piece, it just seemed right to put some on there.  Here's how they look:

I took a foam tour de France stamp and used my block printing ink, in this case a copper color, to make the impressions.  I put a blob of ink on a paper plate, smoothed it out on the plate with a small spatula, and then dipped the stamp in the ink.  From there, I stamped the impression on the piece.  Here are my tools:

I plan to do this more around the edge and on the back as the rest of the piece gets painted.  

And that, dear readers, is the next step.  I have no idea where the rest of the piece is headed, but so far I think it is going very well.  Not bad for not really knowing what I am doing!

Until next time, happy days to you all!

Size doesn't seem to matter any more

Hi everyone!

Welcome back to my studio!  I have some fun things to show you and an observation to share. First, let's start with the show part.

I finished my tiny vase!  I finally found the flowers I wanted to put in it, completing the project:

Nice, huh?!  It only stands about 3 1/2 inches tall, so it is perfect for that very tiny spot you might have on your desk at work, the windowsill in your own studio, or in a very wee space on a shelf.  I love wee things like this!  They prove that you can fit a lot of beauty and color into a very small package.

I also played with the texture piece a little bit, adding some red paint to the front and the top edge.  On the front, I brushed the red paint on and then took some paper towels and wiped it off, leaving the red in the nooks and crannies.  Very simple, but a fun effect:

On the top edge, I just painted the red on like I did the brown on the front.  It was still its original color, and I thought it would look good red.  I did a lot of "pouncing" with the brush...bouncing it up and down on the surface once the brush was loaded with the paint.  I did that to make sure I filled in all of the texture, as I wanted a solid red surface:

I like it!  We'll see where it goes from here.

Okay, that's the show part of the show and tell.  Now for the tell.  I have noticed recently that I don't really care about keeping the pieces I am working on small any more.  I have expanded and will do something big, as well as tiny things.  It used to be that big things scared me; now they don't.  I have no idea when that happened, but it did.  I just hope that the big ones are just as appealing to some folks as the small ones can be!  I don't know, though...you'll have to be the judge of that.

I do have one last thing to show you (never say I don't give you value-added service with my blog :-) ).  Joe and I went to pick up his '57 Ranchero on the 4th of July.  This is his new project car...he is so excited!  I love it, too...while old and needing some work, it has so much potential to be a beautiful piece of art again.  I think even now it has potential as art, so here's my attempt at an "artsy" photo of it:

It may be broken, but it isn't down for the count (the same could be said of lots of us human pieces of art, too :-) ).  I am excited to see how this develops; I hope to document it in photos along the way.

Well, that's enough rambling today.  Go find something inspiring to do, to watch, to see, or to be and stay cool out there everyone!

Until next time...happy days!

Ready to play in the stash!

Hi everyone!

Not much time to write today...I am going to play in my stash!  Today I feel like I need a reminder of all of the fun things I have to use in creating my artwork, so I am going to follow that feeling and play!  Plus, it will be a good time to see if there is anything I can pass along to someone else to use (a good "win-win" for everyone...someone else gets to find something fun and I get to have more space to add more fun things myself!).

So, I wish you playtime of your own today...even just 10 or 15 minutes can do a world of good for your soul.  Remember, if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anyone else or really enjoy this wonderful journey called life!

I'll leave you today with one of my favorite pictures on the shores of Washington State...when I am not in my studio playing, this is where I would wish to be playing (although pretty much any beach would do, as long as it isn't hot!)!

Happy days to you!

Progress...and then...eeeewwwww!

Greetings all!

Well, I made a little progress with some of my texture and newspaper projects.

Here's the texture project with the first layer of brown paint:

And a close-up:

And here's the completion of the first layer of newspaper on the canvas:

And a close-up of what words I'll be focusing on in the first layer of newspaper:

You know how the earth shifts when you come to a new realization or finally understand something you didn't?  That's the kind of "earth shifts" I am thinking of, not the bad kind (earthquakes and other dangerous things).

All seems to be moving right along, right?  Well, it was until I put another layer of Mod Podge on the texture piece.  I thought I would do that before I put more paint on top (with the intention of wiping some of it away) so that the paint colors wouldn't mix.  I felt like I needed a lot of the Mod Podge, so I layered it up good.  Turns out, I didn't need so much.  When I came back to the piece after several days of drying, I found a milky mess:

Eeeeeewwwww!!  Now I need to repaint over this nastiness.  I can't let that milky mess remain.  It's just too...eeeeewwww.  Oh well...lesson learned...I don't need so much Mod Podge!

In looking at all of these brown and black and white pictures, I feel like I need to share something that isn't quite so...well...brown and black and white.  Here's a picture of some of the pink roses that bloom in our yard:

Gorgeous!  You have got to love Mother Nature and all of the beauty she provides us!  I feel grateful I get to see so much of it as close as my backyard.

So, until next time, remember that sometimes too much of a good thing is indeed too much!  Have a great week everyone!

Even more texture!

I'm playing with texture again with the stuff I started last week.  First, I took this glass beads texture gel and the plastic doily I showed you last week and made a fun mess.

By fun mess I mean I took a spackle spatula and spread the glass beads texture gel over the top of the doily as you see it in the picture above so that the impression of the doily was left on the canvas.  Here is how it looked wet:

And here it is dry:

The doily impression is harder to see than I thought until I put paint on it (I'll show that in a minute).  I wanted more texture, so I took the same doily and did the same process as I did with the glass beads texture gel with fiber paste instead (upper left in the overhead picture below).  I also Mod Podged some paper doilies on the canvas, too:

Close-up of fiber paste doily impression:

Close-up of paper doily Mod Podged on:

I am not sure how the fiber paste will turn out, but that's okay.  That's half the fun!  I suspect, as the paste left quite a few peaks through the doily, that I will have to sand it a bit once it is dry.  I'm not sure I want the peaks to be quite as high as they are right now.  I'll know more when it is all dry.

As I said above, I added some paint to the glass beads texture gel doily impression (wow...that's a mouthful!) and it became much easier to see the impression:

Supposedly the glass beads are supposed to give the paint a certain sparkly quality to it, but I am not seeing it.  That's okay, though...I like how the texture of it and that, for this piece, is what counts to me.  I'm not sure I like the paint color, but it is a start.  I can always Mod Podge over the paint and paint again with another color.  

I also took the glass beads stuff and piled it into a leaf cookie cutter onto a tiny canvas.

Here it is dry:

I then am going to add layers of paint over the top...here is my first layer:

I'll Mod Podge between each layer of paint to stop them from bleeding into each other and creating a brown mess.

And finally (yep, I HAVE been busy!), I am playing around with adding layers of newspaper to canvas in a unique way...you can't really see it now, but it will be unique by the time I am done. Here's the first layer:

I know you can't see it, but there is a canvas under there.  I used the New York Times for this layer and will for other layers, too.  I'm also using The Wall Street Journal.  I like the fonts they use better than my local newspaper.

Well, that's it for today.  More will follow later!  Until next time, be you and no one else.  You are perfect just the way you are!