Correction To Post Below

On the last piece "All I Have", the top photo is actually the LEFT page and the bottom photo the RIGHT. Blogger will not let me edit it - grrrr! :)

Shades of Blue - Literally and Emotionally

Here is the artwork I created for swap commitments this week:

This one is for PEGGY in the Mixed Media Madams Group. It is called "Peggy's Darling Garden" and the front is above and the back below. Peggy's pages are 6x6 and her theme is: What Do You See When You Close Your Eyes. Well, when I close my eyes and think about my sweet Mama P I think about: blue and white things, flowers, sweet little girls, and silliness (the hat). I really wish I had some google eyes, cuz that would have made this page perfect! Peggy, feel free to add those eyes if you wish! :)
Here is the next piece:
This one (again, top is the front, below is the back) is for JUDY in the alteredartchix group. Her theme was open and her colors were blue and brown with splashes of pink and white. I call this one "The Sisters' Journey". It is difficult to see and I cannot figure out how to let this thing make my pics bigger with clicking, but I used the masking tape technique by Claudine Hellmuth on these pages. Basically you cover the whole thing with tape going in all directions, use a bone folder to press it down really well, cover it with gel medium, let it dry and then paint it. It gives the piece some really neat texture, I think. :)

My final piece is an 8x8 for Debbie J. in the alteredartchix group as well. Her theme was vintage weddings in the color scheme of whites/off whites/browns and jewel tones. I call it "All I Have" and used a poem by Emily Dickinson as my inspiration. This piece also uses the masking tape technique. After the gel medium I added a tea-stain distress ink then painted with white paint. It has a nice texture and some color variation within the white, which I like. The top photo is the right page, the bottom one is the left page.

Sleepiness & A Wonderful Friend

Today I spent doing...nothing! I slept for 11 hours last night, woke up and got a drink of water and used the little girls room, laid back down to read a bit and shake off the wooziness and woke up 5 hours later! Yikes! I so very much wish that my sleeping pattern would normalize. I would love to be the kind of person who could sleep 8 hours a night and get up refreshed and ready to go. Unfortunantly, the pain issues I deal with make that impossible. Half the time I cannot sleep for a day and a half and the other half I crash for an entire day. Yada, Yada, Yada. If only I could get productive things done when I'm up! THAT doesn't happen! Instead, I read. A LOT! If you are ever interested in what I read, I keep a list on my Shelfari. There's a link to it below to the right on my list of stuff. But please don't judge my reading, ok?! I know it's not rocket science but I do try to read some intelligent and well written books inbetween the fluff! Heh Heh! But sometimes a girl just wants something predictable and easy, ya know?!



In other news, my wonderful friend JENNIFER sent me an AWESOME painting of a woman with a sugar skull that she started in the Jesse Reno workshop! It means so much to me that she sent it because I got to see it "born" right next to me! She was using the Jesse method of just adding colors on to the canvas and the woman figure emerged. I teased that it was a woman in mid-twirl and that her, ahm, breast was all-naturale! Heh Heh! Then the skull came out too, which I think was influenced by the wonderous Lana Guerra (see previous post for my drooling adoration of her!), who was sitting next to her. That is so very cool! Jennifer is such an amazing artist and someone I adore tremendously! She's my homegirl! Heh Heh! Please click on her name if you want to see more of her awesome art, ok?! Here is the painting that I already framed and hung on my art room wall. I adore it and thank Jennifer for allowing it to be with me!

Do you like the "trick" and "treat" words with it? I found those last year after Halloween at Michaels for 25 cents each!

Here's a pic of nearly the whole wall and the daybed. We just put up the shelf this week to house some of my witches. If you come to stay with me (and you are most welcome to do so anytime!), this is where you will sleep. But I promise that all the witches are good ones and will never give you nightmares!

My New Obsession

Would somebody pLEAse buy this Lana Guerra painting for me??!!

Pretty please?! The link is right here: CRUDE THINGS. Now, I'm not expecting just one person to buy it. But if everyone went in on it, I think it could happen! And I have about $40 bucks I could throw into the pot too! So see...it wouldn't be t*h*a*t much, really! And I saw this in person at the Jesse Reno workshop and FELL IN LOVE WITH IT! I want this so bad I'm thinking of selling off my Anahata Katkin book collection (which is now out of print, mind you!) to get it. Sad huh?! Sigh. I love this woman's art.

Here's a picture of LANA GUERRA (press her name for her website):

She tickles my brain and makes me feel like dancing in clown shoes! I got to meet her at the Jesse workshop and was just...enamoured! She really LIVES her art and that is so inspiring! She's one of the nicest people I have ever met too and I bet a lot of folks never take the chance of getting to know her because of her appearance. So sad. I guess I felt a kinship towards her in that way, since most of the time I feel like the fat lady at the circus that everyone stares at when I leave the cage. I always think "if people just took a moment to say hi or smile, they would see I'm a nice person". Sigh.

OK, OK, I'll stop! I know the violins are playing now! Heh! So back to that painting. I want it very badly and am going to figure out a way to get it. Anyone intersted in some out of print Anahata books?? I don't even know what to sell them for, honestly. I'll have to do some research! :) In the meantime, I should be happy to own this gem below by Lana, which I bought after the workshop. The title is "One Arm is Better Than None". It reminds me of myself since my arms and hands don't work like they should and I'm always saying "At least together they equal one good arm!". Heh Heh!

Have a wonderful, creative day and I forgive you if you don't want to go in on my painting! Chuckle! I just had to put it out in the universe that I wanted it, because you never know what will happen, right?! :)

A Walk on The Wild Side

For Mama Peggy in a gothic arch swap, I made this:

Her theme was "A Walk on The Wild Side" - what's your wild side? So I used animal print on the front along with certain symbols: A fish to symbolize my love of water and the ocean, butterfly wings to show my love of winged things like butterflies, birds and fairies and a pointy had because I just love those (even if other folks are complaining about them being "old hat" now - pun intended!)! On the back I used a cat to symbolize my love of cats (duh), a witches hat and broom because I love halloween and witches (!) and a crow to show my darker/emotional/sad side, because that is a part of who I am. I hope she likes them as I had fun making them!

This little bat boy is a digital collage I made last night while playing around with some digital scrapbooking elements. I wanted to use him for a charm swap, but when you print it out tiny (under 1"), it just doesn't come out well. So I may have to do something else with him all together.

We went to a county auction this morning and it was fun. We found 4 old metal office chairs and are going to paint them and recover them with a funky fabric and use them for dining room chairs. They are kinda industrial looking and sturdy as all heck, so I think they will be good. We ended up paying $10 bucks each, which isn't bad I think! Then I goofed and bid $5 on a pallet of various stackable file/paper holders. I thought it was the other pallet with plastic envelopes that would have been great for art images. BUT...it was only five bucks and we can definitely use some of them. The rest we'll donate to Goodwill I think! Heh! It was so noisy and frantic in there that I got confused - no surprise there! At least I didn't goof and buy a car or someting! Although, someone got an old truck for $25 bucks! Wow! You could sell it to a junk yard for more than that!

So far it's been a pretty good day. Although, when we left this morning I biffed it on the lawn and fell down. As always when I fall, I put down my crushed, bad knee and now it is swelling and bruising nicely. Luckily there isn't a lot of feeling in it anymore as it is held together with metal. But it does throb a bit. I also slightly chipped my tooth as I was grimacing on the way down AND spilled my Starbucks Soy Mocha! Darn it! I only allow myself one of those a week and now the lawn is drinking it! Oh well, worse could have happened, right?! I'm bound and determined to have a good day anyways! We are now headed to Roseville (30 miles away) to get some art supplies and a bag of chicken. I hope your day is wonderful and you find something fun to do!

A Zettirific Kind of Day

Here is my latest art for the fabulous CAROL. Her theme was Zettiology with words - SO FUN! This was my second attempt at her pages actually. The first was, um, better suited to use as garbage bag filler. Which is only one of the reasons that I am quite late with these. I do hope you will forgive me, sweet girl!

These pages are very autobiographical for me, as I tend to root myself in place quite a lot! I'm housebound since I don't drive and I tend to get very comfortable with that. When I do that I have to remind myself to find ways to let my soul fly. Often times it is by trying out a new art technique or by simply having the honey take us to the lake so we can watch the geese. Anything to get out of the same-ness routine I fall into. :)