Tag: Mixed Media

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A couple of weekends ago we took our niece Fiona to an NHL game. Her first, though she has an amazing ability to quote stats on all the players. As you can tell by this picture she is a huge Boston Bruins fan. She was working on her sign to hold up while the team was warming up on the ice.
She waited patiently and I am happy to say that her favorite player read her sign and popped a puck over the glass to her. She was just overwhelmingly happy.
Really good picture as we were scouting out where she needed to go to be in a key spot rink side. Even though the Bruins didn’t win, which is surprising because they are the best team in the league and the Red Wings are the worst Fiona told me that she had a great time, and so did we.
Recently I gave a couple of art lessons. We worked on learning to draw with pencils. Making items look realistic with shading and realizing that drawing is really a bunch of basic shapes. 12 different pencils from hard to soft were used along with two different erasures. Drawing takes a lot of concentration and just really looking at the subject. Noelle did such a good job and she is an attentive student.
We also found a horse to work on drawing the head. Noelle takes riding lessons.
Lela was my next avid student and here she is drawing her favorite animal, a sloth. I drew along with her and it was my first sloth. Lela told me that she loved doing this and could go home a draw all night.
She also personalized her new sketch book.
Our smiling sloth picture.
I am working on a painting that I am nearing completion. I am adding birds, can you tell what they are?
I will get it posted soon.

*Knee Update*
Each week it is getting better, more range of motion. I go back to the Ortho doctor tomorrow to see what he thinks. I would like a few more sessions of PT. The gals who are helping me are fantastic. I go to Choice Rehabilitation in Decatur and they work their magic. When I started on December 26th I would have never imagined that I would be as far as I am, thankful to be flat on my feet. I am working on steps, up and down and building the strength in them. I take a walk each day that I can and I am able to go farther each time.

Till our next time, I am having a hard time staying awake. If you find a mistake please overlook it.

Three Early Works

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These three works might have been made about 12 years ago. I fell in love with watercolor and mixed media in this class. It was actually a watercolor class but the professor was a mixed media artist and he gave us more to chew on. I believe it was his last watercolor class before he retired from his teaching career, Maurice Papier @MauricePapier. The assignment was to make a trilogy, so my basis was from the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” which is also taken from a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes. The timing was 2006-2007, and that was soon after 911 and so there are references to that. The black and white building was the gatehouse of the Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA. We visited Gettysburg on vacation three different times so had many pictures from the area. Each of the three paintings has a clock. I transferred the copy of the building using wintergreen oil, a technique that Maurice taught. The paintings were done on illustrator board and notice the words. I can go back and find other early art pieces that I added words on, so that has always been with me.

A transfer of the twin towers burning. Black and white makes it more stark. Time to Love in a pretty script, with Time to hate making it look like a ransom note.

The transfer building in this one is a funeral home in Fort Wayne, look at the picture and it shows the corner that I used. I wanted to find some architecture that was similar to the Evergreen Cemetery. Making the burka on the mourning woman was satisfying to get the folds of the fabric to look good. The ballerina is decent except for her face, I was never happy with it. Still all in all these are some of my favorite pieces in my portfolio. There is a lot of meaning in the little word groups.

Mittens, a quilt and art

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I was going through my studio closet today and found this little quilt top that I had made three years ago. I have it all marked to quilt. It has a little bit of everything on it. Embroidery, applique and piecing. I doubt if I get to it this year as I will be working hard to get a new inventory ready for the 2018 art shows. I had forgotten how cute it was. I had no pattern for this, it was all trial and error. The words around the edge are: Be Happy, Follow your Heart, Show Kindness, Find Bliss, Love Yourself, Take Care of the Earth, Hugs are Good, Stop and Smell the Flowers, Dance.

My friend, Karla from Kansas City Mo, was making mittens to sell at craft fairs for Christmas. I asked her if she would make me a pair also, and they are so beautiful. The yarn is so soft and the embroidery is fantastic. What a work of art!

I follow an artist who has named her business Soul Whisper Arts, she was offering a bundle of items so I treated myself to them. This is one of her prints that was included. It is precious and is called “up, up and away”.

This painting I finished right before I did the Louisville show in October. I did not have time to scan it and add it to my Etsy shop. Today I did that. It takes a bit of time to do one that is this big. The size is 20 X 40 and it doesn’t fit on my scanner. It has to be scanned in pieces and then the computer magically puts it all together. I wanted to depict Kentucky with the horse farm and the white fences and the tree lined driveway. I also added a Ford Super Duty truck because they would need that to pull the horse trailers and also there were two Ford Factories in Louisville. The title of this painting is “Home” and the quote that I have used is by Laura Ingalls Wilder…HOME is the nicest word there is.  This painting is for sale and also prints can be purchased in my Etsy shop. If you are interested send a message to me.

Broad Ripple Art Fair this weekend!

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Imagine yourself sitting at the bottom of a hill and you look up to see a beautiful evening sky with a hint of pink, surrounded by a sea of color. This is my newest painting, “Under the Blue Sky”. It will be for sale along with many others at the Broad Ripple art fair in Indianapolis.

When I started this painting I knew I wanted snapdragons with a lot of texture. The sky, then the snapdragons then I wasn’t sure which way I was going. Intuitive painting is putting down paint on a canvas and then eventually it will turn into something to work with. You stand back and start seeing different elements, shapes, colors. Check out the Indianapolis Art Center site and come visit us at booth 117.

 

New Painting

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A painting I started a few weeks ago. I pictured rows of hearts with a neutral background.

The words were added first before the details.

I have added a lot of fun elements along with outlining the hearts.

A flying bird

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The bottom hearts are indigo.

Added some violets and a caterpillar.

The profile needs some decorations.

A cat stretching with a butterfly on it’s nose. This was a fun painting to create. It will be up in my shop this week to purchase prints. I haven’t picked a name yet.

A little sunshine for ya

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As I write this the temp. outside is 20 degrees with a prediction of snow. We have really been fortunate this year with a beautiful, comfortable fall up until Sunday the 4 of December. Now is the season where the sun doesn’t show his face too much. When it does peek it makes me feel instantly better with more energy. Then he goes behind those grey clouds again to play hide and seek. I have gathered together my pictures of sunshine that I was called to create. This is my most recent mixed media sunflower. 5 X 5 canvas, the brushstrokes go out onto the sides of the canvas and a textured middle.

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I call this my Van Gogh like sunshine for the recently complete “In the Pines”.

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A torn paper sun that is warming the “Wildflower Field” painting.

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I always am drawn to a beautiful sunset. We get many in our area.

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I made a pop-up box and sent it to a friend. This sunshine stamp was used to go along with the coffee stamps because coffee is great with the sunrise.

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An earlier sunflower painting. Wouldn’t this make you happy to have it on a shelf at work. Put a little sunshine in your work day. Again a 5 X 5 canvas.

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I used that same sun on a card and made it dimensional. My sun faces have to have rosy cheeks.

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This little sun I picked up at a third world shop that was possible made in Portugal or Bolivia, I can’t recall. I enjoyed all the detail in it.

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From our walk through an Acres Land Trust area, the sunshine through the trees.

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One morning this year I watched the sun rise and it was glorious!

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A stained glass garden stake I had in front of my catmint, the sun shining on a road. It is such a pretty piece. If you live in the north and don’t get much sunshine during this time of the year, I hope you find ways that help. Enjoy the peeks of sunshine when he lets us know that he is still back there even though it doesn’t seem like it. The sunflower pictures prints can be found in my Etsy shop.

New Painting in Shop

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Just finished this painting today just in time to offer in my booth this weekend. I will be setting up in Roanoke Indiana at the Art Fair A Renaissance in Roanoke. It will be this Saturday October 8th from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It is going to be a beautiful fall day of 63 degrees and sunny. This painting is named “Love Many Things” after the Vincent Van Gogh quote I have added to it.

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This is a photo from my tent two weeks ago at Art at the Riverside in Leo Indiana. This was a really nice show setup. All the art booths were in an oval so we could look out and see everyone. The traffic flow was quite good with nice space in between the tents. There were food trucks to choose from for lunch. There was great music groups also. Each show becomes more successful and that is fun! Since this show was close to home it was nice to be able to see people I know too. I hope to see you this weekend.

I love making art with my pals

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We like to get together at least once a summer (though we would love to do it more often) and work with stamping and art supplies. The theme was a folded journal book made from a manilla file folder. We found the technique on good ol Pinterest. Here we are working diligently with our mess of fun. I have my Ipad with the instructions up to read out loud.

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We were all flying by the seats of our pants (as I call it). Not really having much of a plan in regards to colors or how we would like the outcome of this project. This is a trial run to see if we would want to finish it or even do it again. The whole idea of the project is to fold the bottom and and score it in fourths to make pockets on the inside and add tags or pictures, etc. Here is my work in progress.

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Michelle is stenciling here and her color theme ended up being blues and purples.

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Theresa had a yellow or a limy green going here. Then added wonderful stencils and textures in reds. Here you can also see how the bottom is folded up and the start of the pockets. She has a lot of interest going here.

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Here are the projects as we ended our sessions. They were not completely finished, but as Theresa said “I could spend a week more just to get this done. She had to do her tags yet. I do love this picture, the colors are great and my friends too!

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And here is my partially finished project. I didn’t like it as I was making it but I do now. Sometimes I just have to walk away for a day or two. I put a couple of tags in it that I already had made to see if they would fit. This could be a fun project to give as a gifts and add personal mementos in it.

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They both brought me a little somethin somethin which I just love too.

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It seems as if they know me very very well. Thanks for sharing in our fun. Oh and if you follow me on Pinterest this is under my Techniques board.

Wearing the paint brush out

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My first outdoor art fair of the season is next weekend, May 15th. I am working diligently to get as many paintings done as possible. I started two new ones today. They are in the very early stages. I love the colors in the wide one. It looks like a sky, ocean and beach….but it is not. They are very soothing colors.

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Can you see the tulip? Check back for the finished products. Have a beautiful weekend, it’s going to be here.