Merry Christmas

I hope everyone is having a blessed and wonderful Christmas.

Yesterday was a wonderful time of family, friends and fun. Of course there was also massive amounts of food, ribeye roast, baked potatoes, asparagus, bacon wrapped oysters, cookies, chocolate cake and probably something else I'm forgetting.

Today was my traditional pajama day full of watching movies. Watched Julie Julia and if I weren't in such a bum mood I would have had to start cooking up a storm. It was definitely inspiring. Well back to my couch potatoedness.

Sunrise

Not a lot to tell right now. I've spent the last two weekends sorting,
filing and shredding. Something I've been putting off for at least a
year so you can imagine the piles. It's sort of like trying to clean
all the sand out of the nooks and crannies after a day at the beach
but not nearly as fun. Now I have to organize all the stuff I've been
accumulating to use for texture in mixed media. My friends just shake
their heads at me every time I say "Don't throw that away. I can use
it somehow."

This morning was a beautiful sunrise. Not sure how well this will
translate from the iPhone but it was prettier than this. Had to hold
the phone through the blinds in my office.

Updates...

Finally uploaded pictures from my camera for recent projects. I framed the two pieces I created for my office and here are some closeups of the textures. I had fun using tissue, string, modeling paste, cheese cloth, metal, and some pieces of painted paper towels.

Last Saturday had the girls over for scrapbooking and played with some burlap type ribbon and making grunge board look like rusty metal. I used the keyhole grunge board and coated it with modeling past to cover the diamond pattern that it had and to help with the look of layers of paint. Painted it with some orange and black paints and added some coarse pumice and then used a combo of blues and black to paint on the blue. I had my doubts that I could pull it off but am pleased with the results. Used one of my lady stamps for the eye peaking through. I believe I will post this on Etsy and I'm calling it The Beholder.





I also finally started looking at the videos for an online class I signed up for called Spill It!. I haven't started anything yet but I'm so excited that I finally know how to make drips. Sad to say I've been trying all wrong and now know at least one better way. Carmen in the instructor and I just love her colors and textures. Check out her art on Flickr.

Happy weekend...

The girls came over yesterday to scrapbook while I painted and burned pictures to cd for Misti from her son's, Jonathan, birthday. Haven't replaced my wireless router yet so had to go old school. Managed to take some pictures of some pieces I've completed recently but can't upload them yet. Here are some pics using my iPhone. They don't quite do justice but give an idea.









-- Posted from my iPhone

Stealing time

Well, work is definitely time consuming with new responsibilities but I am enjoying the challenges. Just need to clone myself. I have managed to do a few mixed media pieces. Here's the beginnings of two that I recently finished. Hopefully tomorrow there will be good enough light to take pictures of them.

I also signed up for an online class that looks like it will be a lot of fun. I'll have to post the link since this post is coming from my iPhone. My wireless router died so have to get a new one sometime this weekend so I can have my Internet back.






-- Posted from my iPhone

Working...

I work with a bunch of guys. Meet my boss. Nough said.



-- Posted from my iPhone

Little one

Saw my youngest neice yesterday. I guess that also includes my
brother and sister in law. :-). Playing with Toy Camera on my iPhone
again. May actually manage to blog more with this thing.

Playing with my iPhone

Read an entry by Michael DeMeng about the Toy Phone app and just had
to try it out and am loving it. I'm emailing this so will have to come
back and add the link you'll love his photos.

New kitty...

Well, things have been very busy at work with a promotion and new
responsibilities. That's my excuse for not being a better blogger. I
have been very leisurly working on two pieces I hope I like enough to
hang in my new office. Yes, I got to graduate from Vineland to an
actual office. It still feels odd.

On another note this little kitty wandered into our yard hungry and
scared and Momma brought her in. The boys, Scooter and Tigger, aren't
sure what to make of her yet. I decided to call her Pixie but not sure
I'm sold on that so open to any suggestions.

A little catch up...

I'm afraid things at home and work have been very hectic but wanted to at least pop in and say hello, I'm alive and still kicking. Last month I participated in the World Wide Photo Walk which was fun and enlightening. Here are a few pics from an area in Atlanta called Atlantic Station. Have not even had time to tweak them but here they are anyway.

A hard week...

Well, I thought it was probably time for me to check in here. It's been a hard week and I'm still not sure I will ever go into the details in my blog but my oldest nephew, Tom, died this week at just 20 years old. In some ways it was a surprise but in others it wasn't. He's been living in a deep dark place for the last couple of years that he was not able to come out of nor allow for the help he needed. It is sad but the struggle is over for him and now it is the living who have to come to terms with all the what if's and let them go. I have to say that I have a very wonderful circle of friends and family who give their support and love.

In a quirky way that speaks to me I found out that a little painting I did with the theme of Embrace Life is being featured in an Etsy collection.

A big thank you and hug to all who have been and will be praying for my sister's family during this dificult time for them.

A Creative Day...

Of course any good day starts with a lovely cup of coffee. A number of months back I started making my coffee with a coffee press. It is very yummy especially when you make it espresso strength. I've had a little experiment going of trying to get the foam on top each time but haven't quite figured out the deciding factor yet. I even had a little swirl with the cream but disturbed it too much when trying to find a spot with enough light to take a photo.

I've mentioned some of the art classes on dvd and one I watched recently was by Ann Baldwin called Text & Texture in Mixed Media Collage. It was really more about basic texturing instructions but very informative. I also bought her book Creative Paint Workshop which has some great examples and some projects you can follow. I utilized a photo of a tree I had taken a while back at Piedmont Park and incorporated it as my focal point. I didn't take pictures of the process and wish I had. At several points I was not happy with it but once I did a final wash with white gesso and added the birds on a wire stamp from the Tim Holtz collection I was much happier. It's going into my Etsy shop so hopefully someone else will like it.

More transformations...

So to continue transforming from something I don't like into something I do like, I took the above play canvas and tweeked it some more with Golden interference paint and cut it up for ATC's. I added some embossed metal, stamped metal hearts and funky yarn. All this to participate in an ATC trade with ELK who's art you really need to check out.

I still had some bits of the canvas left and really liked the ATC's so decided to make some cards too. Picture came out a little dark so I'll have to reshoot it. These cards will be going to my Etsy site.

A lovely new friend, Mary, sent me some punchanella after I asked if she knew any place in town that carries it. She sent not just one but two different kinds. I can't wait to play with it although at the moment it is so pretty and shiney. I actually can see using some as an element somewhere. We shall see.

Also want to wish Misti Happy Birthday again. Check out her wonderful photography of her son who is just too cute.

I didn't post a picture of the results but over the weekend I tried to make a faux rusty metal sheet using paper and paint and failed. I started with a picture from Cloth, Paper Scissors and found that I can't just look at it and figure out how to do it. If anyone knows of a youtube video that shows how to do something like that please send me the link. I'm searching but haven't found one yet although there sure are a lot of fun tutorials out there. Got majorly side tracked with some by Gary Reef. He is an Australian artist and a hoot.

So excited...

I'm so excited! Last week I sold my very first piece of artwork on Etsy to a lovely lady who lives not too far from me. I have to say I was tempted to hand deliver it but didn't want to appear too crazy or stalker like. ;-)



Some other things I've been doing is revisiting some pages in my art journal that I'm just not happy with. This first one just felt too bare and simplistic but I had to walk away for a while.







I bought some lovely metalic Lumiere paints and played with them on and used some Golden Air Brush paint. It probably still doesn't have enough depth but I'm much happier with the feel of it now. I at least enjoy seeing it when I flip the pages.



This is another one that felt very flat and boring so I ripped off the buttons and metal flower and went to town playing with layering paint.

I've also created some ATC's for a swap but darn it all my computer is no longer recognizing my camera and I can't dump my photos. Now all I have to do is figure out why. Hopefully I won't have to roll back to a previous state. I have a love hate relationship with computers, love them when they behave and hate them when they start acting up. Oh well.

I hope everyone had a lovely 4th of July weekend with friends and family.

Scrapista Update...

Update, update!! I'm a little late in posting this but class information has been posted for Scrapista. Visit the site for more info but here is a sneak peak.

Playing with my macro lens....

Today was spent preparing for the Scrapista retreat class but also took some time out for picture taking with my macro lens. It is so interesting to me how it does that line across for the sweet spot of focus when doing the up close ones. I'm going to have to play with it a lot more to get familiar with what the effect will be based on how far away I am.

Exciting News...

I have exciting news! I'm actually going to be teaching a class for a scrapbooking retreat in September for Scrapista. I'm still working on what I'm going to teach but it's going to involve utilizing paper scraps, paint and a canvas. I think it will be a lot of fun and hope my fellow scrapbookers will too. I'll post more about it later. Last weekend I spent some time working out what the project will be but have to iron out some kinks. Waiting for paint to dry is one issue.

Speaking of last weekend, it was so lovely. I spent a lot of time taking craft tissue and making art papers with them to use in future collages. I mentioned before that I bought a dvd art class by Carrie Burns Brown. She has lots of great ideas on papers to create so I've tried a few and am having a lot of fun with it. The pictures below are some samples but I've lots more to try. Of course then I need to actually do something with them. So many ideas swirling around in my head. I just hope I can manage to create some of them.

While waiting for paints to dry I watched YouTube videos by mixed media artists and found Gary Reef. He has some wonderful videos on some techniques to try. Also check out his web site and a social group, Art from the Heart.

Overall it was a wonderful three day weekend of relaxation and creativity. I'm so ready for another weekend like that. Today was supposed to be a creative day but alas, I became a couch potato and posting on my blog is as far as I've gotten. Must have needed it. Time to go back to uselessnes now. Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend.