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.