Thinking of spring

I made this collage with a picture of Sloane sitting in our front yard in the spring sunshine. She is wearing the dress I wore as a baby. As the days insist on ending abruptly before we even sit down at the dinner table, I am finding that my seasonal depression is kicking in. Sooooo, I wanted to post this as a reminder of what is to come.

Art every several days? COFFEE!!!!

I just finished this painting this morning. I love my morning coffee!

Art every day - back of journal cover

In an attempt to be more consistent in my creating and posting, I am plowing away at my 'to do' pile o' art projects. Here's the back cover of the journal that I started in Traci Bautista's class.

Today's haul- old hardware

I just had to post about my loot that I brought home today from the flea market. Oh, the possibilities. You should have seen me pawing through the bucket of rusty hardware- pure bliss. I am posting a close up of some of my favorites.

Finally- finished journal cover from Traci Bautista's class

In trying to create every day, I've been working on some half completed projects. This is the journal cover that I just finished. I took the class in APRIL at Art Opera. And so it goes. Traci Bautista was a wonderful instructor, she works quickly and intuitively, which I liked very much. I think I will pull all of my half finished pieces together and take a picture. Quick, someone please request a piece for a swap or an auction so I will be forced to actually finish something else.

Tim Burton-esque house

Hi there- I wanted to show my piece I made for the Little Baby Face Foundation auction. I had in mind a sculpture at first, but after imagining myself navigating two trains, two subways and a bunch of new yorkers with said sculpture in hand, i ditched that idea. Instead I went for a shadow box which I could pack. (of course, I could have shipped it, but that would mean completing it in time to ship and NOT working on it until the last possible moment, which is of course what I did) Anyway, I had in mind a slightly skewed Tim Burton inspired house backed by a sunset. There's a story behind that particular image, based on Disney's 'The Rescuers', but more on that another time. I have to say that I really love the result. I've never made a shadow box, and hardly anything in 3d, and I really enjoyed making this. And the ladies (and gentlemen) at Art-is were so supportive and encouraging- it makes me feel good that it got several bids and made some moola for the Foundation. Ooh, and Suze Weinberg even had it on her blog.

Back from Art-is-You

Wow, what a whirlwind- weeks of planning, packing and making (a piece for the auction- I'll talk about that in another post) and now it's over. I took a class from Laurie Meseroll on Saturday on folk art painting and came up with this. I absolutely love it, but the most validating thing was when I showed it to my baby cakes and she said 'Wow!' (which is good since it's going in her room)

'Wicked' ATC's

Well, I made about twenty atc's for a group project -the theme being 'Wicked', as in the musical. They were made using image transfers- gel and tape. I had never tried that before and it was funnnnn! One of my favorites was the gel- I used Golden gel medium- semi gloss- and layed down about four coats over a toner based image, letting each one dry in between and then dunked the whole thing in water and rubbed the paper off. That was the fun part. Just keep going until all of the paper is gone and voila- a perfect image transfer.

Another tin swap

This is an altered tin that I just swapped out. I think it looks cute in person but when I look at it here, not so much. The beach bathers kind of look like they're floating around on top of the tin. Maybe on their own private island? But the inside came out really cute!

Art Opera- swap

Well, it's been many weeks since I last posted and even longer since I've got back from Art Opera, so thought I would get back into the swing of things by putting up some pictures. If you want to see a lot more pictures of the event, check out Suze Weinberg's blog and go back to April (I think she starts sharing pictures on April 7th). Anyway, I had a great time- I took two classes, one from Traci Bautista and one from Ann Denise Anderson. Traci's class, but today I just wanted to put up pictures of the altered altoid tin that I made for a swap. I wanted to keep with the Under the Sea theme so I decided to do a seahorse tin. I used an antique brass stamping of a seahorse and a starfish charm to made molds. Then I used the molds with some pearl polymer clay and applied the molded pieces to the sanded tin. I filled in the blanks with some more clay and then went to town trying out different glazing ideas. I think that I ended up mixing a Distress Ink reinker with some Golden acrylic paint and then finished the whole think off with a clear finish and glitter. I really, really had fun making this as it was so much different than anything that I have ever made before. The second picture is of a little booklet I made for my swap partner so that she could put in pictures of the event as a momento.