Monday, February 23

Digital Art & New Art Space

Joel and I have been busy this weekend working to get the garage cleared out. We're making a space for me in the garage to work on my art projects. I also built my light box, but I haven't got it set up to take photos quite yet. Tomorrow I will find a spot for it and take some photos. In two weeks I'll have a new work bench, too! Yay! Joel found a man that builds them to your specs for a very decent price. Here's what they look like:

Mine will be 8' wide, 2' deep, and 3' tall. I can't wait to get it!! The man that builds them is 88 years young. He said, "It keeps him off the streets". lol He had a really cute ad. Apparently he sold 4 of them yesterday. He must be pretty popular. Once I get this I will use this for most everything, but still use my old desk for sewing. It is a sewing desk, after all, so I might as well use it. I love that little desk anyway. I've always thought it was pretty since I first saw it at a yard sale. It's even better with paint splatters on it. More personality!

I've been quite busy, as I mentioned, so I haven't painted or made any dolls over the weekend. I did have a little Photoshop playtime last night, though. I thought I'd see what my latest painting would look like with a few filters applied. So here are some of the standard Photoshop filters used on my painting photo:

Dark Strokes Crackelure

Sumi-E...and my favorite, Stained Glass...


There you have it; Digital Art Play

Oh, I also picked up a few supplies at Wally World today. Just a few things like craft paint, a miter saw, an exacto knife, and another watercolor paper pad. Oh, and the white muslin for the light box. It was on sale for about a buck a yard!! Beat that!

Thursday, February 19

Oh When The Saints....

....come marching in


Oh when the saints come marching in


Lord I want to be in that number...



Hehe....is that song stuck in your head yet? It is mine! I used to play that on the piano a lot when I was taking lessons. Probably because it was an easy tune to play and it's so catchy.

Anyway, she's done now with the exception of the sealer. I'll put some Golden Matte Gel Medium on her. She looks different from last night's post, obviously. I added more hair so it would look like some of it was coming around in front of her neck, I fixed her face a bit around the nose, I added the turquoise background, added some musical note stamps with white paint, and I then made her "Vintage" by rubbing on Walnut Ink with a T-Shirt. She doesn't look as simple or dull now. Still a bit on the simple side, but not simple to the point of boring. She told me she was done, so I'm not touching up anything else.....just the sealer.

Look for her in my Etsy Shop soon!

Thanks for stopping by! ♥

Saint Painting WIP

This will be quick. I'm so tired and it's way past my bed time. I wanted to show what I painted today, though. Sometimes, if I don't put them up right away I never do, so....

She'll be in my shop soon. I still have some touching up to do on her. I probably will do something else with the background, as well. She's pretty close to being done, though. I really liked using black gesso on this one. I think I'll buy black from now on. I love how it peaks through the paint.....if you let it, that is. I'm thinking it's part of my style. You know how they say artists all have their own style? I think I'm slowly finding mine. Anyway, I'll post more tomorrow. I took lots of pictures of the process that went into painting this one, so I may make a little slide show of her coming together. It all depends on time and motivation. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, February 16

More photos of my work

....time for more photos.

Here's something I'm working on now.



That's what she looked like about an hour ago before I applied the Crackle Medium. I typed the words in Photoshop and printed them. Then cut them out and applied with Mod Podge Matte. The background I painted with "mud" colored paint and blotted with an old T-shirt. This is what she looks like right now as she's drying and waiting to be finished.

This is what I use for crackling.

Here is something I forgot to post that has been done for a while now. It's Andrew's matching painting that goes with the one I showed a couple of weeks ago.

Here's what they look like together.


And now that you're good and tired of seeing photos.....that's all folks! Thanks for stopping by!





Some of my latest creations

One of my recent paintings that will soon be in my Etsy shop was inspired by Ms. Penny Longbelly. It's called, Polk-A-Doxie. Pink Polk-A-Doxie, to be specific, because I plan to do more in different colors. The colors are a bit off in the photos I'm sure as I'm using my laptop and the monitor needs calibrating severely bad! I can never tell how bad the colors are off till I see the posts on my desktop. I'm too lazy to do the photo editing on there tonight, though. So anyway, here are the photos...

One more:
And here's a photo of a dolly I made. She's in love. See the daisy that her love sent her?
She's a school teacher. Can't you tell by the outfit? Isn't she proper looking?



Saturday, February 14

Creative Textures

I have tons of stuff to post about, but never enough time or motivation. I'm making this a short one because I really should be in bed already.
I joined a new class called Creative Textures by Jane DesRosier and Maureen White. I really enjoyed Jane's last class and always enjoy all of her YouTube Videos. Not to mention she has become a friend of mine. So I thought I would invite you all to join this new class with me. You WON'T regret it! Click the image below...

Sunday, February 8

Mt Dora Art Festival

I had a great time this weekend at the Mt Dora Art Festival. They say the event grows each year with more than 250,000 attendees in recent years. I believe it! It was elbow to elbow downtown! I wouldn't have missed it, though. It was so inspiring! I collected cards from each of my favorites, with the exception of a couple that were out of them. Here they are:

That list isn't even a drop in the bucket of how many talented artists were in attendance. If you can make it to the annual Mt Dora Art Fest, don't miss it! It will be worth a drive. Sorry, I don't have any pictures. I would have taken some, but the place was packed so tight it was hard to even move, for one, and they ask you not to take photos of the work, for another. I didn't want to make any artists nervous. I did take a video with my cell as we were leaving. It's on 12 seconds.com Nothing really interesting, though. Just 12 seconds of us leaving the festival. I'm trying to catch up with Joel in the short clip. Visit my other blog to view it.

I will be posting another painting that I finished soon, and another CC Doll.