A Painting & Excuses

First the excuses.... I know I've been gone a while from this blog. I haven't had a lot of time to be creative for various reasons. Sick, busy, new feathered additions to the family, doc appointments, shopping, & etc...

With the excuses behind me I'll go ahead and post the fun stuff. Here's one thing I did manage to finish.

The Blue Guitar:

The colors didn't turn out as pretty as they are in real life, but that's what I get for taking quicky shots with a point and shoot. No light box, no outside light, no nothing to help my photos look pretty. You get the idea, though.

FYI The guitar string is actually sewing thread dipped in Mod Podge. The musical notes are from a Ukrainian Hymnal and have a color wash of antique yellow over the top. The yellow color you see in the painting is really more of an antique yellow, as well, but the colors turned out kind of mustard-esk. This will be in my shop very soon. Opening is coming up! Yay!

Featured Artist

Today, Refuge Pour les Artistes will be featuring the work of a talented young artist named Kolby. Yup, folks.....my kiddo can paint! He doesn't enjoy it like his mom and both of his grandmothers, but he sure is good at it. He painted these two AWESOME birds for me when he went to visit my parents in GA back in 2005. He was around 12 years old then. Mom guided him through it, but he did the actual painting himself; or so they tell me. I'm so proud of these paintings.

There's a bit of a glare on the pink bird's pic. You get the idea, though. I should have taken it out of the frame and scanned, but I didn't. I wish he enjoyed painting. He thinks it's a girl thing, even though we've all told him otherwise. I guess because he sees so many females doing it around him? lol Maybe he'll change his mind some day. These are acrylic on 8x10 canvas board and mounted in wooden, painted frames.

Becky Kelly’s Watercolor 101

I’m really posting to test my new blog editor, Windows Live Writer 2009, but since I’m blogging I might as well post relevant content. Since I do not have any photos uploaded of my recent work, I’ll talk about a great web site I happened to find recently.

I was checking out one of Etsy’s Treasuries yesterday and noticed Becky Kelly was featured. I have heard of this artist before and I’ve seen her work, but didn’t know she was on Etsy. I admired her beautiful watercolor pieces for a while and then did a Google search. I thought she might have a web site with watercolor tips. She did! Her site is www.BeckyKelly.com. I’m really interested in Watercolor lately, so THIS part of her site really tickled my art fancy.

I love it when talented artists share their knowledge with those of us eager to learn! If you think about it, they really have nothing to gain by doing this except for our gratitude. It’s very generous, don’t you think? Like those artists on YouTube who show their techniques and ask nothing in return. Sure, it gets their name out there, but it also is giving away their secrets for other Artists to use. Pretty darn cool of them if ya ask me! But…..nobody did, so I’ll shut up now. lol

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!

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!

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!