Stuff Going On in my Studio

I sent this little acrylic 6x6 inch painting off to New Orleans recently.  Happy it's found a wonderful home in such a great city!

This is an example of some postcards I made recently, to send out to art friends.  It's ink and watercolor on a heavy watercolor paper.

Made this ink and watercolor postcard for an art swap.  The theme was squares.  Nobody said the squares had to be perfect :)  I'm kind of partial to the dog. 🐕☮😀

Don't Worry - Just Create

I love this quote by Isabelle Allende.  I find it to be extremely accurate!  I know that lots of times I don't "feel" like creating art, but if I sit down and start painting anyway - well, wow, the things that emerge are so interesting.  Not that I'm making great art or anything, but the ideas and the thought patterns will rise up and out comes a creative work that I had no idea was lurking in there.

I put this quote on a background of a gelli print that I had made with acrylics and painted a turtle on top of it with more acrylic and markers.  

I haven't been updating here as much as I'd like to.  I hope I can get back into a regular posting pattern.  

Here are some funky postcards created for an art swap.  The colors were purple and silver with black & white accents.

Did I mention that sometimes the muse takes a little while to show up - haha!  This is a good example of before :)

It's still rewarding to create, even if things aren't moving along as fast as you'd like.  Just relax and do whatever and your inspiration will come along and surprise you.  

Hope you're enjoying your day!  ☮💜✌

Love Mixing Patterns

Feeling some inspiration from Indian block print fabric.  I've been thinking of starting a sewing project after looking at my fabric stash.  I rarely sew anymore but I use fabric in crafting and love the beautiful fabrics from India.  This painting was a quick mixed media entry in my art journal.

Collaged postcards for another art swap.  You can probably tell that I love patterns.  This was for a Red, White and Blue exchange.  Lots of fun to find a pleasing combination.

Dream Work

Coyote showed up in my dream the other night.  When he shows up, he has my attention.   There's much that could be said about power animals, animal spirit guides, etc.  I won't go into that, but the Coyote has meaning to me and comes to teach a lesson.  So, painting about it helped me to sort what I think the lesson is.  Mixed Media on cardstock. 

Rainy season here in south Florida is definitely on and it's the worst season for my asthma.  I didn't dream about this, but just painted about receiving healing from a Reiki practitioner and working on my own healing vibes.  Mixed Media.

Oh, my - some days I just want to have pink hair and hang out in the garden with my dogs.  My husband thinks this looks like Jane Jetson...hmmmm.  At least he looked at it! Ha!   Another journal entry of mixed media on cardstock. 

More Mail Art

I recently participated in an art swap with Black and White as the theme.  The colored pencil postcard on the left depicts a member of the Sing-sing tribe in Papua New Guinea.  They're the ones that paint white skeletons on themselves and are so striking!  The other card didn't turn out quite as I had hoped, but it's an example of a tattoo that the Maori of New Zealand use.  (I like to incorporate tribal things into my art on a regular basis.)

A new art friend requested a Found Poetry postcard to add to his collection.  I think he is planning a blog with them.  (I'll have to check on that.)  These are a lot of fun to do.  Acrylic and ink.

Adding some colored penciled flowers to a plain envelope to send out in a swap.  Can't waste an opportunity to add mail art! ☮

Fun Projects

I've been painting more tin cans to use as planters.  I enjoy painting the Day of the Dead motifs.  They're so colorful and easy to paint on the ridges of the can.

I've been participating in a few art swaps lately.  This is a collaged postcard created on an acrylic painted background.  

And here's a few collaged ATC cards.  ATC stands for Artist trading cards.  I usually include one in any personal art swaps I'm doing.  I'm discovering that "fussy cutting" isn't one of my favored things - Ha!  

Hope you're out there creating every day!  ☮

Intuitive Art

Lately, I've been working on some intuitive type art.  One aspect of this type of painting is to just create without worrying about the outcome.  Part of me thinks "Isn't all art intuitive?"  - well, there are great sites out there to read more about it and which can explain it far better than I.  I have found it to be extremely freeing and FUN!

This is part of a larger piece I've titled Worry Warrior.  I had no idea where it was going when I started and that's such an odd feeling.  It was hard at first to just relax and do "whatever".  But the more I do, of course, the easier it gets :)

Okay, this one is a little odd - I decided to include some of my dreams as a starting point.  I had dreamed of red salvias and a man with a large nostril.  Oh, and a tornado.  Yup - no clue where it was going after that.  Don't care :)  it was fun, enlightening and has gotten me out of a rut.  I think I'll just keep doing them and see where it leads...

All are mixed media.

Art Journal Pages

Well, I finally cleaned and organized my workspace, so I feel more like painting in my studio now.  It's still in a bit of disarray, so I won't be showing it to you - Ha!  But, it's much better than it was. 

Here, I've done a quick journal page in acrylics and markers and it's about Bugs.  Because here in Florida, we have BUGS!  And I find their markings to be beautiful. 

This journal page came about because I was wearing my favorite blue earrings and well, I was thinking about them and I just started painting.  I don't wear orange though.  I just liked the contrast of the turquoise against the orange.  I do have darker hair now that I've let the blonde grow out.  And yes, I do have that white 'skunk' streak down the front.  This was done in acrylics with a jellyroll white pen.

Hmmmm - pastels feel like big thick crayons in my hands.  Even those slender stick ones feel awkward to me.  So, I've decided to try them once again.  I'm just loosely sketching with them and added a little water to my brush to blend them together. (These are not oil pastels)  I've found that I like them better using the water to blend with, but think I need a lot more practice before I can say I'm liking them.  I do think the oil pastels feel better, so will have to get them out next.  This is in my bigger repurposed book journal.  

The other day I met up with a new art friend and made some teabags to take over to her.  I buy loose-leaf teas and was looking for a way to take some samples over.  I found this tutorial on All Hans-on blog www.allhans-on.blogspot.com that is an excellent DIY with easy to follow photos.  I couldn't get it to link to the right page, but if you go to March and scroll down to the fourth post, there it is.  

I made these from a cone-shaped coffee filter.  They fold sort of like origami, so it was a lot of fun.  Next time I won't make them so tall!  I used some of my handmade paper to make a tag.

Love, Light and Peace ☮

Little Garden Paintings

I've been painting some goofy little canvases with a garden theme to give my Etsy shop a bit of a lift.  This one I titled Windowsill Garden.

This one is The Herbalist.  I've got a line with Grey-Haired Gardeners going.  :)

I think her gloves are my favorite part of this one.  These are all small 6x6 canvases with gallery wrapped and painted sides, so they're ready to hang right out of the box.

Chickens in the Garden

In the Greenhouse.  Well, you get the idea...

If you'd like to have a peek, the link to the shop is:  Backyard Jungle Art    

I hope you caught the glorious full moon a couple of nights ago!  

Painted Planters

Our dogs eat a lot of green beans as part of their doggie dinners, so I decided to save some of the cans to use for plant cuttings or starting seeds.  Then I thought - well, I can spiff them up a bit with some paint...and that's how these Mexican flower motif planters came about.  

I like to repurpose books for art journals.  I found this smaller sized book and I love it because it has a spiral binding.  The spiral binding makes it stay flat so it's great to paint in.  Plus, this one was a journal-type book to begin with, so there isn't much on the pages. I love our thrift stores - can't beat the $1 price tag!

Here, I've been playing with the gelli plate, pulling some colorful prints to use in collage and other art projects.  Just seeing all those gorgeous colors makes me feel happier!  

Paper Making

Here's my first attempt at making handmade paper.  I used a bunch of scraps from mostly white paper with little to no script on it.  It turned out pretty good for my first try.  It's quite thick, but I hope to improve.  And - homemade paper tends to be a bit thicker with texture - which is what attracts me to it in the first place :)  

I used geranium petals and rosemary leaves.  It's fun to forage for items to embed in the paper.  I'll try different colors of paper next time to see how it turns out.

Last month I spent writing letters for A Month of Letters or Lettermo.  It's always a lot of fun to receive mail from people all over the world.  I've been looking to find a wax seal for awhile now and finally found this bee.  It looks great with the bronze wax.

I bought a few different colors of wax, like this metallic blue.  I decided to put my seal on a paper inside the envelope instead of sealing the flap on the outside, as usual.  I think with the modern machines the postal service uses, it wouldn't be appreciated and would probably come off during processing.  I could take it in and have it hand stamped I suppose, but I live so far from the post office it wouldn't be very convenient.

I discovered a tea company that I haven't tried and put in an order for my favorite Harmutty Assam.  Of course, to get free shipping I ordered a few more items to sample and have been very happy I did.  

I used to collect cups and saucers as a kid and I've saved a few favorites.  I just happened to have this pretty violet teacup to try out my new violet tea in.  Sometimes things just work out that way!  


Peace All  

Junk Journal

So, this is my version of a "junk journal".  I take any excess paint that I have leftover from a painting session and make little abstracts with it.  I've been using an old card deck for this, but I'm sure I could come up with other things to paint when the deck runs out.  

I can then stencil, sticker, paint, use pens, or whatever on top of the paint to add interest.  Then I seal them with a matte sealant and they're done.  Good for informal art swaps or even just for looking at when I want a blast of color therapy.

I think back on the days when I used to throw out excess paint.  WHAT!  I don't know where my head was at - but, then I'm not always sure where it's at on any given day, haha!  

Altered Rolodex Fun

I'm trying my hand at making altered rolodex cards.  What's a rolodex card you ask?  Yup, I know - this will date me considerably, haha.  Before computers, before cellphones, to keep track of contacts and their information, they'd be written or typed on a card set in a circular (or flat) holder that you could flip through.  Hence the notches at the bottom of the card.

Anyway, this is my first few altered cards that I've made and I have to say, I think I'm addicted!  I've been a bit conservative with my collages, but I feel like branching out and getting a bit more adventurous now that I've figured out how to go about it.  Those notches are definitely a little difficult to maneuver around.

This is the back side of the card above.  (It's true - I'm terrible with straight lines!)  The pretty toile paper above is some giftwrap that I had left over.  

This one I made as a little thank you to my art friend that inspired me to create these.  She was so generous to send me blank cards to get started!  There's apparently a device to cut out card blanks from cardstock that I'll be looking into.  Otherwise, you can maybe find an old rolodex set at a thrift store or maybe online.  

The hearts are cut from a gelli print that I did awhile ago.  I love being able to use up scraps of pretty paper.

This is the flip side. I really don't have a theme or even think about what these collages mean.  It's just stuff I have around that I like to use up.  I guess that's part of my creative process - seeing things emerge as I go.  

I apologize for the light glares on these phone shots.  My work table is tile and cleans up like a dream, but I'm finding that it glares quite easily.  I can fix that though in the future, no problem.

I painted the background with acrylics, used a marbled paper that I did with the shaving cream technique (older post) and some cutouts from magazines and a beautiful stamp one of my friends from England sent me.

Used an old book page for the background and some antiquing ink to age it a little.  I seal all of these with a matte sealant just in case the ink might come off on anything.  I'm not quite sure that it's necessary as I use permanent, waterproof inks, but I like the feel of it after it's been sealed as well.  

This is the other side of the above card.  It's also the bottom half of the image of the lady I used on the other side.  I don't know - why not, ha!  I added the rose because the title could be for either.  I'm not sure my antiquing was all that effective.  Does it look like it's just dirty?  

Well, it's always fun to try new things, especially when I discover them to be fun and a rewarding experience.  I hope you're trying new things too!  

ATC Swap

Here's a couple of ATC (Artist Trading Cards) that I made for a recent art swap.

The theme was Sealed with a Kiss, and the one requirement was to have "kissy lips" somewhere on the ATC.  Well, I guess mine doesn't really apply very well to the theme.  But, when I sat down to create - this is what came out. 

I use a lot of tribal imagery in my paintings.  I've always been interested in different cultures.  

I made these on a heavy watercolor paper.  Used a marbling technique for the backgrounds and finished up with stickers for the lips and acrylic paints.  These are 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size.