2 Treasury's in 2 Days!

My "Rain Puddle" canvas has been in two treasuries in two days! How cool is that?? The first treasury is Leyla's 'You Probably Need an Umbrella Today' treasury. Click here to see the treasury & here to see her shop!

The treasury from today is Jamie's 'water, water everywhere...treasury challenge'. Click here to see the treasury & here to see her shop! Thanks ladies!!!

Etsy: Blue + Green treasury!

Another piece in another great Rainaelizabeth treasury!! Check out all the great selections as well as my "Street Perspective" image in her Blue + Green treasury :) Click here to see the treasury & here to see her shop!

In Silence

So I finished the "In Silence" piece that I showed you in my last Labor Day post, & I definitly took a different route in completing the text. Instead of using the inkjet decal material, I used electric tape & hand stamped the text (using white oil paint for the ink) onto the tape. I pared down the text a little so it'd all fit on the piece of wood & I really like the result.

& Labor Day art extravaganza!! Part 3

The last project I worked on is a smaller yet! I used a piece of wood from a crate left over from another project, cut it down to 5" x 5" & used the same wax pouring technique I used on the first two pieces. Once the first layer of wax was down, I put a playing card (found on a walk w/ the dogs through my neighborhood park) & some text (inkjet decal material) onto the wax & poured another thin layer. Once again the finished pic to come once I have it all cleaned up & done! Whew! Love productive weekends :)

Labor Day art extravaganza!! Part 2

The next project I worked on was a little more in depth-past the experimentation phase. I used a sewn pattern figure, similar to what I've used in the past but I used the image side of the pattern instead of the solid brown side. The canvas is 8"w x 10"h, a much smaller scale, but I used the same metal layering & wax pouring technique that I used on the first canvas. You can see in the following images that I used painters tape, instead of cardboard, to keep the wax contained while I poured it. You can see the glare of the hot wax in the images as well as the white opaque nature it takes on once it dries. The next step was to apply some text. I used a inkjet decal media, which you can print on your desktop printer, apply a thin coat of solution to seal off the ink, & then use water to peel the decal from the paper backing. I then applied the decal to the surface of the wax, cut out the text that covered the figure, & poured another thin layer of wax over the text. Now all I need to do is clean up the edges! Again, I'll post a finished pic once it's hanging up :)

Labor Day art extravaganza!! Part 1

Since the weather was so rainy over the Labor Day weekend it gave me a chance to work on several different pieces using some small crimped metal strips I found at a thrift store the other day. The first project I worked on was a large 24"w x 60"h canvas, where I layered the pieces in a cross hatch pattern & then poured white wax over the entire surface. As you can see from the pics I edged out the canvas with cardboard before I poured the wax so the wax would stay on the canvas/metal instead of dripping off the sides. This piece was more of an excercise to see how the different materials would work together, and for me to experiement more with wax & its properties. The final result looks pretty great! I'll follow up w/ a pic of the whole piece once I find a spot to hang it on my walls :)

wow!!

Today is a great day! My piece "Rain Puddle" has been featured in an Etsy Treasury done by McKell at Flapperfashions! Click here to check out the treasury & here to see her shop!

Cool as a Cucumber

Another piece in a treasury! Rainaelizabeth featured "the Couple" in her Cool as a Cucumber Treasury-thanks!! Click here to see the treasury & here to see rainaelizabeth's shop!

A lil' bit further

A few pics of the progress on "Templates." I'm a little stumped right now in terms of deciding whether or not I'm going to continue on w/ the text at the top-so we'll see! :)

Sold!

My mixed media piece "The Factory" sold on Etsy on Tues! I packaged it up & sent it all the way over to San Diego, CA!

At Laurie's House

Here's a pic of the paintings up @ Laurie's house!

Paintings for Laurie

Just finished a couple canvas's for my sister Laurie! She gave me an image for reference & I re-created it on two 24x30 canvases. They look great together but look excellent seperated too, so I can't wait to see how she hangs them in her house! Below are pics of the different stages from beginning to end:

Featured on Etsy

I had a nice surprise in my inbox today-Etsy seller GollyBard featured my 'Captain & Boy in Shark Infested Waters' piece in her summer time Jaws Treasury! Click here to see the entire treasury & my image. Thanks GollyBard!! (Click here to see GollyBard's Etsy site)

New start!

A few pics of the new piece "Template" I'm working on. Still a few more elements to add but it's a good start!

Rigged

Here's some images of the last piece I worked on called "Rigged". It took me a couple days to finish, but I had a clear idea of where & what I wanted to put down, including the materials: oil pastel, spray paint, & mat board. Take from it what you will-there is definitly more than one way to interpret this image. For me, it's representing my reaction to the oil spill in the Gulf. I knew when it started, what progress was being made, how much was spilling-lots of details but I hadn't seen any images of what was going on. About a week ago I went through an entire slide show on MSNBC (click here to see the slideshow for all 3 months) & was shocked, disgusted, & deeply saddened by the environmental impact this man made catastrophe has caused. Generations upon generations will be effected by this spill-complete devastation on so many levels. I felt foolish when I realized how unengaged & obvlivious I'd been to what was truly going on in the Gulf. Besides the obvious, filling our vehicles w/ gas, almost every product we come in contact with during the day has been made from a form of petroleum. It's shocking when you realize how dependent America is on fossil fuels. (Click here for a list of common articles made from petroleum-& this is just the start!) So is America the fool in this image??

It's easy to say things like-well I'm going to make a change for the better & start being more conscious about what I buy! But it's very very hard to put it into practice. I know I've become more aware of the issue of our dependency on fossil fuels, but I haven't really made any changes to my life style. I've tried to stop driving everywhere & start walking/riding my bike when possible, but I know I could do more. One easy thing that I've done & that we can all do is donate to the cause. Every little bit helps & hopefully my dollars can go towards efforts to restore people's lives in the Gluf & get this well capped off. Click here to visit the Greater New Orleans Foundation to donate to the cause. 100% of their donations go directly to the organizations working tirelessly in the effected areas.

Just a thought....

So today I was up in the attic cleaning out a bunch of boxes & came across some work I did when i was in college taking an experimental photography class. Some of the pieces had started to yellow, curl, & fall apart already as a result of using rubber cement that wasn't archival. I took that class about 5 yrs ago, & when you really start to think about art & its longevity, how does it fit into your idea of permanence?

I had a discussion with my friend Christie the other day about making art & the cathartic process in which art can evolve into. I see creating as something i must do to be a balanced individual in my mind space. I use art as an outlet-a venue of release to get whatever is in me out-whether its good bad or otherwise-it's out! But I also see all my work as temporary-sometimes as temporary as the time it takes to create the piece. I can think of at least 3 pieces in the last several years where I've completed the piece, studied it, understood it, & thrown it out! These pieces were meant to be expelled out of my mind & released almost instantly.

In terms of the pieces I found in the attic which were already decaying, I found this didn't bother me. Imperfect as they may be, not like they were perfect to begin with mind you, I found them in yet another stage of their existence. I create my art for me & I've never assumed it would be around longer than my lifetime so this yellowing, curling, & falling apart seemed as natural as any other object aging & reacting to the atmosphere.

Kind of interesting when you take a moment to think about how temporary art can be. Just a thought :)

New canvas

I actually finished this canvas about a month ago but haven't had a chance to upload pics yet. So here they are :) I made these clouds for The Factory & felt like they added too much visual clutter, so I re-purposed them onto this fun little canvas-enjoy!

the Grand Rapids Art Festival!!

Two of my pieces made it in this year-here are a few pics of my artwork & me in the old Federal Building downtown GR. & let me just say-the lighting in museums is fantastic for the artwork, but for people standing next to the artwork-not so much-yikes!! :)