Amazing View women

I love the lighting on this fair lady's face..like a candle beneath her chin. This is on a heart shaped paper mache shape I bought this summer with no idea whatsoever in mind as to what I was going to do with it other than I loved the shape. It is very dimensional, about an inch and half thick. I hit it with my beloved gold gesso, then thin layers of paint and collage. Old dictionary pages. metal stampings and some old lace are in there, too.. I love her butterfly eyes. she has a very different point of view, eh ? Maybe one that has morphed a bit over time. I think they are helping her find a new vision. she'll get there.

Remeber this fine friend? I left a sketch on canvas a few days back. Well, here she is in her all her finery. Gold leaf around the edges, and her heart, not on her sleeve but a bit closer to her head so she can figure life out a with a little less illusions. Look at those eyes. She's looking for truth even if it bites. It's already turned her lovely hair a bit gray, but if you could see her up close there are some lovely tones of gold and lavender there warming her, softening her. She does look like she might be tearing up a bit in those eyes, but truth will do that to you. she's confident in her red blouse. No jewels for this one. She is enough.

This would be a question for anyone who may stop by and visit my little blog. someone left a comment asking if I read the comments. Oh my yes !!! I would like to encourage some comments, so I will pose a question. there are many publications currrently available showing where women artists create. For the most part these are beautiful spaces to drool over like one does when looking Architectural Digest or House Beautiful. One does get a few neat ideas on setting up space to work in. Mine is a spare bedroom commandeered as an art studio. What you are looking at is just one corner. I have a huge drafting table that is my work space and a small desk tucked into the other corner. You can see what is one end of a wall of book cases that hold supplies as well as books. Now I know this is but one corner, but I have been accused...and I think quite wrongly...but you dear reader can tell me true...of having a STERILE work space. Sterile....sounds like the emergency room at Barnes-Jewish around the corner. Sigh. I dearly love my accuser and respect her taste deeply, but, well...Is it ? I haven;t moved a thing...I just snapped an extra shot after shooting the two previous paintings.

Let me know what you think. Inquiring minds need to know....and dear heart who made that comment....shhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Eye Candy

I have to admit that I get a little bored when I flick through other folks blogs and see nothing but florals photos or autumn leaves photos or whatever. So here is just one. Yep, just a single Monet-esque shot from the Missouri Botanical Garden. This is totally un-photoshopped and the lighting is just what was there that day. Perfect. Good composition doesn't hurt. I didn't crop it either and I don't think I would. Out of a dozen or so shots I hit on three like this that I just loved. I printed them out and now I have to figure out what to do with them. I will definitely frame them all in the same kind of frame and probably hand them in my bedroom which has shades of blue and way too much dark heavy furniture. Not that I don't like dark heavy furniture. It looks nice and sturdy to me and I don't mind it. The suite was from my husband's Uncle's furniture factory, so it has some provenance. The room has several large mirrors so it is in balance, but it needs pretty. It needs wonder. It needs these water lilies.

I did a series of watercolor paintings of waterlilies a while back. They came out very well and flew off to various parts of the world including France. Can you imagine a French person, home of Monet, buying an American Artist's rendering of waterlilies ????? Yeee-haa. So these photos inspire me, but I don't think I will paint from them. They are pretty much complete as they are.

So if you came looking for pumpkins and autumn leaves, you'll have to hunt them down elsewhere. I am too busy enjoying them to throw them into blogland right now.

Oh, I meant to tell you about my newest little project/brainstorm. I signed up for a sketchbook project where the book will become part of a library of artist's sketchbooks that will tour the country. The deadline is in January and I've been so busy doing other projects I kind of let that one slide a bit. In the meantime I started sketching while sitting in front of the TV. Just doodling out faces to begin with, but they developed into fully modeled portraits of all kinds of characters. the surprise was that they tended to become very masculine when I was drawing under those circumstances ! Very strange. Anyway, I decided to bring the two concepts together and collage some of the portraits into the sketchbook and then do some directly onto the pages, also. Who knows what will happen with that. since all the TV movies airing right now tend to be slightly scary ones, maybe I'll get some scary critters on the pages. It will be fun to see what happens !!!! Yes, I'll post some of the more interesting ones !

Start Here

So I decided to work on a stretched canvas. In another life, in the wilds of the land of Vegas, my bestus buddy was the manager for a major Art Supply store. I was the beneficiary of many art supplies that were either discontinued, damaged or just written off as samples. Lucky, spoiled little me. So six deep wrapped canvas panels moved all the way to the land of "M" and have lived in exile at the top of my studio closet. SIGH.

So I dug one out and decided in the spirit of being "Green" I would use all six, especially since they were essentially free, didn't require framing and would work well with my new acrylic techniques. YIPPEEEE !!!!!! So I started with a free hand sketch. Yep, absolutely freehand. If I think about it too much the whole thing gets too stiff. I wanted her to have that wild hair.....if you could see me now you would understand. Her face looks very sincere right now. she is going to undergo a few changes once the paint hits. I more or less randomly divided the background into a kind of quilted affair. Satisfied..kind of...I hauled a jar of thick gel medium. this is very gooey stuff you can model. I have used it in the past to create a raised background for gold leaf, which is very careful, detailed work. Here I used a painting knife and just scraped the stuff on, creating a textured background that was very loose, then a very specific texture for her hair and shirt. I then let all that dry.

What you don't see: The next layer was gold gesso over everything except the face, arm and sides of the canvas. the sides received a coat of dull red paint as an undercoat to real gold leaf. Once all that dried I did some collaging with old dictionary pages. Then the real fun began. I'll save that for later.

Also in the spirit of using the copious collection of supplies already in my studio, I primed a paper mache heart with that luscious gold gesso at the same time I worked on this canvas. I try to have several things going at the same time. I just watched a video of a very famous collage artist who works on at least four or five pieces at a time....great idea ! The heart piece, I decided would go much faster and be a bit less experimental. I did a very loose coat of textured paint as a background, then a some collaging just to create a composition.After living with that for awhile, I was inspired to create an image and went from there to finish the piece.

I completed both works within a few days of each other so now its time to start something new. I really like the idea of working one many pieces at the same time so I am considering two canvases and two icon type pieces. I love the gold gesso, but this time I think the canvases may be primed black.........

Oh the JOY

I am back !!!! It was a big bad virus that was keeping me from posting a thing on my poor bloggie, but thanks to the folks at Symantec, it's all gone. Yippee. So I am back to floating along.....I'll be doing plenty of posts to catch you up on what I've been up to. I have a local sale going on Halloween morning along with a ceramic artist who is also my pastor !!!! She does beautiful work so I am thrilled. I'll be selling off some older works since I am now on a completely different path with these mystical ladies who have come to join me.

This one is the mermaid I have always dreamed about...no flowing hair to get tangled in..a much more organic, coral-like do. Of course she is still dressed in a swirl of pearls and has time on her side and her heart in her hand. Her lower torso is more shell like and I love the jellyfish keeping her company.

she is a combination of collage and acrylics with the face in shiva oil sticks. I am sooooo in love with the oil sticks. I really don't have many colors, but seem to be able to do quite a bit with a tiny palette. One of my current or rather concurrent passions is Russian Icons, which also use very limited palettes. Same thing for Renaissance painters. We get a bit carried away these days with all those wild colors though I must admit a love for those quinacridone tones.

As I bring you up to date, you will see the passion for the icon style and limited palette...and some real canvas work...don't know if I love that or not. I love that I can make it look so finished if I use wrap around canvas.....but the texture is taking some getting used to.

Well, a joy to be back, but life calls.......I'll be back soon !!!

So sorry

Well, I have put a great deal of energy the past few days into trying to figure out how to post my photos again, but to no avail. Google is not recognizing my signal from Picassa so nothing is happening. I have attempted to contact heir help section and cannot make the connection there either. Picassa updated itself and from what i can see there are others with the same problem. I am sure there are folks out there with more computer savvy who can fix the problem, but I just don't have that savvy.

I am looking into some other blog alternatives as I have so enjoyed this process and the ability to share my artwork and bits and pieces of life with friends and family.

Sigh.

Have a cupcake !!

So there were these horrid little tiles with duck heads on them hanging up along the kitchen ceiling, right over the stove. REEEEEAAAAALLLYYY ugly duck tiles. they had to go. I figured it would be easy. Paint something cute and kitcheny like cupcakes. I really make cupcakes a lot. They are my darling husband's favorite breakfast food. So I got some of those deep canvases and painted and played for days. I think they came out darling. Darling husband cringed a bit. OK, so they are abit sugary, but better than those &%@# duck heads, which he did not seem particularly attached to.

Turns out they came with the house when he bought it over 30 years ago. They had actually been painted around when he had the kitchen painted. It also turned out they had been GLUED to the wall. so when I tried to take them down, they too k off huge chunks of dry wall with them. HARUMPH. So I had to get spackle and paint and repair the wall before I could hang my cupcakes.

But hang them I did and they look oh so much better than the duck heads. By the way, I used an old cookbook as the base for the painting. You can actually read the recipes throuogh some of the paint. they were all candy recipes. The icing is all done with dimensional paste and lots of sparklies. the colors are pulled with some decorative plates I have hung from the wall at a right angle to this one. I have to live with some Pepto Bismol Pink vertical blinds so I am trying to throw more color into the room. Next project is to replace some very limp lace curtains with a nice shade..I am thinking of using some stenciling and then getting rid of a truly ugly light fixture. Darling husband is extremely change resistant so this is a painstakingly slow process. Luckily I am very good at perserverence....and paint.

Spring Show offs

He had planted only trees on the property. He really didn't know much about flowering plants or shrubs, so just trees...but what trees !!!! All spring there is a show of colors that are just lovely. It moves around the yard ending with this huge spun sugar drift of wonder that creates a pagoda of flowers I live under as much as I possibly can. Jusy look at these beauties against our silvery old fence.

Yep, that is a little nest home tucked up in the branches. How would you like to wake up in that nursery every morning ? It's a robin, by the way. There is a cardinal that lives next door who would be a bit more colorful, but I think he prefers to be in contrast to the softer greens rather than battle the pinks for visual supremacy.

In another week or so I'll move my lawn chairs and tables out under this pink lady. It's the best place in the yard. I've hung wind chimes in the tree as a memorial to my dear little Shadow. I think I'll invest in a hammock this year and invite some friends over for lemonade (spiked viciously with Jack Daniels) and cookies....try to be a nice little Midwest gal...Ok, I won't last long at that with the JD running free, I can always put some good music on the CD player, kick off my shoes and dance in the blossoms under the moonlight. Me and JD.