Lost angel

Please meet Fleur. Obviously she is a flower angel. You know, the one who stands over the plants and whispers "Grow". She is also a lost angel because today the temperature here in sunny St. Louis is -10 degrees with the wind chill factor...not exactly flower weather. She came to visit my studio to remind me that there would be flowers again, but not for a little while. she brought a few with her to cheer me up , which she was quite good at. I loved her colors and bits of glitter and shine.

The inspiration for this piece came from a demo class by Pam Carriker through the Crescendoh site. It was a real change for me in that it was very sculptural and encouraged me to dig through all the goodies I had stashed about to create something lovely. I have been busy with a few other angels I will save for another post.They came about as donations to the St. Louis Artists Guild's invitation to their artists to create Christmas ornaments to be auctioned off this Wednesday evening. All of these lovelies have faces based on my studies of sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci. What could be more inspirational than Renaissance Angels ? I have been sketching away on thin, thin paper that lets me slip and slide my pencil around and create very painterly drawings. It's a lot more fun to paint with graphite and charcoal than to try and actually draw with them. I am not linear in my thinking or my art and get much more enjoyment from softening edges and brightening shadows. That would be my philosophy of life and art. What are we here for except to soften the hard edges of of life and maybe bring a little brightness to the dark places. That may be a bit simplistic to some, but it seems to serve me pretty well most of the time.

Playing with these little angels along with some very non-traditional materials is leading me down a new road. In proofing a freshly carved stamp a few days ago, I realized to line of stampings just needed a little more attention and they could be the body of yet another celestial being and so another lovely appeared a top a stack of stampings. The greatest part of being an artist is that you never cease to be amused. There is always another rabbit hole to tumble down and meet new creatures. A wild tea party can happen any minute. In a chilly December, you tend to get a lot of angelic beings at your tea parties. That may mean you have to be on your best behaviour, which isn't a bad thing either.