reasons...

so... i didn't just give up. well, i kind of gave up. but it was for good reasons... i'm pregnant!!! found out on the second day of my art class, and started with "morning" sickness about a week later. i find it hard, if not impossible to be creative when i'm feeling awful. plus so exhausted. so i decided to just keep up with the info for each day of my 5-week class (the only thing besides SLEEP i could force myself to do during normally bliss-time: joey's nap). and then start over with week 1, day 1 after the class was over. 

i did end up finding time/space/non-sickyness in little bits and pieces, so here are a few things i made during the course of the class...

a journal assignment: we were supposed to draw as many "tree rings" as years of our lives. imagine my surprise when i was at 16, 17, and really thought i was almost "there", only to discover that was about HALF my life so far! i suddenly felt very old ;) so then i journaled, one line(ish) per year. later, i painted over the rings in colors corresponding to the general "mood" of my life at the time...

an assignment to find textures around the house - loved finding some of these things! and made me more aware of my world around me - more "present": an ongoing life goal for me...

another art journal assignment involving collage and paint...

step 1: collaged on the background, using interesting textures & colors (when i originally planned this spread, i had no intention of a figure in it, but then i found this one in a Butterick fashion guide from 1970 and had to use it :)

step 2: chose a color scheme and add a layer of paint. i don't usually try complementary colors, so i wanted to experiment with it in this assignment... i went with red & green! oh, and i did a little "finger" painting :)

step 3: collaged on some imagery (in this case different anatomical hearts) to be used as a base, and covered with paint for my final look.

step 4: painted... i intended these hearts to be an image of my heart and those i'm most closely connected to: my family... my husband, jason's, being on the right; joey, our 2-year-old below and between us, and the new little tiny one still connected to MY circulatory system (it was also hard to blog during this time because everything i was creating had something to do with this new little life growing inside me, and we hadn't officially widely announced it yet, so i couldn't post stuff!! so nice to feel free to do that now :)

i used a cross-section for my own heart to signify that in all this, i'm desiring to open my heart. let it be seen, give freely... 

the assignment was actually based around a journaling prompt: "i am...(color)". i looked up the meaning of the colors on a webpage misty had linked to, and immediately identified with red standing for courage and sacrifice, especially embarking on this new journey of bringing a second child into our family, and all that entails...

the piece turned out very... bright. :) and where it says "red" looks a little too superman-emblem-y to me, but it was definitely fun experimenting with color & texture!!

expressive

this was a very quickly done "expressive" portrait (meaning it's not meant to be representational - not meant to look exactly like the subject in real life - it's supposed to express an emotion by the use of different marks and colors...) - i love it :) 

i started with a ten-minute sketch (with shading) using vine charcoal, and then i added color using water-soluble artist crayons. instead of wetting them with water afterwards, i just went straight over it with a layer of creamy white paint. i'll definitely be trying this set of techniques again! :)

what emotion do you see? just curious :)

and today i drew him ;)

this class i'm taking is awesome. and insane ;) at least if you were actually expecting to complete it in the allotted 5 weeks - but she leaves it all up for a year, so there's not a huge time crunch! good thing, since the first DAY had like 8 assignments and this is the second one (draw someone you feel deeply connected to - my two-year-old, joey!)! and, yes, this is all instagram-filtered up ;)

yesterday's art: he has my eyes

this piece started out as a drawing of joey. i actually first tried to do a real-life drawing of him while he watched a movie, but he didn't even stay still enough THEN! this two-year-old is an active kid! ;) so i grabbed an old photo of him and drew from that. i hated it by the time i was done. i need lots of practice drawing faces (guess that's one thing that might come out of the class i'm starting with Misty Mawn next week! so excited!). even though the eyes turned out a little funky, i like them. i think i recognize a little bit of myself in them... i asked joey this morning "who is this?" and he said "it's joey!" so i guess he sees a little of himself in them, too ;) i sort gave the piece a "grid" feel by touching corners of these found objects - two of them were found on our family walk down the railroad tracks on new year's ( and the square nut was from my collection... :)

so far, so good with making art, journaling, and flossing every day - 

how are your resolutions going?

i forgot!!!

in the craziness of the holiday blur, i totally forgot to tell anyone (not even my family!) that two of my pieces were featured in the Jan/Feb 2012 Cloth Paper Scissors, since i was a finalist in two categories of their "Artisan Search"! here's my two little bios, one for art journaling, and one for my jewelry, with one of my pieces next to each :)

also, i have the cutest two-year-old kid in the world.

first of all, i just HAD to post this picture. my sister took it (& instagrammed) last night during joey's bath. and i just think it proves hoe irresistibly cute my son is! so i had to share ;)

i also wanted to share this piece that i made at least a year ago, but has now been strategically placed in our house where people can actually see it, and there have been endless comments (and many requests to help them make their own!) so i thought i'd do a DIY on here. i'm pretty sure i got this technique from a book (maybe Image Transfer Workshop by McElroy & Wilson? - yep, i just looked - page 20 :) - it's called making a "gel skin". they used it to include in a mixed-media art piece, as the top layer to show the rest of the layers underneath, while still showcasing the image. of course, i did my own "take" on it (as usual), and just used the gel skin itself as a work of art! you choose - here's how:

1. print out a laserjet copy of the picture you want to use (you could even do color if you had color laserjet capabilities). you're gonna want to increase the contrast some, to get a more striking image.

2. paint on a layer of gel medium (of course, most mixed-media artists will tell you, use Golden brand, but really any that they sell in the art aisle at michael's have worked fine for me! and since i'm not a "real artist", i can tell you that, and shop there ;). let dry.

3. repeat 3-4 times. let dry overnight.

4. soak the back with a spray bottle, let it soak in, then begin rolling off the paper with your fingers (gently, so you don't tear the image! but it does take some pressure - you'll get it with practice :) until all the paper backing has been removed, and you are left with your "gel skin"!

5. if you want the look i created here, take the backing out of a stand-alone frame, and simply "stick" your gel skin to the back of the inside glass! it should adhere like one of those "window cling" thingys.

or, do something totally different with it! and tell me about it! :)

this is actually the back of the piece - that's why everyone loves it so much! with where we placed it (see below) strategically between two rooms, you can see it from both, and with very different effects - here, the afternoon light is shining through it, which just makes it luminescent (yeah, that's pretty much the definition of luminescent, but whatever ;).

please ignore all the smudges and scratches on the sliding glass door here (i have a toddler! and i am home alone, and just had my gallbladder surgically removed 3 days ago, or else i might've cleaned it! ok, probably not. but here, i did the next best thing - edit in photoshop so they're much less visible ;)

ah, finally, a shot of the twice-before-noted strategic placement of the piece that engendered all the comments

(this is also one of my new favorite "comfy" spots in the house after we did a little rearranging last week :)