Owls in the Moonlight

Been really busy painting and getting my gallery/studio space all spruced up.  And I have been "burning the midnight oil" too. So painting some pictures of owls seemed to be the right decision.
Here are two little pictures I painted this last week. 

I had a blast painting "Moonlight Owl" canvas with acrylics.
He seems to have  alot of personality--- flapping a wing and watching out for whatever critters might happen by in the night.

Sometimes painting more than one at a time helps move the project along.  No overworking the paint and turning it into mud. No losing track of the shapes. Just filling in the images and working out the ideas, bringing the paintings to life.  

"Owl Duet". Just two owls, hanging out.

Caught the Art Bug

I really caught the art bug this last week at the Art and Soul Retreat in Las Vegas.  It was my first mixed media event like this and I had a blast. Jumped in with both feet and took four classes. Whew!
First one was a little overwhelming. We used  fluid acrylics, watercolor crayons, decorated papers, 3-D objects, and encaustic wax. It was "process overload" and not everyone was able to complete the steps. Personally I think the piece was too big to complete in the time.  I will have to work on this one on my own to finish. A disappointment for me.
Tuesday I took a soldering class which was satisfying, even though my piece shows that I am a beginner. Still I had fun smoothing liquid, hot silver over the charms. 

That evening Steampunk became the focus in the form of a metal shrine. The teacher was generous and it was a great class to take in the evening. I added the finishing touches at home and I plan to make some more.

"Over the Moon" Steampunk Shrine
Thanks to Lesley Venable and her inspiring class.


The bookmaking class on Thursday was super too. I had a great time in this one too, just want to do some more pages before I do the "final reveal".
Whew! I feel like I took a rocket trip to the moon and back- a marvelous mixed media adventure.

Early Spring songsters visit imaginary gardens

Spring seems to be arriving early this week. The sky has been clear and there is a faint cool breeze. And when I looked around my garden, it seemed the bulbs were being choked by the crafty crabgrass. And the crabgrass was laughing in triumph as it tried to overtake everything in it's way... Argh! What a mess!  It haunted me in those early morning dreams one has when you are slipping between sandman land and daylight. After my brief workout at the gym, I went right out to clean up the mess.

And on my painting table....
wishing for a better garden view, I splashed some gouche colors around to create these little impressionistic scenes. Added my favorite wire screening for a bitty fence, and a clay bird for personality and whimsy. Old text from a used encyclopedia, (no one uses these any more, do they?) was ripped into a cloud shape. One of my favorite things to do is rip paper. Just love those raggy edges.    Hope you like them.

"Nature is the art of God" favored quote of the day by Dante Alighieri.

"Yellow Bird Among Wildflowers"  and
"Bluebird Among Wildflowers"--Mini collages

Stepping Out of the Box

This week I decided to take the challenge on that a fellow artist put to me. He made some nice comments about a painting I did last year that is an abstract.  He then said, "You ought to do more of these."
  This was a particular challenge for me, because I didn't really have an image in my head or a drawing to refer to as I painted along.  I just glued some white tissue paper down on my canvas and moved it around with my fingers to create some interesting wrinkles and shapes. It's another step out-of-the-box and toward my goal this year to see what new art will develop if I do something a little out of my comfort zone. 
Abstract art is non-objective, that is, it depends on intrinsic form rather then true realism. That's why it can be tricky, but still delightful. You really are not in total control. Sort of a devil-may-care approach!
Anyways, here's what I came up with when I stepped out-of-the-box this week.

This I call "Dance with Love" in honor of  Valentine's Day.  I did actually try to encourage the tissue into a moving or dancing form.  But I had no preconceived notion about the rest of the painting.  It just sort of developed as I went along. The medium is acrylic gouche and the piece measures 6x9in.

Here is the second painting I made using the tissue technique, which incidentally I glued onto the canvas with soupy gesso medium. "In the Grass" is also 6x9in.

Still Life with Reflections

Here is my latest painting "Still Life with Reflections".  I have always been in love with pattern, and that is why I decided to create a subtle pattern in the background.  It's just to give an impression of wallpaper. 

This painting was done with acrylic gouche, which I love working with because it's fun to use in so many ways.  It works on so many surfaces and can be used for many effects. Anyways, here's the beginning of my painting, which was made with Titanium White and a stencil. I glazed over it a few times so it would fade into the background and not become the focal point of the whole painting.

I took this photo at an angle to reduce the glare. The glass reflections did give me a real challenge, but I am so glad for it.  That pop of strawberry red is really fun. Glazing the table with red, yellow, and green certainly did help to pull the table up in front of the wall. That's just one of the reasons why I like working with gouche.

My Surprise Valentine ATC's (RAAK)

Here are some ATC's I made for some pals in the Milliande Art Community.  I love to check in on this artsy bunch often during the week, sometimes even more than once in a day, to see what's up in their creative worlds.
They are very different and so intriguing and that's why I like to take part in these exchanges.  It's kind of like experimenting with different art or non-art media to see what might happen.
Anyways ...here's my take on the Valentines.  

The smudgy look is just dye-based ink pads that I rub all over the backgrounds and whatever I have for the collage pieces.  I get it everywhere, including my hands and sleeves.  But I'm having fun playing in the stamping media, so I don't care.
For these the base paper was Bristol which I like because it has body and holds up to a lot of  layers of media and doesn't curl too much. And it's inexpensive.





Torn scrapbook papers were glued on white drawing paper, then inked up with ink from StazOn  in Royal Purple and Rubber Stampede/Delta in Crimson.  More ink on my fingertips... There's just no other way to get it on the edges and if there is, I'm too impatient to find it!
Then the final touch was done with ultra thick embossing enamel from my very old stash. It's really time I used this stuff up!  So I liberally sprinkled it around.
So there you have 'em.  Posting them was a whole other story that I posted about on my Facebook page, so I won't post it here. Once they were sent off, I was a very happy Valentine camper.   Now I just have to wait and see  how long their journeys take.