Time Flies

I know it's been a long time since my last post. I had to focus on my health and that took a lot of reading and searching for answers. Also we had several close family members sick and that took up a whole bunch of time. So, I'm back! I went to the Cherry Creek Art Festival last month and got some awesome pics to share. I have a favorite artist that I love to see each time. Her name is Claudia Roulier if you've never seen her stuff your gonna love the next couple pics.

I love how whimsical everything is and the layers are amazing. She had a bear in a party hat the year before last riding a tricycle. I wanted that picture so much, alas was unable to afford it. But each year she has new cards made with her current work and I get them when I can and tuck them away for inspiration and awe.

I believe this was the poster for the year. This artist has some really fun stuff, sorry I can't remember who he is. The next couple pics are from unknown artists.

I love all of the mixed media art and assemblage. The third one up is all toys etc all painted black I thought it was very interesting, my husband didn't get it. He loves the photographs of landscapes and the realistic paintings. As you have probably noticed I don't have pics of those. They just don't move me. I've been making some jewelry lately and will post soon on those.

Birds Nest Painting

This is my newest painting to go with the blue bird I did a little while ago. I love all the texture of the nest. I used torn tissue paper and sealed it with gel medium.  The vintage music and lyrics are from an old Bing Crosby song. I highlighted a section of lyrics with pencil that says "But it brings back sweet memories of you." Around the painting there are definitions for wish, memory and dream. There are several layers of paint then I removed some sections with sanding. I used hard candy crackle paint by Tim Holtz on the music then antiqued the areas with brown paint. Sorry for the slight blurriness if the photo I need a new camera. I am happy with how it turned out and am listing this one for sale on etsy. I'm still holding on to the blue bird though! ;) More birds for the next paintings. Guess I'm wishing for spring already. I love to garden and be outside and now that my son is a little older we'll be out a lot more than last year.

My Garden

I've been in the house I live in now for about a little over eleven years. I started to put in some perennials when I first moved in and as plants have died I've found different ones that work for me. I have a 250 square foot section just for veggies every year. In the rest of the yard I have 2 kinds of grapes, blackberries, rhubarb and a peach tree. I planted one of those trees that has several different kinds of apples on one tree and by this spring we should have a great crop. Around the yard I have lavender which I highly recommend. I love to go and just brush my fingers through it and get the smell of the lavender. Some years I hang it to dry and put a bunch of it on presents I give. I have a whole herb garden on my patio and then some throughout the yard too. My sage bush comes back every year and if I cover my rosemary right sometimes it will also. I have a large lemon balm bush but haven't really used it a lot but it is a nice plant for the yard. My peppermint just goes nuts and I have to really thin it back but when the dogs run through it they smell great for a little while. I have three shih tzu's. Frasier my male is on the header for my etsy shop. The funny thing is I have found several shops with shih tzu headers or avatars too. Ashley and Madison are the two females. If we had a bigger house we would probably have two more. We always joke about having a shih tzu farm, not for breeding just for having. They're the neatest dogs I have ever owned. Anyway, every year I pretty much plant close to everything you can imagine in the vegetable garden except corn. In southern Colorado area we get fabulous sweet corn from the farmers and it takes up too much room anyway. When we move I'll start with more fruit trees as soon as we move in. I really have never understood why people don't have at least one fruit tree in their yard. I eat organic whenever possible so I like to grow what I can. Shallots are so expensive in the store  and I really like the flavor so I do two rows of those and if I don't get to them they just come up next year. When the spring comes I'll start to show pictures. We will probably do giant pumpkins this year for my son. We've done them before and the largest was 74lbs. Enough with the gardening for now.

Blue Bird Love

 I love birds and what they symbolize.  I started several canvas's for more mixed media pieces. I love the textures and colors of this one. I'm starting to use new products like joint tape and heavy gel medium. I used to worry so much about what I would use because of the cost of supplies and I didn't want to have something turn out bad and waste all of the materials. It's taken me a long time to get over that thought process. One day  a girl I watched online gave a talk about some products,  art and her process, she kept saying something about getting over the "preciousness" of what we use. Then it just clicked for me to stop hoarding supplies and start using them. It's been a freeing experience! I've created more in the last year then ever before. My next project is a nest. I know it sounds a little wierd but I saw one once and loved it. I really enjoy the freeing experience of doing mixed media and not being so concerned about fine detail work. I would get so nervous trying to get everything so perfect I didn't get lost in the art and just feel the joy of doing it. Anyway I think I'll live with this for awhile then put it on my etsy site (or maybe just copies of it) ;)

Textile Collage

This is a textile collage I created from re-purposed fabrics like clothes etc. I used a broad cloth for the substructure and built upon that. The fabric on the right is upholstery sample fabric from a garage sale. I was able to purchase several boxes for a couple dollars from a lady that was getting rid of old hobby stuff. I have a huge box of wool yarn I haven't found projects for yet. Most of what I create with is from thrift stores and garage sales. I found a package of wooden beads with only certain letters and was able to use some for this piece. The picture is from a collage pack I bought 8 years ago. I love the velvet leaves,  I found those on a dealer's site on etsy. I have just realized recently a lot of people have no idea what etsy is. This site is like ebay but for artist and crafters. People also sell vintage items and supplies for creating art etc. This is a wonderful site for inspiration. Sometimes I go to the buy section and click the button for "pounce". Pounce is for seeing something that is newly sold which is helpful to see what is selling. I "favorite" several shops and try to see what they're selling new.  My shop is http://www.repurposedbeauty.etsy.com/ and from my site you can see what shops I like and items I'm selling. I always keep an eye out for vintage lace.  I love these collages so much. I just started working on them after seeing examples in Somerset. I'll be showing another one soon, I'm thinking about changing it a bit before showing it. Most of the piece here is embroidered with some gluing here and there. A section of an old torn table cloth has been tea dyed and applied on the right side. Hand painted vintage buttons are in a handmade nest on the left. This collage kind of goes into the mixed media, assemblage area of creating which I find fascinating.  I am amazed at assemblage artist sometimes and how they re-purpose items. I laugh because my husband doesn't quite get the assemblage aspect of art but he is very supportive. Hope those that see this are inspired. Let me know what you think.