Before & After

I decided to change up the girl from my last post. You can see before and afters and progress shots below.

Gut Art Week 1 and 2

I am so LOVING Gut Art, the class I'm taking with Mystele. The ladies in the class are such an awesome group! We do two "field trips" each week. This gal is from week 2, field trip 1. I may add some final touches to her yet.

These next two birds are from week 1, field trip 2 and I am so in love with them both. I had so much fun with these and feel like I reached a new place in my art here.

This final piece is one that I really do not like much at all. I think I could like her if I revisit this field trip, but I think she needs more oomph. She is from week 1, field trip 2.

Linking up with Paint Party Friday!

Survivor

This is for my friend Dee. I  had been out of touch with her for a (long) while and found out last week that she has been battling breast cancer for the last several months. I was relieved to hear that she's going to be fine, but it really brought a lot of emotion for me. It's so easy to lose touch with people who are important to us and it really got me to thinking how short life is and how important it is to tell our loved ones how awesome we think they are and that we love them.

I started to give this one pink hair, but I just couldn't get it right... it felt so off. Then I realized she needed red hair for strength, power, tenacity, vitality, fierceness.... she's a SURVIVOR.

More art...

Hi all... a few pieces to share this week.

First, I want to mention that I finally made a Facebook Page just for my art. So, if you are interested, come over and like it. :)

This one is one of my favorites. I had actually done her in my journal and recreated her on an 8 x 10 wood panel. She's much richer and deeper than the first time around. One of the things that I really like (that was unintentional) is that the stenciled flowers that I used in the lower layers are showing through. And it's not the color, but just the texture created from scraping with a palette knife.

This gal is pretty straightforward. She was painted with a palette knife with lots of layers underneath. 8 x 10 wood panel.

I love doing these girls. She is on an 8 x 8 wood panel and has lots of layers and fun bits and bobs.

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Lots of art and updates

Hi all! I have lots of news this week.

I did an interview over on the Stacie Jewelry blog! Please go check it out! She does beautiful jewelry and also mixed media paintings. She also combines the two to make some absolutely gorgeous jewelry. I've never done an interview before and am pretty honored that she asked me. :)

Mystele's Gut Art Registration has begun and classes start on October 15th. It is truly an awesome experience and unique each time she runs it. This will be my second run through. You an see a video where she explains it more over on her Community Thrive homepage.

I've sold a couple of pieces at the local art studio, Art Smart. I'm so thankful to Shannon Johnson for being such an encouragement and for working so hard to support the arts in our small town. You can follow her blog and her Facebook if you're interested.

First up for my paintings is my girl here. I painted her on 16x20 stretched canvas. I've never painted on anything that big before and wasn't really planning to do a close-up face like this, but you know... that's just how it goes for me. I don't plan ahead at all. I had a lot of fun with the layers underneath and then painted her with a palette knife. I really like painting that way as it seems to help me process more emotion. She's my favorite one to date, but I say that pretty often. :) It's amazing how when you are painting close up, you think the painting is going one direction. Then, you stand back and it's like "WOAH, that's not what I thought she looked like at all!"

These next two were also painted with a palette knife. I named the first one Delora which means suffering, pain, sorrows, sadness. I was processing a lot of grief through this painting. The second one is named Esperanza which I took from the story "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. As I was working on this, I was thinking about hope, but when I finished, she looked a lot like grief or sadness. Because of the conflicting message I see in her, I took her name from this excerpt in the story:

"In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.
It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.
And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.
At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do."

This is a set of girls that are inspired by the ATC's I did recently. These are on 6x8 cradled wood panels, so they are much larger though. The first was a gift for my beautiful sister-in-law. The other two don't have homes yet. :) The second one, I used a lot of junk mail on. The collage underneath was entirely junk mail, the scalloped borders were made from the insides of the security envelopes you get to return your bill payments in, and her shirt is my favorite part. This was made from an envelope sent to me by a dear friend, Dana, and it held the most fabulous ATC's. She made the envelope herself and made the pattern on it with ink! It was as gorgeous as the artwork she sent me.The third girl was just fun. Lots of fun little doo dads on her. I made the flower from fabric. You can see the tutorial on my old blog.

Last, but not least, my birds. What can I say? I just love them!

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