Merry Christmas!

And a Happy Creative New Year!

What I'm Working On Wednesday...

Remember this monstrosity? Another old painting coverup. This time of a young woman with an unfortunately long face...

With a little time and regrets of the bygone summer (Where did it go so fast ? I swear we were just in August), the green blob evolved into this painting of digitalis or foxgloves...

I added a little more detail with a Prismacolor pencil at the end, but all in all, I think it turned out OK!

What I'm Working On Wednesday...

This project got a bit of an update the other day and was finally completed. When I last blogged about it, it was at this stage and I didn't know what to make of it:

I used the extra gessoed boards I had from my Glass Ceiling project, some light modeling paste (I LOVE playing with that stuff!), acrylics, and Radiant Rain's Shimmering mist spray for kicks. I was kind of stuck on where to go next when a friend suggested it needed little white flowers. At first I thought I would try an eye dropper and some fluid acrylics, but that was a fail. I ended up adding dots and flowers with a small brush.

At this stage I'm always afraid of ruining something and wondering whether or not to stop so of course I didn't. I added some more detail with a black micron pen and these were the finished paintings:

Daughter #4 has claimed them for her apartment next year. I guess that's a seal of approval...

Off The Grid Opening...

I attended my first opening that included my work on Friday night. Very exciting. I went with the Husband and Daughter #3 who is also an artist and met up with friends Joyce and Annemarie who are my artistic support team.

Daughter #3 and the Husband

We arrived at Artstream at about 5:45 and the place already had quite a few people there. I spoke with Susan, studio owner and friend, and then schmoozed with Annemarie and Joyce while admiring the other artists' work.

With Annemarie and Joyce

I also spoke with Jill another ARC graduate who also was showing some work there. Afterwards we hightailed it over to the local pizza place for some celebratory pizza and beer. Food of the gods, food of the gods....

Ta da!

The only bad part is now I have to set another goal for myself. Oh well I can safely shelve that until New Year's...

What I'm Working On Wednesday...

So I thought that since I'm struggling so much to sit down and actually blog a couple times a week, I would give myself a theme like "Throwback Thursday" in order to entice myself to blog on. I came up with "What I'm working on Wednesday". Not the cleverest of themes, but it works for me-I hope.
So here's another project that I've recently completed. I haven't even named it yet, so if you have any suggestions-let me know.
This project started off like several of mine lately. It was a redo of an old painting that I no longer liked. I had read an article in Cloth Paper Scissors about adding different textures to your canvas. This involved covering the canvas with masking tape and the gessoing it. When I last blogged about it, it looked like this:

Guess I was channeling the holidays and thinking of a snow scene. Well that didn't last long and the snow turned into woods...

And then the woods got a little crazy and turned into a moonlit scene...

Paint was dripped and a tad of glitter was added and then she was done.

Preparation for "Off the Grid"...

I'm not really going off the grid, although I used to harbor fantasies of that in my younger days. Too much reading of "My Side Of the Mountain" I guess. No, these are the pieces I have been working on for Artstream Gallery's "Off the Grid" show which opens this Friday Dec. 6th. I am so excited to be included. As a friend pointed out, this is the second time I have shown my work this year. How's that for throwing yourself out to the universe?
I have been working on these pieces for the past couple of months-ever since my friend Susan gave me the invitation.  Here is my process:

early concept-rejected because it was too literal

So one of the requirements was that we were allowed to submit up to 4 pieces. They also had to be a maximum of 6"x6". A challenge for me because I usually don't work so small.

I cut and then prepared the boards with a couple coats of gesso...

The concept that eventually came to me was that I wanted to paint a young woman pressing up against the proverbial glass ceiling, trying to break free of rules, confinement, strictures-the grid. I enlisted daughter #3 as model and took some photos of her from above. I selected 4 photos and based the drawings on them.

Photo, prepared board, and drawing

More photos and boards...

Starting to actually paint the figures was scary. I was afraid I was going to screw it up or make some irreparable mistake which I guess was silly because then I could just paint over it...

So I painted on fortified with the occasional glass of wine...

I decided to add the detail with prismacolor pencils so I could have more control. It also added an interesting layer of texture to the painting. I protected the pencil layer with a layer of acrylic medium and then added the glass ceiling after I had a glue trial with my glass and brass bits. I now own more glue than I will ever need...at least until the next project.

The finished pieces...Glass Ceiling #1, #2, #3, #4

Glass Ceiling #1

Glass Ceiling #2

Glass Ceiling #3

Glass Ceiling #4

A Furniture Reno Going On...

 This is my side project. My friend Joyce has been kind enough to donate to me several pieces of furniture which I have been rehabbing and placing around the house. The last one I picked up was an old refrigerator or icebox that her friend had given to her and was currently living in her garage. She sent me this picture:

As you can see it has some pretty cool tree designs on it and I thought it would be awesome as a bar.After I brushed, vacuumed, and bathed it, I started contemplating the general structure of it and realized that it was 3/4 of a refrigerator. Somebody at some point in time had removed 1/2 of the lower cupboard. No matter. It didn't affect my plans. At this point the husband got interested and suggested a structural rebuild of the lower portion. Can't keep engineers away from anything...This worked with my plans 'cause I wanted to make sure any nasty creepy crawlies were evicted from their former home. So this happened.

And then I did some more vacuuming and stepped back so this,

and this,

could happen. Next stage-putting it upright and fitting it for some shelves. Also waxing the exterior and rebuilding skirt for around the base...Stay tuned!

Things That Make Your Head Spin...

Today I sat down at one and joined in listening to Cloth Paper Scissors webinar, The Business of Art: Social Marketing For Mixed Media Artists. It took about an hour and a half and gave me a ton of information. A bit too much. I am now officially overwhelmed. I want to start selling my art on Etsy so I need to set up an Etsy shop. I need to promote my work on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and maybe Twitter. However I already have a personal Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest account. Supposedly all these things should match with names and contact info. Do I merge or start anew? Decisions, decisions...
In other worlds, here are a few things I have been working on in between working on the "Off the Grid" project. Hope you like them.

Terrariums. Always fun!

Messing around.

Getting Ready for the Big Time...

High excitement at Working Cat Studio. I was invited to participate in a local exhibit during the month of December. It is called "Off the Grid" and the theme is--you guessed it. Grid. It's the first time I have been asked to join in such an event and I'm super psyched. Is that even cool to say anymore? Whatever. I am. So we are allowed to submit four 6"x 6"boards which is a lot smaller than I usually work. That is my first challenge. My second is to complete what I envision for my entries. I have an idea but I don't know whether it is beyond my skills. I am going to go for it. Don't know whether I should make back up entries in case it doesn't pan out. Does anybody else do that? And holy crap, I've got to price them...
Oh well we will leave that to the last minute...like usual.

Sketching some ideas...

Preparing boards...with some extras.(just in case)

Gessoing the boards.

Stages...

That's a painting?!
Umm...not yet. It will be when I'm done, but it's got a long way to go. At least a dozen walks, countless sessions on Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming episodes of series that do not tax the brain too much and get you "in the zone", multiple cups of tea and coffee, and long sessions in the thinking chair deliberating on what to do next.

Thinking chair-complete with fuzzy blanket and pillows

Sometimes I believe that people think that paintings and other projects spring fully formed from the artist's head like Athena from Zeus (Don't get the reference? Greek mythology. Look it up. Lots of fun. Sorry. It's the librarian and the mom in me...) Or they think it's sort of like a coloring book. We draw the outline and fill in the colors. If only it were that easy...Sometimes you do have a vision what the finished project should look like and when you do try to put it down on canvas, paper, your media of choice-it never ends up looking like what you envision. That's when I feel like I have settled. Either because I have made peace with my mind and what I actually have created or because I have realized that I do not have the technical skills yet to complete it. But maybe someday in the future I will and I will try again.

Most projects evolve with many layers. The painting, uh background above started out like this:

I made this for an online class a couple of years ago and I can't stand looking at it any more. She has a really long face and crazy hair but the husband made a nice wooden support for it so I decided to recycle/reuse and covered it with lots of green paint. I've got a goal in mind so we'll see how long it takes me to get there.

Another project I started is this:

I think this had cute little bunnies on it and was headed to my daughter's room when she was 10 but I got sidetracked for about 10 yrs and decided to experiment with texture so I covered it with masking tape and gesso, put a layer of blue paint on it, and dabbed it with paper towel. I stared at it for a couple of days and decided it looked like a snow scene, so I added a layer of white acrylic along the bottom:

It seemed as though there was a cottage along the snow line, so I sketched that in too:

Who knows where it will go from here? That's the fun part. And if you don't like it-you can cover it up and start again. Hopefully I will have enough courage to go with the vision and try to make it come alive. There are more than enough seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation to make it so...

And Then I Went To Camp...

In order to recover from the stress and trials of organizing and presenting Daughter# 1's wedding, I gave myself a little present. I gave myself the permission to go on my very first art retreat. I signed up pre-wedding and the goal of going to Susan Schwake's Art Retreat Camp 2013 kept me focused and sane throughout the month of July. I first read about it in an email from Mati Rose with whom I had taken an online painting course. I thought,"Art, like-minded women, good food, on an island-and it's in New Hampshire? I'm there!" From there it was a bunch of serendipitous (is that a word?) incidents. I told Susan I had found out about it from Mati. Susan told me that Mati was originally from nearby Kittery. Who knew?  Susan, I discovered, was moving her business Artstream to Dover where I worked. Then I realized I had actually received a poster for ARC 2013 at work and hung it up in our foyer thinking all the while , "This sounds interesting". I guess it was just meant to be. I had so much fun and met a great group of women. And it all took place at such beautiful location at Mayhew Island on Newfound Lake.

The Lovely Lake

Awesome Music!

Two of the wonderful women I met there!

Mati's future is so bright she's just got to wear shades...

Some of the art work I did....

Proud graduate of the Jack Shack!

Had such a great time and I can't wait to do it again.  Miss you guys!