I'm so busy.....but not with art!

It's pretty sad to go months without posting anything artsy. Well, folks...that's called home construction! We've been doing tons of work on our house...with only minimal progress to show for it. Thank goodness we are finally getting to the point where we can close up the interior walls and get started on the fun stuff! Floors, cabinets, tilework, paint! Check out progress HERE

Needless to say, creative pursuits have taken a back seat to the house and motherhood. The pregnancy is going well, although not as pleasant and comfortable as the first one. Most of the morning (all day) sickness has passed and now I'm just expanding to unbelievable size. The most exciting part is that we have our 20 week ultrasound next Monday and will find out the gender of the baby! Woo hoo!

I picked up a bunch of little bamboo tiles and decided to give altering them a try (pictured above). They have been tons of fun and very easy, since they are quite small measuring only about 3/4" x 1 1/2". I have started over 20 of the little guys, most of them a series of little houses. I've also tried decorating some with embossing powders, wrapping others in dyed tissue paper, and some with just plain ol' acrylic paints. I'll post pictures of the completed projects soon!

Time has been at a premium lately, with construction on our house moving full speed ahead and the recent news of expecting our second kiddo. I don't know why they call it morning sickness, since I've been suffering ALL DAY LONG for the past couple of weeks. Makes it tough to get much done when the only time I don't feel sick is when I'm lying down or eating!
Needless to say, I've been trying to minimize my artsy commitments right now. I just finished up my "Pink" piece for the Color Collaboration at IllustratedATCS and got it shipped of to the host of the project. This project sucked all of my artistic energy for several weeks, but I'll whine about that more later when I post pictures of it. Yes, I'm kicking myself for not photographing it before shipping it off, but I'll do it when it gets returned to me in a few weeks. I am also finishing up a set up charms for a Purple Charm swap at ATCSforall so I can mail them off. I think they are so cute and am considering making some more in different colors. It feels good to get these obligations cleared up so I can regroup and consider what I'm going to tackle next.

Something to see...

I don't often check out youtube for things to watch, but it's a great place to go hunting if you have a song stuck in your head that you want to hear, often accompanied by some interesting home-made videos. This particular video caught me off guard. It's just edited movie clips, but beautifully done.

Enlightenment in less than a week

I went to ArtFest without any intentions or expectations. Nothing aside from the knowledge that I'd have three blissful days of uninterrupted art and some much needed decompression time. Little did I know that the way I approach art would make a drastic change.

I spent two days with Traci Bautista; painting, collaging, and playing with a wide variety of techniques and materials. Traci's style is so free and playful, very inspiring. I adore the huge book I made in her class and will continue to work on it until it feels complete.

The last day of classes was with Theo Ellsworth, an artist who draws with the most incredible detail and has imagination more vast than any universe you could think of. Listening to Theo speak about his way of experiencing the world was like someone defining the things that I already have in my own head with incredible clarity. I would never in a million years be capable of explaining the feeling of ease that I had during the entire class and how I drew without thinking . Put pen to paper. I felt at the end of the class like I had taken a very pleasant nap and kept that feeling well into the next day.

The most valuable lesson I brought away from Artfest is that I need to stop being so cerebral about my art and just create. I can go on that journey without a planned destination...just knowing that I will eventually end up *somewhere* is enough of a destination in itself.

Back to reality....sort of.

I'm feeling a little lonely today. No classes to attend and artful discussions to be had. No walks on the beach. I have a laundry list of things to do today but can't get myself out of that quiet head space that I've been in for the last five days. I will post again later with more details of classes and such. I just need a little time to wrap my head around it. More photos will be available in my Flickr gallery.

I'm so excited to see what I can do now with what I've learned. I feel like a changed person after attending Artfest and look forward to attending next year. Until then I will think of all the people I was so blessed to meet and the experience of existing in that beautiful and enveloping community of artistic people.

There's a tremendous comfort in being home and looking forward to developing my art. The best part of coming home is that I woke up today in my own bed , kissed my husband and cuddled my son as he watched cartoons and played with his bear. That is the most beautiful place in the world.

Ready for Artfest!

I'm leaving for Artfest in the morning and I couldn't be more excited! I've finished all the trades I'm going to make this year. Over 80 charms, several mini-journals, moo cards and a few photo prints of some of my favorite art will be up for swapping! I can't wait to see what others have to offer!

Pulling supplies together has been quite a job....I've only made it worse by procrastinating. I made my final supply stop to make copies at Kinko's today, which hopefully means I'm done!

I'll post photos of Artfest and my creations when I get home!

Rain, Snow, Hail....OH MY!

Tomorrow is April 1st and we have hail the size of peas coming down like crazy. It's so thick on the lawn and car that it looks like snow!

This is a picture from about 10 minutes ago next to our front steps. It's still hailing and the ground is now completely white with it! Yikes!

A Bevy of Beautiful Book Pages!

I'm finally putting the finishing touches on my chunky book pages for a swap at IllustratedATCS.com! I think the pages are coming together quite nicely since I decided to skip elaborate backgrounds and let the girls take center stage. I've had the girls done for a while, but just couldn't wrap my head around the background. I started playing with artist crayons on scraps of velvet mat board and loved the way they blended into the material, which inspired me to cut the girls off their original backgrounds and frame them with swirls and flowers. I'm pretty happy with the result...only a few more to go and some embellishments to add this weekend!

It's been snowing like mad all day, which is a motivation killer for me. I just wanted to crawl in bed and nap. I'm hoping that the weather relaxes a bit before Artfest next week so I don't freeze my little toes off!

Artfest Trades

I'm finally getting my Artfest trades put together. I'm making a variety of little charms with some combination of owls, leaves and flowers.

I'm also putting together a small number of 3"x6" journals with chipboard covers (colored with chalk then embossed) and 120lb watercolor paper pages. These will only be for those "extra-special" trades, since they are time consuming and a little more expensive to make. I'm very happy with the first one and the number I bring will just depend on how much time I have to spend assembling them. I doubt I'll have more than a dozen of them unless I suddenly get a massive spurt of productivity!

So many projects going on...so little time.

Studio Skeleton

An amazing and unexpected studio space has developed out of what was supposed to be a storage loft in the detached shop/garage of our new house. Upon completion of framing and roofing, my husband came home raving about how cool the second floor of the shop turned out to be and that I had to go check it out....we couldn't use this space for just storing "stuff". There had to be a better life for it....would it be good for my studio? After seeing the space and the beautiful light filtering in through the five foot wide windows at each end of the room...I had to agree!
I'm so excited! We have to finish the actual "house" before tackling this project, but with a little drywall and some lights, I'm going to have a dream studio space in no time!

And...yes...that's my cheeseball son hamming it up in the photos! We'll be sure to have a little art corner in the studio for him, as well!

Artfest Anxiety

I can't believe Artfest starts in two weeks! I've been working on charms to trade but am experiencing a deficit of creativity and time when it comes to working on them. I have a bowl full of bits and pieces that need to somehow be assembled into cute charms and packaged up. There are a lot of unique trades showing up on the Yahoo group, so hopefully mine will turn out just as nice.

I forgot to order the almighty "Moo" cards and feel that it is probably too late. I don't want to spend a fortune on shipping them in time. I'm considering just getting some prints of some of my favorite cards and adding my contact info to them as an addition to the packaging for my charms.

Heaven in a box

I finally broke down and ordered that BIG brush I've been longing for and a set of NeocolorII artist crayons from DickBlick....I resisted the big set and got 40 colors to try out. Oooooh, so exciting! I've been using the Staedtler artist crayons on a few projects and really love them, so it will be interesting to see how these compare.

The big brush was ordered for the sole purpose of applying gesso to larger projects, the first of which is my "Pink" project for the collaborative "Colors" book at illustratedatcs.com. I found a 12x12 balsa wood box, about 3" deep, at Michael's. This will be the base for my project. I've coated the box with white gesso, inside and out. I've also gesso'd a 4x4 canvas which will somehow be incorporated. This is going to be one of those projects that will just have to evolve as I work on it, since I have no real vision for it yet other than it must embody the color pink.

Yes....I've just lost my blog virginity....

Well...here's my blog. Finally caved and started one. Be patient, I'll be working on the layout for a while. Consindering my lack of tech skillz....it will probably never be as gorgeous as I'd like.