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.