She Had Travel On Her Mind - SOC Final Week

Our last week of Summer of Color - I can't believe how quickly it went by, and I'll definitely miss it.  Thank you Kristin for being such a fabulous hostess as always!    This week's colors were Sepia and Sage - two colors I love.

 

The page looks all wonky and not square because this journal has just become impossible to photograph.  Never again am I buying a journal that won't stay open, much less lie flat! The temptress of a store Anthropologie got me with the fabulous cover and inside pages that are all handmade looking and different from each other, but even as I was buying it a little voice in my head was warning me that I'd regret it.  Unfortunately I often ignore that voice!

 

And as much as I do love these colors I did feel the need to add some contrasting pops of color.

 

 

 

Also I found this today when I was downloading pictures from my camera.  We took my parents to Lake Tahoe a few weeks ago now that we've discovered a favorite spot, and my husband took some pictures of the squirrels that run around there. I just love this shot...

 

 

 

 

Flying Bravely into the Unknown - SOC week 4

In spite of my previously confessed short attention span, I felt compelled to finish my little winged girl unintentional series I started.  I loved this week's chosen colors for this - charcoal grey and pink - the grey worked out really well to represent the "unknown". 

 

 

 

 

She doesn't have shoes this week, because as everyone knows one of the advantages of flying is that you don't have to wear shoes - but she got some pretty old lace at the bottom of her dress instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Determined to Fly - SOC3 week 3

I enjoyed letting go and making last weeks winged girl so much, I decided to make another one this week before my short attention span kicks in. This week's winning colors were lime green and purple.  I used basically the same process, although I did catch myself getting more perfectionisty (if it's not a word, it should be), and would have to try and stop myself.  This week's girl is a little more confident about trying to fly with her (encaustic wax) wings, because her butterfly friend is whispering advice in her ear...

 

Don't Fear Your Wings - SOC Week 2

Sometimes I feel the need to force myself to unclench, and let go of perfectionism, and just create as if I were a child again.  This does not come naturally to me, but at the same time I'm often drawn to art created this way.  So for this week's challenge I roughly tore out pieces from my collection of old papers, the rough shape of a head and dress, and created and painted a girl in one of my journals, with wings she's feeling intimidated about using.

I love the old papers against the bright pink and orange, the winning colors for this week and ones I wouldn't normally think of using together much - that's the beauty of challenges like Summer of Color that force us out of our comfort zone a little.  Her wings were created using white encaustic wax.

 

If you're not already participating in Summer of Color, click the link at the top of my sidebar to come play!

She hitched a ride with a butterfly - Summer of Color begins!

The long awaited and much anticipated 3rd year of Summer of Color has begun, hosted by the lovely and talented Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle. If you're not already involved, click on the link at the top of the sidebar and come play!  The color combination for our first week is Citron and Turquoise, a combination I quite like.

This is done on a 6" x 12" piece of wood, with a lot of vintage bits and pieces. The Frozen Charlotte is riding a butterfly that I cut out of a very old piece of lace, some kind of elongated doily that is full of these butterfly shapes. The little straps I used to hold her in are all already part of it - this kind of thing can seriously make my whole day!

Summer of Color - Wild and Reckless

This week's ice cream inspiration on Kristin's Summer of Color week 5 challenge is called Wild and Reckless, I love the name, although I'm not sure I'd eat that ice cream!

This will be my last week to participate - starting Saturday I'll be on vacation for 9 days (Pismo Beach!), so I'll have to miss the last week. But I just want to say how fun it's been, and so good for me to have to stretch and use colors I wouldn't normally use. Thank you Kristin and all the wonderful participants - I've so enjoyed looking at everyone's art and seeing new (to me) blogs.

I've been itching to do something with a large piece of chipped, rusty old ceiling tin I've had for a while, and last week I had my oh-so-handy man cut me out a little bird from it. So I decided to somehow use it in this week's challenge - definitely not an obvious combination, to me anyway, so I struggled with it.

This is plaster on a really thick piece of something that I re-used - with lots of bits from my stash to decorate the bird. It was fun once I decided what I was actually doing.

Summer of Color - Strawberry Lemonade Punch!

I can't believe it's already week 4 of Kristin's Summer of Color - for that matter I can't believe it's already July -  after tomorrow I'm on vacation for 5 days - yeah!  No access to internet so I'll  be behind on checking out everyones art for this week's challenge, but I'll catch up eventually. 

This week's challenge ice cream flavor is Strawberry Lemonade Punch - mmmm, I'm thinking it's probably sweet and tart... I'm trying not to eat sugar, but I can imagine!

This week's is another piece on wood, done on a page from my 1917 prescription book. This is a phase I'm in right now - the paper is so old but it's thick and the ink doesn't run at all - I'm just in love with it.

There are several layers of wax on top - something else I'm in love with!

Mint Chocolate Chip - Summer of Color

This weeks Summer of Color ice cream inspiration over at Kristin's blog is mint chocolate chip.  Yummm....  I'm loving the sheer variety and creativity I'm getting to see as I look through everyone's blogs for these challenges.  I had no idea where I was going when I sat down to start this piece, but somehow I ended up with this.

On wood, with old papers, old handmade lace, wax, a frozen Charlotte, and misc bits and pieces.

Summer Of Color!

I have an admission - I've never participated in a weekly challenge before (much less daily) - I'm always worried about overcommitting myself what with the day job and all, and finding myself not actually enjoying what I'm doing.  But I can't resist Kristin's Summer of Color challenge - it's laid back, no pressure, a great group of participants, and most of all run by Kristin, who I just love. Well, okay another motivator is that every week's theme is a flavor of Ice Cream - by far my BIGGEST weakness, among many.

The first weeks ice cream inspiration is Rainbow Sherbet....Yummm....

As I thought about it, the idea of a Rainbow Sherbet rainbow popped into my head, and there was no going back.  This kind of sweet, childlike piece is not something I would probably normally make (mostly because my nieces and nephews are all too old now, so I'm not as inspired as I used to be) but I think that's what's good about a challenge like this -  it leads you to go outside your usual comfort zone and do something different.  And I really enjoyed it....(In spite of the dry time!)

I'm doing a p.s. and adding to this post - I was planning to talk a little about how I made this when I made the original post, then things got crazy on me at work and I just hit "publish".  So now, since a few people have asked - my secret ingredient for the clouds was a pre-mixed little tub of drywall repair compound.  I spread it all over a 6"x12" piece of wood, then created the "rainbow" by trying to just glop it down in round lumps. It's a little tricky - you don't want to squish it, but you have to work it in enough that it all holds together. And it needed lots of drying time - I'd touch the top layer which would feel dry, then press harder and a whole chunk would shift!  Then it was just layers of paint, and a layer of wax.  The letters are stamped onto tissue paper, laid on the top layer of wax, then heated with a heat gun enough for the wax to absorb the paper.  If any of you have any other questions, please just e-mail - I love sharing techniques with people...