Time Passage

My friend Judy, who loves roaming antique stores as much as I do, found some wonderful old large photos of sites in Italy, with a fabric backing.  Knowing right away how much I'd love them she bought them for me, along with a wonderful old book, and I got a very exciting package in the mail.  I thought the least I could do was make her something with one of the photos, and this was the result. It's made on a piece of linen, with lots of plaster and layers. History and the passage of time are endlessly fascinating to me, and I love trying to express that in my art.

The glass in the watch face above is cracked, which I really liked because it just adds to the feel of that passage of time, the inevitable decay (that's for you Diana, you know who you are) even though decay often makes things more beautiful, to me at least.  I love imagining what life was like for these women in the photo.

This is a quick sketch I did from a photo in my little kraft paper journal, I'd like to do a painted version sometime.

Cracks and Blooms

I painted a face in my fabric journal - I particularly like the cracks in the plaster on this page, the combination of whatever plaster I used and the type of fabric I guess. The closeup makes me think of a mural on an ancient wall.

And I thought I'd include pics of a few of my favorite flowers blooming in my garden right now. Below is a new honeysuckle vine that I'm loving, as are the hummingbirds. I recently added an old rusty chandelier hanging from the center of the rusty metal arbor it's growing on, which you can see at the top of the picture if you enlarge it - it makes me happy!

I've always felt like fucshias are little miracles, each of the blooms. I love this one in my old enamel baby bathtub - by the heat of July it'll be miserable but I've been enjoying it for a couple of months now so it's been worth it.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Spring!

Gardens and a Marionette

Last weekend my Mum was here for Mother's Day, and I took her on a garden tour that is put on every year in the "Fab Forties" in East Sacramento (mansions, Reagan lived there when he was governor) - or in the general area anyway.  Every year homeowners are nominated to open up their gardens for a tour that benefits a local school. Some are smaller homes, with more intimate gardens that I like just as much as the mansions, if not more.  Thought I'd share a few pics, since I only have one piece of art to share.

Playing with marionettes again, in watercolor

I've seen the front of these houses many times, as I used to live in the neighborhood (on the other side of the street that defines whether you're "Fab" or not!)  It was fun seeing the backyards of some for the first time.

 This was the home of an artist, whose property took up 4 lots.  There was his home, a winery, his studio and a guest house, full of gardens and his huge abstract metal sculptures.  This wisteria was massive, it covered two buildings, I couldn't believe the size of the base.

This is one of his sculptures that I really liked.

This house had a wonderful nook all set up with art supplies, art and globes, I wanted to just settle in!

Loved these shovels, wish I had the equipment to do it myself!

Absolutely gorgeous Dragonfly

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I thought these ladder sculptures throughout the property were wonderfully whimsical.

Excuses excuses

Due to continued yard projects and being out of town, I've gotten NO art done, I'm ashamed to say.  But last weekend we went to the Monterey Peninsula for a couple of days, we stayed in Pacific Grove which is a charming little town just past Monterey itself right at the tip of the peninsula. We took our dogs, wandered around with them and ate at a couple of wonderful fish restaurants. All around had a wonderful and much-needed getaway. I thought I'd show a few pictures.

This is Pacific Grove along the water, SO pretty there when these flowers are in bloom.

Our very happy dogs!

We drove the famous 17 mile drive to Carmel, which goes through Pebble Beach golf course (our Bassett Hound said he could smell the money) and goes by the most decadent gorgeous mansions overlooking the coast.  That area of the coast is famous for the Cypress Trees, especially this one.

The town of Carmel itself is ridiculously charming, I think it must be a law there that every inch has to ooze character.  It turns out to also be full of crazy women obsessed with Bassett Hounds - wanting to get down on the ground and hold him, kiss him, groups of them posing with him.  We found ourselves ducking down alleys to avoid running into a few of them again!  Guinness, our other dog, was feeling pretty bad about himself by the end of the day!

Here's some pics of homes and shops in Carmel, to give you an idea if you've never been.

I plan on this becoming my art studio, haven't figured out how yet though.

You get the idea - it's almost charm overload!

Happy Easter!

It's actually been raining here on and off this weekend, so I decided to give my sore body a break (see previous post.  And an update, I'm starting to care about my sore wrist!) and spend some time painting.  And in honor of Easter I decided to paint a rabbit. I've saved a postcard with a wonderful old rabbit on it and decided to use it as my inspiration. 

I hope everyone out there is having (or had) a wonderful Easter!

Spring Distraction

My art habit has been in serious decline since the Spring weather hit, which it has done with a vengeance. With the longer days, and this being our first Spring in this house and lots of projects in mind I've become pretty focused on outdoor projects (actually my husband used the word "relentless" last weekend, lovingly I'm sure).  I'm covered in cuts and bruises, and have managed to injure my shoulder and wrist, but I don't even care. 

In the meantime I've done just a few things, a couple of sketches in my little Kraft paper journal. I love the clown below, I drew it from a picture of an actual clown doll. And the one below it is the face detail of an old Punch marionette.

I did some spray stencils on a page from one of my journals ages ago and ran across it and decided I needed to finish it.  I hadn't collaged in a while, it was quick and fun.

In my last post I showed the below pastel I'd done on an old French paper, and mentioned that I'd reworked it some afterwards. Someone mentioned they'd like to see the "after", which is below. I have to say that when I was doing it the changes seemed much more dramatic than they appear here. But I was happier with it so that's what counts!

Before

After

Mixed Bag

My sister had requested that I make her an owl painting for her birthday (well, actually, she asked for it for Christmas, but she got it for her birthday).  I've now given it to her so I can post it  - this was bigger than what I usually do, 18 X 24 I think, and was a lot of fun.  Lots of layers...

This is an assemblage piece I also had a lot of fun with.  I haven't done much of this kind of thing in a long time - I tend to accumulate too many pieces that I then have to figure out what to do with (and god forbid maybe actually try and sell), so I've been focusing on other things for a while.  But I have quite a collection of misc vintage treasure (to me they're treasure anyway)  and had fun going through them to put this together.

I imagine that these were all belongings of the girl in the tintype, that her name began with M and that these were all beloved items of hers.  I love this little broken remnant of a tiny old doll

This is a pastel I did on a page from a very old French book - the paper is so delicate I didn't want to use any water at all so I did it in pastels.  After I downloaded the picture I actually re-worked it since I didn't like her expression, it's amazing how changing her eyebrows completely changed her.  But I forgot to take another picture!

These are a few sketches I've done in my little kraft paper sketchbook, 

I feel a Marionette phase coming on....These are sketches of amazing real Marionettes I found online.