Studio Time

I was on vacation last week, and got two days at home to myself to spend in my studio. What a luxury!   Unfortunately I left my phone cord that lets me upload pictures at work, so I couldn't do any posting when I finally had plenty of free time to do it.

I made this guy, which was a lot of fun.  I was inspired by a magazine cover, Art Dolls I think, that had some birds with human faces, so I decided to try my own with some different materials. He's made of paper clay, with an old thimble for a hat and pieces of old china from my mosaic days for wings.  Here he is in his home.

I also did some more work on my ledger papers.

The weekend before we went to Port Costa, a magical little town I did a previous post on here, where Wendy Addison has her little shop/studio, Theatre of Dreams. They were having a town wide (one little street) yard sale with some wonderful vintage vendors as well and I scored a few fun things.

This is an obviously very old mold, for Kewpie Dolls.  I couldn't resist it, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  My immediate instinct was to get it to use the little doll molds individually, but I'm having a hard time with the idea of breaking it up.

I tried to find a picture of a Kewpie Doll made from this mold but haven't been able to so far.  I found one holding it's finger to it's mouth like this one, but it was much larger than these. 

I can tell it's going to torture me, either way!

Momentum...

My art momentum has stalled a little with the beautiful Spring weather and my garden and yard projects calling me, but not completely. I'm still really enjoying playing with my decorated, gelli-printed pages from my old pharmacy journal.  

I'm seeing peonies, my favorite flower, in bloom right now, which inspired this one.

I was excited to finally think of something to use this little fabric bird for!

This one was inspired by a branch of dried up camellia leaves.

I hope you're all getting to enjoy some Spring weather - I know I always treasure this time before it gets too hot here.

Flowers and Snow

I've done a couple more intricate flowers on my pharmacy ledger, gelli plated, plastered pages.  I'm really enjoying these right now, and anything that keeps me in the studio (or on the couch with pen in hand) I'll stick with for a while.  They take many hours, but they're very satisfying too

I combined these two with the one from my last post, and made a wall hanging from them - I sense more of these in my future.  I may have to dust the cobwebs off of my etsy store.

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 So, for the snow.  We had a freakish storm here Friday, that left the mountains covered in snow.  We had an overnight stay in Lake Tahoe already planned, and we headed up Saturday in bright sun and got to see lots of beautiful snow.   Really lucky timing and a rare treat for us since we aren't usually willing to fight all the skiers that are usually on the road when there's snow.

Mario's new buddy....

The waterfalls in the area are bursting right now

Launched

Many months ago I bought a gelli plate, and used it once to make some backgrounds on pages from my old Prescription Ledger.  I enjoyed having the pages available as a base for pieces or in journals and had used them almost all up, so I decided to make a new batch.  This launched me into some inspiration - finally! 

This framed little ink drawing on a scrap of it was a birthday present for my Mom, and I liked it so much I just kept going.

This one below is just glued to cardboard, which is then glued to the back of a scrabble tile holder, with the tiles then glued on. (My husband brought me home the old scrabble game the day I was working on this from somewhere, and the tile holders are the EXACT width of my papers - serendipity).

My hand was sore after drawing this one, but I enjoy really detailed drawing sometimes - very Zen!

Adventure...

Well, I haven't really been having any adventures to speak of, but I made a piece with that as it's theme, which I figure is better than nothing.  This piece started out as the cardboard from this year's calendar.  I felt compelled to start collaging old text pages and maps on it and started having fun.

Lot of different elements and covered with layers of encaustic wax. This piece encompasses many of my favorite things to do - I just indulged myself.

I love this image of the ship I tore out of a very old and cover-less copy of Robinson Crusoe.

The rest are pages from my fabric journal, trying to get closer to finishing it (since I made a second one which is still languishing untouched without even a cover).

I had a birds with crowns day...

Claymore looking guilty, as he often does.

 It's not even March and Spring is here, it's crazy.  But it's giving me Spring fever and all of a sudden I want to be working outside and going for bike rides.  But I signed up for an online class with Gillian Lee, so hopefully that'll keep me motivated to spend time in my studio as well.

Sadie

My niece Sadie just turned 15 yesterday - hard to believe since it seems as though I just saw her be born yesterday.  I have a beautiful black and white photo of her that I've been wanting to paint for a while, and I decided to do it as a birthday present for her.  As a bonus, this finally motivated me to emerge from my art drought.

It's so much harder to paint someone you know, than someone from your imagination or just a stranger where it doesn't matter if it 's a true likeness.  I found myself re-working this over and over again - the tiniest line or shading seemed as though it could take it from being just a girl to being Sadie, and back again.

Here's Sadie holding her just opened portrait at her birthday dinner at Spaghetti Factory, her favorite restaurant since she was toddler. The first time we took her there she sat in her high chair and just focused 100% of her attention on shoveling spaghetti into her mouth and it's been her favorite food ever since - just like her Aunt Terri.

Now to regroup, get my studio under control and decide what I want to focus on next. The holidays are over, no more excuses...

What I have to show for myself

Christmas decorating - that's the extent of what I have to show for myself. My studio looks like a bomb went off with all my overflow Christmas wrapping, gifts and Christmas art stash that I got out and spread all over my art table and have done nothing with. So, as a few friends have asked to see pictures, I thought I'd post some here since this is where any creative energy I've had time for has gone to lately.

I apologize right now for the quality of some of these photos - indoor photography is definitely not a strength of mine!

My Nutcracker tree

My Christmas village - it's pretty much hit it's critical mass as far as room for anything else - probably for the best!

Reindeer and vintage Christmas ornaments theme going on here...

I love this old seed spreader, it used to belong to someone very special to me who is very missed, and I love having it to remind me of him.

I'm very lucky to have the wonderful old red lantern below from him as well

I received these old Santa mugs for Christmas last year, so I just had to create a little hot cocoa tray with them.  It just makes me happy to look at it, and my husband is making good use out of it as well.

My rooster dressed up in a hat and scarf meant for a wine bottle.

The mantel in my bedroom

I hope you all are having a wonderful and sane Holiday season!