Collaged Beach Scene

My sister requested a beach piece for her house in Cali. 

She saw the mixed media love piece and wanted one of her own. 

She said "something beachy and with starfish."

So here's what I came up with! 

Step one: Stamp the word beach. 

Step two: watercolor the sand and water/sky

 Step three: Collage on starfish and boat

Step four: outline with black and add some dots, waves and a horizon line. 

Voila!

Working Away

While I'm off for the "winter break" or what I like to call "my birthday and Christmas break"

I have been pseudo busy playing with some new art tools that I got as gifts. 

Neocolor water soluble crayons,

Stencils designed by Julie,

and acrylic stamps from the local craft store.

Playing always leads to a mess...as seen below. 

What are you doing during your Christmas break?

Love One Another

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

12x12" mixed media

Smoke Like

I currently have an A-MAZ-ING student teacher. 

Luckily for me her strength is my weakness...

WATERCOLOR. 

This week she taught my advanced students some watercolor techniques and I got to play too!

This one reminded me of really pretty smoke. 

What does it remind you of?

4x6" Watercolor and ink

Journey

This watercolor experimentation has been quite the journey. 

All so far have been abstract, 

but some are organic like this and others are more geometric like the next post.

4x6" Watercolor and ink

Squares

This is the geometric watercolor I promised in the last post. 

(It's funny that I'm just now noticing the lines are slightly angled!)

4x6" Watercolor and ink

Antique Keys

I played with lots of layers here:

1. Blue Watercolor

2. Yellow/Orange stamp pad ink spread on with a make-up sponge over a circle stencil

3. Keys drawn in ink inside the circles

4. It felt incomplete so I used a small pen to outline the wonderful bleeding edges of the watercolor

4x6" mixed media

Abstract Repetition

Nothing like a little randomness! 

4x6" mixed media

Love & Desire

Just playing with patterns and mixed media.

Each different layer/media (3 of them) only took about 15 minutes (give or take...probably give :)

4x6" mixed media

Inspired

I read in a book that make-up sponges (you know, the triangle things) are great applicators for ink (stamp pads) and paint.

So I tried it out. 

Pretty quick and easy!

(with no clean up since I just threw them in a bowl for later use!)

5x5" mixed media

Rain Rain Rain

I took my sketchbook along to a show I did a few weeks back and had time to create this little ditty. 

4x7" watercolor, stamp and ink

Repetition

Currently I'm teaching my students about repetition and pattern. 

So it's not surprising that repetition is on my mind. 

7x9" Mixed Media

Inspired by Julie, I ordered a bunch of stencils from scrapbook.com including the one seen above and played with it a bit in my sketchbook. I'm not in love with it as a finished product, but I like it enough I guess to play with mixed media and stencils. 

Outlet

Made with water soluble carbon paper in my sketchbook.

New Jewelry Banner

Unfortunately, I originally created a really ugly banner for myArtFire jewelry site. 

Hopefully not too many people saw it. 

Here's my new Painted Easel Jewelry banner. 

Much better, huh?!

I guess now I need a new profile pic on the right...

Black & White Design

School is officially in full swing now. 

Our first project deals with composition and design. We talk about the rule of thirds, focal point, overlapping, value, contrast, repetition, etc. 

They were given a worksheet with three items (mostly two shapes and a line) and had to use only those three things to come up with their composition.

They got to use ebony pencils too. Fancy for Art I, huh?!

This is one of the quick examples I made for the students to show them what I expected.

Bright Paisley Pattern

8x10" Watercolor and Black Pen

Quick Flower Drawing

Things have been a little crazy around here. I was traveling for 2 weeks, and then I thought I had a week off before work started up again, but I was wrong. 

It ended up only being one day, so I have been on the go since July 26th. 

Last week was staff development, which went really well and the students start back tomorrow, so there's not really any slowing down for me for a while. 

I finally sat down to draw for the first time in a long time and was inspired by my last post with Danny Gregory's video. 

I grabbed a calligraphy pen, jar of ink, and a small jar of water and sat down on my couch and watched Bones while I drew the flowers on my mantle. 

The flowers came first, but then the background was too empty and I was too lazy to fill it all in completely with flowers (which was my original goal). So as I sat debated about what to do.

I knew it needed something...maybe color. Nope, too lazy to get up and get anything else.

So how about a pattern? Sure. But the line quality of the flowers are so organic and interesting that anything black would have made it too busy and made the flowers disappear. 

The lighter the better....so I ended up just using my dirty water to make thick stripes for a more interesting composition. 

I am happy with it as my first attempt at drawing in a long while. 

Drawing Video

I have signed up for the following emails from Dana

ART *FULL, a dose of ART & INSPIRATION in your inbox

And boy are they wonderful! 

In her latest email there was a great video that I want to share. 

A guy, Danny, drawing in his kitchen. 

Watch and learn...

The Art of Breakfast from DannyGregory on Vimeo.

Paisley Greeting Cards

A set of four blank paisley greeting cards available in my ArtFire Shop.

A Boat

5x7" Mixed Media

Maurice

I am currently in Boston. 

I love traveling.

One of my favorite parts of traveling is seeing the street artists. 

I love supporting local artist, whether I'm at home or in another city. 

Today I got to meet Maurice. 

He is a nice man with great artistic talent. 

The local museum brings in a live model for their guests to practice drawing and this is Maurice's drawing from the museum class that I bought.

While it's more of a sketch, he had finished portraits that were in pastel and they were gorgeous!

He is much better at drawing portraits than I am!

Here we are at the North End on a Saturday evening listening to the US Air Force Band.

Such a blessing to meet him!

Gifts for Family

I visited my mom, sister and niece while off for summer vacation and we went into an AMAZING bead store while in Cali.

I wish I could remember the name of it. 

Well, my mom found these cute blue flower beads and loved the gold ones that said "peace" and "joy". 

When I returned home, this is what I created with them. 

I've really been into making hoops and she loves flashy accessories, so these were perfect for her!

The ones below were for my sister (they were a surprise which is why it's just now being posted!)

 

 I noticed she wore a lot of teal while I was there and she also loves the flashy bling 

(wonder where she gets that trait from!)

She loves them and said she wears them all the time. 

Glad I could make them both happy!

(My niece is only 16 mo. or else I would have made her a pair too :)

This is one of my favorite pieces from my week of ceramics. 

It's practical yet pretty. 

And actually can be arranged in different positions to create a different design.

I can't wait to glaze them! Now to pick a color...

Ceramic Chopstick Bowl

I have taken a little hiatus from painting and made some 3-D work this week. 

 

Herb Weaver led (with Charlotte Chambliss) an AP workshop I took and it was fantastic!

He is a gifted artist when it comes to ceramics and sculptures 

(I've have not seen his 2-D work if there is any).

He gave us the assignment to make a chopstick bowl but with our own personality and voice. 

Here's mine in the leather hard state. It's in the kiln as I type this.

Do you see the little panda?!

Chandelier Earrings

This week I bought some fun laser cut chandelier earrings and today I made them complete!

(Please ignore the horrible photos! I promise to make them better soon!)

If you were not put off by the horrible photos and would like to purchase any of these, visit my studio here.

Martini Cards

Here's a set of 4 martini greeting cards. 

With some glitter added for that little something extra! 

You can purchase them here in my shop.

Bird Cards

Here's what I've been working on this week...

You can purchase these at my ArtFire shop!

New Product!

I have a show coming up in September and I needed something to appeal to multiple generations.

So I came up with a new product...Greeting Cards!

I have a few different designs in watercolor and then print them on cardstock. 

The printed color is not quite as vibrant as I would like, but I didn't know what to do about it until this weekend. I went to visit my mom in California and saw a Cinderella book all decked out with glitter. 

THAT'S IT!!

GLITTER! 

That's exactly what these ladies at the show love!

That was the missing piece to make them pop! 

So here are the pics before the glitter, which I took before I left.

Shop Local

You can now shop local for my work. 

I now have paintings and jewelry for sale in a shop just south of downtown Dallas! 

Indie Genius

Closed Mondays

Tues-Thurs  11-7pm

Fri-Sat 10-8pm

Sun 12-4

409 N. Zang Blvd @ 7th Street

Behind Bee Enchiladas on Davis

One Block from Bishop Arts District. Walk on over!

www.bishopartsdistrict.com

There are a ton of other shops there.

It's full of vintage and handmade goods, so there's something for everyone!

 My booth (well, wall really) is just past the cash register on the right (next to cute note cards).

I hope you stop in and check it out. Indie Genius won't disappoint!