Was For Sale...

I have been feverishly making guitars for a potential show coming up. 

I sure am learning a lot about Stratocaster, Telecaster, and acoustic guitars! 

I won't find out if I'm accepted to the show until May 1st, but I'm working ahead so I'm not in such a panic last minute.

I was showing one of my librarians my last post of the guitar and she said she wanted to buy it for her son who is in a band. I brought her my small collection today and she bought her favorite guitar as a birthday present.

I am so blessed to have such wonderful support and encouragement from my friends and family! 

Thanks Karyn!

4x6" image in an 8x10" mat

A Cool Blog By Julie Balzer

I have been following a blog recently that I found and thought it was interesting enough to post for you to check out an enjoy too. 

Julie Balzer creates mixed media work and lots of journal pages and shares her creative process on her blog. 

In the post links to above, she has a guest blogger, Michelle LaPoint Rydell (link to her blog), who also creates very bold and graphic journals. There are lots of pictures of various journals she creates and she shares some of her favorite products she works with too.

Stop by both blogs and take a look!

Guitar Art

My husband turned another year older this week and on the card I made him, I collaged a guitar out of Citra-Solv paper. He loved it so much he asked me to make one for him to hang on his wall. 

I just wish National Geographic Magazine pages were bigger!

So here you go honey. Love you!

5x7" Mixed Media

Illustration Friday - Journey

Last week I was able to find some National Geographic magazines that worked with Citra-Solv! (Thank you Laurel for teaching me the Citra-Solv ways!)

I tried some older versions a while back, but nothing happened to the pages. This time I used 2008 and 2010 and they both worked really well! You definitely need to put a LOT of the Citra-Solv on it to make it bleed appropriately, but I didn't mind. It smells quite nice...if you like oranges. 

And I sure do love me some clementines!

Anywhoo...

On this page, I love how the ink merged together to create a wave effect. The Illustration Friday word of the week is Journey...It was a perfect page to use! I just cut out a little boat and sail (both out of different Citra-Solve pages) and added a little colored pencil to get the blue and green color and enhance the water.

The yellow on the right was already there.
I loved it because I was able to use a yellow boat and tie the colors together.

5x7" Mixed Media

I am quite happy with this little guy and I hope you enjoy it too!

Watercolor Abstraction

I currently have a student observer who brought in some of her work from high school and one piece in particular I fell in love with. Luckily, I had time to make my own!

It was quite soothing to let my right brain take over and paint random colors on the page. 

And the outlining looks like it would take a while, but it really went quickly. 

I think I am going to have my Art I students do this for their next assignment.

9x12" Watercolor and Ink on paper

Lessons Learned

My friend, Christie Cone, told me about the show I was in this weekend. I am so grateful. I would have to say it was the perfect first experience.  Not that everything was perfect, but that I learned a lot while still having a good time and actually made a little profit.

The wind was outrageous and it was sunny (and in the low 90's) on Saturday but Sunday was calmer wind wise. Because of the wind Saturday, I was really anxious and nervous the whole time. I had two jewelry displays break by the end of the show (one half way so it was still usable, but the other was completely shot). I had them each weighted with water bottles zip tied to the stands so they wouldn't fall over (thank you Anne for the suggestion!)  But the paintings stayed hanging the whole time! Set up took me 2.5 hours (with a friend for 2 of them) but I did get to relocate to a less windy spot, so I really shouldn't complain. Tear down took less than 45 min, but there's some organizing to do now that I'm home. It was a lot of work, but I think I'd like to do it again soon.

A big THANK YOU to all my friends who came out and supported me! And thank you to my friends who spent a couple hours hanging out and helping me. I couldn't have done it without you!

(pictures of my booth are on the previous post)

Craft Show Day One!

I have successfully finished my first day at a craft show!

It was incredibly windy and hot, but definitely worth it!

I am currently exhausted and ready for bed, but I thought I would post a couple of pictures of my booth.  I'll share more after the show tomorrow (Sunday) as it's not as long of a day. 

Purple and Pink

I've been creating more backgrounds as beginning pieces to see where inspiration leads me.

This one started out as a wash of pink and purple and a smidge of the brown. 

A few doodles and a bit of collage later and it's finished.

4x6" Mixed Media