Season of gift making!

Last year was the first time ever that I did not hand-make my Christmas cards and I know several who were dissapointed. So this year, I went back to making them myself... I carved some stamps out of rubber and used them on these nice patterned cards that I found on sale at the craft store! These are a small sample....If you're on my list, they won't be a surprise except maybe WHICH one you get!

A mess...

a new painting....

Remember the Dead...

CARVE...

Carved out a little time to play...

Nervous...

For Inspire me Thursday...
What will my fortune be......

Is is it "excitement and intrigue follow you wherever you go!"

Or "sorry you are not a winner."

At least it comes with dessert!

HELLO!!

Been a while...

Designed and made this t-shirt over the weekend.

Cruddy picture but, you get the idea.

Plaster

My daughter and I are making these into charms for her backpack! School starts soon!

Celebrate...

Andy

First image was made by burnishing transparency film onto colored canvas with acrylic gel medium.

Second image is spray painted from a stencil I cut out of cardboard.

Coloring

If you are a perfectionist or overly self critical of your works, if you want to write, keep a journal, scrapbook, collage or do art...if you are like me and wouldn't dream of dog-earing even your cheapest novels, if you are like me and get the "terror of the blank canvas"....I would highly suggest that you run right out and buy Keri Smith's "book" called "wreck this journal". And make a vow to follow all directions, no matter how insane they sound (make the vow BEFORE you peek).

I've been having too much fun with this.

MY DOOR!

I asked my father-in-law to create a piece of stained glass for my front door and he made THREE!! I chose this first one to put in the door and the other two I am going to mount on the wall right inside the entryway! I love them!!
Here is the view from the outside:



















The view from the inside, in daylight:



















These are the other two:

Art collaboration video!

My 100th post! whoo hoo
For those from IMT...there is a peace sign in there.

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Unfinished Faces

and yet another one...

OUT of the comfort zone...

Computer as an art material, I'm not even comfortable with the terminology. Computer art? I'm extremely comfortable with the computer but, have never gotten the hang of using it as a tool in the creation of art. I barely had the hang of paint shop pro 6, (and saying barely is really generous of me, I'm talking about knowing how to size my images and adjust my poorly lit photos... )when I got PSP 11 and I gots NO idea...whenever I try to do something that I think should be really simple, I usually end up frazzled, hours later, having exhausted every foul cuss word in my vocab, without the results I wanted!
This is from a painting I did a while back. I bravely opened the PSP 11 and played around with the image until I all was cussed out and I thought this looked pretty cool...
I have no idea how people make such amazing images using the computer, especially using ONLY the computer, am I missing something?

Welcome to the comfort zone

I like painting things that turn out just as I've planned, no "happy accidents". It's comforting to sit and think "that would be a cool painting" and then do it, knowing it will turn out the way I wanted it to. Many years and hours and broken pencils lead me here. And I know there is still a long way to go, things to learn, techniques to master, so that my art will grow as my style or imagination grows or takes a different turn. But, I've been at the beginning and it's very frustrating to have the vision without the skill. It takes time and it is worth it if you love it.
If this is a bad thing for an artist, then I am surprised there are so many courses and workshops, college programs and lectures, how-to's and instructional books out there. Isn't this what we want? To work hard to achieve the skill needed to execute a project in the style we want? What's wrong with the comfort zone? It's so rare we get to be in it. I savor it when I can.

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