Goodbye 2008, hello all that is possible!

Tomorrow is the last day of 2008 and I feel I have come so far as an artist this year. Even just since starting this blog, I have developed and evolved. I am excited about what I've done, and my heart flutters at the thought of doing so much more. I have set myself a challenge for 2009: sell my stuff. My sister said to me the other day that she believes in my art so much that she wishes she could be my publicist or agent or whatever the word is. She thinks it would sell like hotcakes, and if it were realistic for her to do at this point in her life, she'd go into a boutique tomorrow to get people to stock and sell my things. Encouragement like that, plus more from you who've seen my blog now, plus Ambra's insistence that I look into etsy.com just to get started make me believe in myself more than I ever have. I mean, have I really got anything to lose?

Below, my latest creation. The fabric totally makes it, don't you think?



And as a final hurrah, now that Amb's recieved her birthday card in the mail, I can post it for everyone else to see! I used ribbon, bits of fabric, stickers, some collage bits (I believe the word to use now is ephemera--learned that from my arts magazine), a fortune-cookie fortune, photocopies of old-timey women, paper flowers, brads, and the underneath layer is paint and pastels.


See you in 2009!

Where's Your Christmas Card?

Merry Christmas to you! Thanks for visiting my blog! I'm so happy to have you here and share with you some of the things I've been working on over the last few months. This blog is about my commitment to creating art and to myself as an artist, for better or for worse. With it, I have simply vowed to make more art, and share it. My goal is to post at least every two weeks, so please come back as often as you'd like. Feel free to look at some of the other postings, and comment anytime. I really value feedback!

To find your piece of the Christmas collage, click on one of the two images below for a bigger view. (The two originally started as one big piece, but it was too big to work with so I cut it in half after painting it!) I knew I'd be cutting it up into small pieces, so I purposely made it very busy. It is made up of many things: random Christmas-themed things I've collected over many years, ribbon, fabric, a letter torn into pieces, stickers, netting, decorative papers, tissue paper, buttons, stitches by the sewing machine, a bottle label, and acrylic paint, all on a huge piece of construction paper. I cut it up into more than 50 pieces and sewed individual pieces to the black card stock. If you'd like to see most of the 50 pieces, scroll down to the bottom of my blog. Can you find yours there too?




Paul and I hope you have a lovely Christmas. Be well and have a splendid 2009!

Edited to add photo of final cards:

Simple or Complex?

A good friend of mine whose birthday is this week loves getting the cards I make for her. She is someone who has encouraged my art from the minute she knew me. So this week I had aspirations of making her something quite complex, using various forms of media. To get started, I found some paper I liked in my stash and was inspired to make circles. I started to play around with different sizes and then how they could work together on a piece of card, and all of a sudden, I was surprised to find that I was 100% satisfied with just the circles on the card. As I told her, all it needed was a bit of bead-store bling, and voila! the card was complete, and just perfect in its simplicity. The second card is made with some of the same papers, for a young 'un I know who's turning one this week!


Along with that theme, two more aprons to show off, which I made in the presence of my mom and sister over Thanksgiving weekend. One of them, much more of a complex design, with a gathered waist (thanks to Mom for teaching me!) and red trimmings, and then the second, just three different fabrics and straight lines. The first one seems more artful to me in the artistic process, while the second one strikes me as something I could easily make in mass amounts and sell. It appeals, probably due to its simplicity, to a large audience. It, too, is artful in a different way, perhaps more in end result rather than in creative process.

Perspecitve, Shadows, and Freckles

You might remember that I commented on my desire to stretch my drawing capabilities when I last posted something drawn (see "Detach"). Well today, I decided I'd take some time to push myself. I looked around the house for something interesting and found a small stone pot
(1 1/2 inches tall or so) and an empty cinnamon tin, and sat down to draw. My challenge to self was to focus on perspective and shadows. It was pretty hard. I'm not at all used to so closely studying an object. I noted the times I finished each one because the shadows are so drastically different for each of them. Indeed, I took a lunch break and called my mom before starting the cinnamon tin! When I came back to the table, I was totally surprised by how different both objects looked. (Remember to click on the picture for a closer look.)



After the cinnamon tin was done, I decided to have a go at a person. One of my favorite photos of me & Paul hangs on the wall right above my desk, so I decided that mine was as good a face as any to try. It, too, was very hard to draw. Besides the challenges of the head-on perspective and shadows--which can either make the subject look like she has a black eye or, if done effectively, can provide definition to a drawing--I've got freckles! How to not make them seem like mistakes or moles or disfigurements... sheesh!

I'm really proud of myself for giving myself this time to do something I've been wanting to try for awhile. Now I know what I'm capable of if I give it time, and what I need to do to get (again) where I want to be: practice! (And I hope to take a drawing class sometime soon too!)

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving (my fave holiday ever!).

Obsessed with Aprons!

Lately, I've been obsessed with aprons! I made my first apron in 2002, when I lived in Hameln, Germany. It was a crazy quilt-like experiment that was faithfully worn through many a cooking adventure. Since then, I have acquired quite a few others. I must admit, my aspiration is to be like my baking/cooking friend Kyran, who always has a dozen (it seems) aprons for me to choose from when we bake together at her house. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting close! Today I made this fabulous thing. I am SO pleased! Up till now, I've only ever worn full aprons (you know, with the tie around the neck), but Ambra wears these half-aprons (for lack of a better description), and told me the other day that it is a matter of changing your hand-wiping habit, but otherwise they serve the purpose just as well.

You'll notice to the right that I've got links to websites and blogs I think are great. Ambra's blog has a link to the Apronista blog. I found the Apronista so inspiring that I had to add the link to my own blog. If you're interested in seeing some super stylish aprons, go there. When my mom viewed the site today, she wrote to me and said: "Seeing these aprons gives me a paradigm shift into another world where people have time to enjoy pretty things, and tinker around in the kitchen for fun." No kidding! Having a fun apron makes it seem like there is nothing but fun to be had in any task you do while wearing it!

The Apronista site is one place I drew my inspiration from for this project today. Other inspiration came from, well, Ambra looking so good her her apron, Martha's quick Christmas apron instructions in the December issue of her mag (which actually were too simple for my liking, but still worthy of inspiration!), and a photo I came across the other day in a slide show of a quilt show in Italy. The apron jumped right out at me from amidst the sea of artistic quilts. When I saw it, I just knew I had to make one.

I have four favorite things about this apron:
1. The brown retro flowers fabric. I got a fat quarter of it in a lovely little fabric store in Glenwood Springs over a year ago. I knew it would be perfect for some project.
2. The ribbon across the orange that perfectly matches the brown fabric! Thanks, Am, for that fantastically serendipitous souvenier from France!
3. The tiny corner of turquoise velveteen, which I found at an estate sale a few weeks ago and got a good deal on. Perfect for adding some texture.
4. The tapering of the ties around the sides to the narrower black ties in the back. That really turned out well.

OK, I thought of a fifth favorite thing: the big white decorative flower! That was inspired by Jennifer. She's done some thread art and her quilts are always so artfully quilted... pictures made of thread and little scraps of rough-edged fabric.

If I'm lucky, I'll have a chance to post one more time before T-giving, after another full day of arting tomorrow. Stay tuned!


Thanks so much for viewing my blog!