My Angel Tree Topper Doll...

I made this tree topper in Jane DesRosier's tutorial. It is so satisfying completing a project. This doll was a lot of fun to make, I thought the instructions were easy to follow and the videos and pdf really great to work with! I love all of the classes I have taken from Jane! Jane's site is www.grittyjane.com or you can scroll down to my favorite blogs below and click on Gritty Art Studio it will take you there. Her classes are posted on the right for the Angel Tree Topper and check out the www.somethingtomake.com for more.

HIBERNATING

I think maybe in a past life I was a bear! LOL! I am hibernating of sorts. Along with the cold gloomy weather I am also bloggeled if there is such a word if not, well there you go a new one! I am overwhelmed, overstimulated by all the wonderful artwork in blogland and need to take a break from it! I need to get away from my computer and do some art! My online class with "Gut Art," with Mystele (http://mystele.typepad.com)is coming to an end so I signed up with Jane DesRosier's Tree Top Angel (http://www.grittyjane.com/blog/?p=3063) and it looks like another wonderful class, as usual Jane does a wonderful job teaching! Also, I am signed up with Odd-Dolls (http://odd-dolls-fun.ning.com)for a pod class which also looks like a lot of fun! So hopefully I will have a few new things to showcase before the New Year begins! I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have all of these wonderful online classes and wonderful people to meet!

OMG...the sun is out!!!!! & Circe rearranged!

This is how I see Circe, thanks to magazine image I posted earlier. It is not a good piece but I had fun and since I am very new to digital collage well, what can I say. This is all in fun! I am going to cut it out and paste into my art journal and add some watercolor or oil pastels to blend it all together!

That last post should have been titled An Homage to Circe by her pet Janine.

An homage to all the cats that have ever owned me...

Not really...This silly drawing was put up to experiment with making my pic bigger for blog. I think I've got it. Well, maybe sort of really. I have to say that of all the cats that have ever owned me Circe is the most humanlike and yet the most wild I have ever had in my home! She is the nursemaid, she paws the back door when the other animals want in. She can figure out how to open a box and a door. When you play with her she is more interested in what makes a thing move. Usually a hand and the other end of her toy. Then she gets bored and to amuse me she will play with the toy. When she is caught up in playing she is almost wild and fierce! Unlike Fwed who is a mellow CAT! I have always said if she were human she would be the one to take things apart to see how they work!

I did this drawing trying to put a human like face to a cat. I have something more weird in mind and will have to play with my computer to collage it, play around with it. This is my attempt to do art everyday. Call this art or not...LOL!

I have added the magazine cover that painting was done by Lori Earley. I would love that face on my cat and I want to use my computer to layer on the cat body. Just for fun. I love this magazine...lots of eye candy in it!

Making it through the day and some Gut Art, and my Windex process...

I have a tremendous desire to float in a warm pool, all alone, drifting, drifting. This is a work in progress (wip). But had to change the subject from last post. This is my Windex process on sketchpaper and colored pencil. Still working on it may add some water color to it. Need to smooth out the edges and then she will be truly floating, drifting.

The pic on the left is the most recent. I think I will stop with it except for working on the eyes a bit more but the paper is beginning to tear so that says enough for now! (Today was a good day, thanks to this bit of drawing to keep me busy!)

The technique....

Windex with Ammonia D in a spray bottle. I don't know if you have that product across the pond or not, if not I you can use ammonia dilluted with water in a spray bottle, I sometimes add it to the Windex bottle as it dwindles away. Please make sure there is plenty of ventillation with either product! Don't wear contact lenses either when using ammonia in any product, it ruins them (well if you are exposed to a huge ammount of it, but play it safe anyway). I take an inkjet copy of a drawing or of a magazine photo and lay it on either a smooth water color paper or sketch paper and sometimes copy paper. If you want to have a lot of samples to play with (even the backside of the paper sometimes can be played with. The product makes the colors seep through the paper. So if you don't want that to happen at first just put plastic or waxed paper underneath. I then spray the back of the inkjet copy with plenty of Windex. You may want to tape the paper down first. I then either use my brayer or my hand and gently work the Windex in. The brayer may cause wrinkles but they also can be used in the outcome. It depends on how much elbow grease you use when using the brayer, it doesn't take much. Btw, I have used this technique on muslin or on calico and you call it in the UK! You really have to play with it to find what works best for you but for me it is fun! And if careful pretty harmless. So if any of you brave and curious ones try this let me know what happens...I would love to know! If any of this does not make sense please let me know and I will try to explain it better!

Don't forget to click on the image for a better view. How do I change the size of the photo that are coming out??? Another thing to explore!

Hello, I never wanted to ever get personal here...

so if you don't want to read me being too personal now is the time to stop reading this post.


Maybe I just need to get this out of my system where I can look tomorrow and feel silly. I feel so down SAD is back I am sure. I have only things to be grateful for so why is this happening? There are so many things I won't say right here, this is my art space , my free space. I am sad that I can't seem to get any art out. I have made a dolls head or two and a drawing for a doll. I am waiting for some new magazines and some art supplies to come in the mail. Maybe those things will help pull me up. The silly slights by people I thought cared are magnified right now, but they have their own lives and there may be reasons. I sent a birthday message and was totally ignored, that began the down spiral. So I know I need to count on myself, I am all I have. I have to get through this, it will happen. I use to have a lot of faith but as I get older it seems for me that faith is for youth and the beautiful people and so are dreams. How did I lose it, my faith my dreams? Where did I put it? Please don't answer me I am just venting tomorrow I may erase this...I really don't know what it is I am reaching out to or for. I just need to get through this day! ok this is me being too self absorbed I have too many things to be grateful for so now I will go count my blessings!

Irene I will see you in my dreams....

I have been in kind of a lull so I gathered up all the old sketchbooks/pads I have collected over the years and found this sketch in one of them. It has some drips of color from somewhere I can't imagine. I did this sketch from memory of a woman I met named Irene when I lived in Eastern Washington in the early 1980's. I wanted to paint her. She had such a worn face, so many wrinkles more than I drew that is for sure. But those wrinkles were charming on her. She looked so wise, she had bright red hair and sparkling water blue eyes that lit up when she spoke. Always a cigarette in her hand. I wonder whatever happened to her?

Lull's...what can I say about them, darn, I guess they are necessary. I have been cutting up papers from ArtChix studio and Lisa's Altered Art. I am pasting them onto tags just to keep busy and creative I have no plans for them, maybe I will add some black silk ribbon.

I want to paint something, I have some inspiration that I am mulling in my mind. Funny, lulling and mulling, lol! Oh I hope I get beyond those stages soon! It is as if I am waiting for something monumental to happen!

Don't forget click on the images for a better view!