Blog hopping

I'm having so much fun blog hopping and seeing so many creative, talented artists all because of OWOH.  I see something on one site and I'll remember a scarf that I knitted . . . or those soaps I tried to make . . . or that cross stitch project that's been on hold for who remembers how long now.  But I also have in the back of my mind that CED's theme this month is home and maybe I should be concentrating on cleaning and organizing my home.

I started the day trying to organize my craft/studio space and just when I think I'm making progress, I remember that I need to wash the bed sheets and sweep the floors of all those dust bunnines and vacuum in the living room.  So the organizing of my "studio" space gets put on the back burner.  Then I look at the time and realize I've got to go pick up the little one from school soon.  When I get home, I'll have to start to think about what I'm gonna make for dinner.  I guess I should just wait 'til the morning to start back in the "studio" again.

I did come across 2 things that I would like to finish though . . .

The first is a doll that I made using the beginner's pattern in Creative Cloth Doll Making by Patti Medaris Culea.  She sits on a shelf high above me all the time in my studio and I really don't pay much attention to her.  She's pretty much done except for the fact that her clothing needs to be sewn down as she's got pins all over her keeping it in place right now.  I call her my Earth doll and this is what she looks like . . .

I wasn't pleased with the way her hands turned out so maybe that's why I just never finished her.  I did go to all the trouble of cutting up the fabric and lace to make up her garment that I really should just take 1/2 an hour of so and tack it down.

The other was a little art quilt that I started a while back.  The base is a left over quilt block that I started stamping and painting on as an experiment with some of the techniques I read about in Quilting Arts Magazine.  I just didn't get very far and never finished it as well.  This is what I have so far . . .

I think this is what I'm going to finish as my CED challenge this month and incorporate the "home" theme into it.  Well  . . . it's just about time to go get the little one . . .

Hopefully I'll have more time for blog hopping again this evening . . . or maybe I'll summon up the energy to work on and finish one of the projects above.

Hope you're all enjoying OWOH!  I know I am!

Until next time . . .

A "happy" accident

I was able to play with paint today . . . unlike the other day, I wasn't planning on it, but was able to get a couple of hours time by myself.

I started with a 12" x 12" sheet of linen acrylic paper and just started using up the paint that was stored in my palette from last week's painting session.  I started light with the yellows and then added brown to the edge and spritzed alcohol here and there to "move" the paint.  Then I used green paint over a stencil and had to let it dry for a bit.  I scraped in some white lines with an old credit card and also scraped off the edges to get other areas of white. Finally, I took a charcoal pencil and traced some of the lines from the stencil.  Here's what I got:

After dinner, I decided that I would try to work some more on this.  At one point I put some leaf green paint and Jacquard Lumiere in pearl white on my palette paper and took the brayer to it and put that on the painting as well.  Then I decided that I wanted to stamp some leaf images with the pearl white paint, but it didn't show up very well on the painting.  Instead, out of frustration, I started stamping the pallette and it looked so cool that I took a picture of that instead.  Here's what my "happy" accident looks like:

I'm gonna let this dry and tomorrow will see about adhering it with gel medium to the painting as another layer and continue working on it.  Hopefully, I'll have something more and interesting to show you again tomorrow.

Until then . . . enjoy!

A New Day

I told myself last night that I would try to write here everyday so that I can get my thoughts down and get myself more organized. (I really need to straighten up my "studio" space yet again.) I came across this acrylic work that's in one of the many piles of books, papers, etc. on top of the table in there . . .

Again, I just started to play with the paint . . . here I used cream, light "sky" blue and chocolate as my base colors and just mixed variations from there. I tore pieces of sheet music and scrapbook paper and other textured papers and adhered them with gel medium. To create the first layer of texture I applied saran wrap to wet paint and let it set up. I also used a rubber stamp and even outlined some of those images with pen and pencil. Finally, I added some sand for additonal texture and because the colors reminded me of the beach. Here's a picture of the detail of the lower left hand corner. I just love the texture here!

This was painted on gesso primed 140 lb. watercolor paper and measures 12 X 17 1/2 inches. Again, the pictures don't see to be that great here, but in person, I really like the colors and textures I created.