The one where I apologize, bare my soul, and show you a mural.

JANUARY 29!!!! REALLY.... that is the last post I created??!! Where did this year go? I feel like a huge failure, because I had planned on posting AT LEAST once a month this year. Here is a little story/excuse as to my absence.
I allowed my life to pull me down this past spring. I let the feelings of being overwhelmed, underappreciated, and not good enough take over and keep me from doing all the things I love. I really just wasn't myself.  I stopped sewing, stopped painting, stopped being me.  WELL-- DONE WITH THAT! I took control back this summer and have started working my way into a better me. I have started cooking again, sewing more, but I still have not done a lot of painting. I have signed up for a class with Este Macleod and am really looking forward to trying to get my mojo back.

I was not a total slacker this summer, I painted a mural in my middle son's school library.  The librarian is a great friend of mine and we collaborated on the characters in the mural. She wanted objects/characters from the top checked out books in her library.  My mom helped me with the painting. We had a lot of fun with it. I think it turned out great! Here are some photos of the space before and after.

I PROMISE to post about my class in a few weeks : )!

The one with the girl in the brooch.

 The MATS (Make Art That Sells) assignment for January was all about Edwardian brooches. I was so intimidated by the intricacies of the metal work details and was really struggling with how I was going to show the facets in gemstone. I sketched out a few images, and waited for the information on what the final product needed to be.

The final product needed to be a journal/diary cover still using the idea of the brooches. I sat and stared at my sketches.  I drooled at all the other people submissions to the classroom in Facebook. I kept coming back to this brooch and seeing it like a girl, wearing a fancy headdress. 

So I sketched it out and painted it with my watercolors. I loved it, but I was baffled with how I was going to make a background that complemented the colors and style of the piece, and  was still interesting enough to be a journal cover.

I have a very large abstract painting hanging in my studio that I have been tinkering with for months. I took a few snapshots of various pieces of the painting and decided to try and incorporate it into the background digitally.

  I brought the brooch girl in Photoshop and removed the paper from her background. I brought in the painting, made some adjustments in lightroom and cropped it to be the adequate size for a journal. I then merged the two layers, added a text and binding, and I was done.

The one about Inspiration Wednesday, 1/7/15

I finally was able to create the Inspiration Journal for Donna Downey's class that just started this week. I created it using  some multimedia paper for the main pages, and then used various materials laying around the house to create the "flaps" that are in between all the pages (transparency film, envelopes, thank you cards, tags, and handmade paper). I then Sewed together some scrap fabric and made the cover. 

The first video came out the last Wednesday (while I was at home recovering from a stomach bug) and I was anxious to get started. I run up to the studio and started gathering supplies. Would you believe I do not have ANY letter stencils? I have letter stamps and punches, but no stencils. I was also very concerned because my first" flap" was transparency, which would not do well with any kind of gel medium. When I think of transparency I think of water. So I obviously decided to do something with a mermaid. I decided to use alcohol ink to create a watery texture on the transparency. Donna was mainly showing use of three dimensional texture and glazing technique. I thought this would work well to create a wave like surround for my mermaid logo. I used a sand grit texture for the background and then the heavy gel and my bubble stencil to add some water bubbles around the logo.

I used a teal glaze, then a dark blue glaze, a lime distress stain, and some gold/green gilding paste to bring out the texture of the page.

I have  had all of these mediums for almost two years no and have rarely picked them up. This inspiration Wednesday was just what I needed to pick them up and give them a little play time.

The One with All the Classes

I may be a slight online art class junkie. Here are some of the ones I have taken in the past. The ones with an (*) I am still technically working on or are enrolled in.

http://lillarogers.com/blog/
*MATS Bootcamp

http://jeanneoliverdesigns.com/blog/classes/
*Studying Under the Masters
*Studying Under the Masters: Portraits Creative Girl: The Land of Light and Shadows (with Danielle Donaldson)
*Plaster and Wax 101
*Woodland Girls
*Storybooks and Studious Girls (with Danielle Donaldson)

http://janedavenport.com/all-workshops/ 
Draw Happy
Supplies Me
Express Yourself

 http://www.willowing.org/all-classes-and-courses-from-willowing-arts/
 *Life Book 2014
 Rainbow Mermaid
 Quirky Birds
 Book Worm Girl

 http://meganscreativebliss.blogspot.com/p/classes.html
Whimsy Mermaids
Whimsy Fairies
Day of the Dead Workshop