Local Horses

On of the treats of my morning walk is to visit with these horses.

They just look for grass to eat most of the time, but occasionally they look up and I get some eye contact. 

Way down at the end of the yard is this barn. I just love seeing its' bright red color and slightly worn look. It's like getting a prize just for going for a walk.

Live and Learn category

This is a set I made on Wednesday, January 24, 2018. The necklace is 33 inches long! Since we've moved to this cold-in-the-winter climate, I find the necklaces I wear need to be long 'cause I wear long sleeve knit shirts all the time now. The shirts have a boat neck and go straight across, so anything on a short chain usually falls behind it. I'm usually always wearing an apron and tuck the jewelry behind, but that's a story for another day.

This pendant is a multicolored labradorite mix that I've had for a long time. I really never had an impulse to make something with it because it is so dark. However, living in a state that makes snow instead of hot humid weather changed my color needs. Now, dark feels warm, so I go for it, big time.  

Because I used a mix of black jet and the gray crazy lace agate beads, glass beads and some silver charms I had enough to make two bracelets, also: a parure!

Definition of Parure: a French word commonly used to describe a set of three or more matching pieces of jewelry. Yes, I did make three items and I've worn them all together. 

 Yesterday, I made chocolate chip cookies. Another impulse that is the result of cold weather. I'll have to admit it was a lot of fun. I got to pull out my 30 year old mixer and use my mellon-baller to scoop out the dough making most of the cookies about the same size.  Plus, I don't have to use my fingers to push the dough off a spoon onto the cookie sheet.

That bad boy at the end of this tunnel like kitchen is a gas stove. I'd always dreamed of having a gas stove. I'm over it. Give me electric! The cook top I had in Florida had burners that heated up the bottom of a pot uniformly. This gas ring thing causes uneven heating and it takes a long time, a really long time to make water boil. grrrrrr.... 

And this thing has two ovens, another item I had put on my wish list. Wrong Again! Give me back my big space oven with three roomy racks. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to wish for stuff...

This is what snow in our back yard looks like. Pretty. And very cold in 22 degree mornings. 

"Be careful what you wish for, you may get it"  

- quoted by Uhura in "A Search for Spock"

Scraps Card

I think I am finally getting adjusted

to our move to Colorado. We left Florida in May of 2016, lived with my oldest son for eight months and moved to a home of our own in February of this year. I'm still unpacking boxes, but the house is

beginning to feel normal and I can usually find what I am looking for.  Now I really understand why "moving" is called a big stressor in life. Sheesh. I never want to move again!!! 

We lived in our Florida home for 37 wonderful years and I am only now truly appreciating what we had there. Oh well...

So, I have cleared the basement enough to actually be able to make stuff again. Yes! They have basements here in Colorado! A whole 'nother level to live in. Amazing! This is just not possible if you live even 9 miles from the ocean in Florida. The water table is rather too high for basement living spaces. 

"Anyway"... as my dear Aunt Betty would say.  Yesterday I collected my bag of fabric scraps, ironed them down to some light weight iron-on stabilizer and secured them to a Strathmore 140 lb. watercolor card with free motion sewing. I made three 5 inch by 7 inch collages and now have three beautiful cards to mail to friends. 

That's a rather nice way to spend a day. 

Making Jewelry

More boxes unpacked and my plastic containers of beads are found! 

Now I can spend hours and hours stringing colorful gem stone beads onto wire. What fun!

These are 6 mm garnet beads with fresh water pearls and some sparkly crystals for flash. Oh, I am in 

beading heaven. 

I'm going to try to get into the habit of posting to this blog some more to make a little journal of my activities. I know where most stuff is these days in this new to me house, so if  I blog, I will remember even more. 

It's amazing how stressful moving is to one's memory. It seems as if I put something away or even just down for a moment and then find myself searching for it, soon becoming panicky and wondering what is happening to my mind! 

Note to self: don't ever move again. Ever! 

A Negative Shape Painting-revisited.

One of my favorite artists is Mirna Sisul. She does colorful backgrounds using collage and acrylic paints in a rainbow of colors, line, drips, spatters and makes a wonderful mess on her canvas or board. She then creates her focus by painting out anything that is not her subject.

This is known as negative shape painting and it is so much fun to do. I've done this before for my son's engagement back in 2015, but hadn't really followed up on it with anthing. So, I  was fooling around with this technique the other day and created this!

It's a 12 inch by 12 inch canvas and I used a cool color palatte of blue, green, purple and metallic gold for drips. By adding color through stencils, I created some texture through out the piece. The final black outlines were done following the white gesso application to bump up the contrast. 

This really fun to do. Try it!

A Staci Swider Lesson

I had some fun today!

This is a base painting on 12 x 12 inch cardboard that I prepared using gesso on both sides. 

Following the DVD Lesson by Staci Swider, I added blocks of color using some Liquitex Basics paint and then dripped diluted red acrylic paint on two sides. Gravity did the work for me.

Unfortunately, I got so involved in the next step, I forgot to take a photo. But, I can explain it!

 Being in a relaxed state of mind, you gaze at the surface and imagine what is hiding there. I looked for awhile and found some simple flower shapes and used an oil pastel in a teal blue color to isolate them from the busy background. I knew what I wanted to find: flowers, so I could easily see them. 

I'm sure if I wanted to find houses, or faces, or a city block, I would have seen them too. It's just

a matter of being clear in your intent.

The next step is to get some rather opaque paint on your flat brush and paint around your outlined objects. This is a whole lot of fun to do. Any color is fine, but I love the contrast you get with these primary colors against the white.

Following that, you just get a few oil pastels in coordinating colors and highlight as you wish inside and around your objects. These plants are rooted in soil and are living near a pond, so I painted those spaces in accordingly.

What fun!

Staci Swider is the artist who created this video lesson at ArtistsNetwork.tv.  I watched and have tried to play with her techniques today. The video lesson is: Acrylic Painting Studio "Natural Compositions" with Staci Swider. Go here to see more stuff that is available  https://www.artistsnetwork.tv/catalog   There are a lot of artists to learn from here. Lots of techniques to try. An excuse to try something new and rattle your brain for a few hours.
  Go to https://www.artistsnetwork.tv/catalog/ and search for Staci Swider to see her videos. You might have as much fun with her ideas as I did today. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

30 by 30 - Floral #2

This is second floral I've made for the 30 Paintings in 30 days Challenge. At this rate I should have them completed by mid June...

First Floral for Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge

OK, first painting done. A day late. sigh.

Flora Painting #1-30 day Challenge

First day of the challenge and I'm already behind. I was supposed to start yesterday, but my head was too fuzzy from the martini I had for New Year's Eve dinner. I'm not a good metabolizer.

The Concept or theme for this challenge, I've chosen:

" Is that a Flower in a Pot?" 

Colors chosen for today using the Bob Burridge Color Wheel: red yellow is the main color with purple, blue and green.   I intended to make blue the focal point, but got distracted by my handmade purple collage paper.

The use of several red-yellow and oranges made for a too-bright-for-my-eyes canvas.

I dulled down the oranges and did some negative shape painting with a watery white.

Collage with lots of gel medium and hand made painted and torn papers.

The flower just took on a life of its' own and didn't stay grungy at all. sigh.

Finished for today. I really wanted to make it more grungy and abstract, but that will have to wait for another session. I am finding my attempt to loosen up very difficult. 

I like this better when I take my glasses off...