Fluffy Stuff-just for funsies!

For you my bloggy friends. Isn't this hand and paintbrush image so cool? I was about to use it this morning when I thought of you. Maybe she'd like one of these, says I. I answered myself, Yes, she would. So have at it. Use this wherever your lil' heart desires. Click. Copy. Paste. Glue. Glitter.

Think of me when this you see. He he he.





This is the front of my 2008 datebook. No more expensive datebooks for me. I took a freebie at the bank, covered its logo with my stickers, added pretty scrapbooking tabs to divide it to my liking and VOILA (btw~that's French for voila)....my 2008 life in a book.

The next pix is the back of the book, a gentle reminder: Life Life. If Kelly Rae can put her life schedule on big yellow posterboard then so can I!! If Mindy and Leah can design their own journal/datebook/lifebinder then so can I!!

I'm feeling kind of silly today. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and man-oh-man it is amazing!! When life clicks, the cogs match up, the steam starts pouring out and life takes a sharp right turn that sets you off in a new direction suddenly the air seems fresher, the colors seem brighter and oddly enough even my coffee tastes better (impossible!)

Blogging is good.

Group hug now.

Muah!

I'm off to school.

Catching Up on Art Every Day

Hi Everyone! I haven't fallen away, just been busy getting a grip on the holidays and whatnot. Life sure is a whirlwind sometimes but at least I've been able to be creative every day. I don't think I can properly share all the creativity I've put out to the Universe lately but I can at least share these with you... Enjoy.

More sketches from my work days. Negative space. Positive space. A copy of a coffee cup from a Bully Hill Wine poster. A bird design from one of our Italian chicken pitchers at the cafe. Nothing too difficult here, just keeping my hand and brain busy whilst I wait for the first table of guests to arrive.








Oooooh. Fufillment. Another Klimt piece. This one is again one inch by one and one half inches big (or small). I really enjoy doing these little take-offs. Fun. Challenging. More to come, I'm sure of it.
















Pink fimo beads, hand blended and layered in a pretty variation of pink/reds and smacking with yellow and white. See here the beads, pins and pendant potential!

I also got busy making holiday fimo pins with rhinestones and crystals. I have hats and trees. If you are interested they are available for sale. 1-1 1/2" tall for $8 each I'll be happy to pop one in the mail to you.











Sewing. *sigh* How I love my sewing machine. I took the old girl out and set her up. See, it's like this. I have to do a very homemade Christmas so I hit the big JoAnn Fabric black Friday sale and came out with some real purty things.
Ol' Miss Muffet wants to have a pink kitchen some day so I decided to make an oven mitt, four coasters and a matching apron to go along with some pink coffee mugs. It will make her sweet smile shine. (Okay, that and a Louis Vuitton fake duffle that her Dad will pick up for her, he he).

Speaking of Miss Muffett, here she is!! This is one of her senior pix. She doesn't like this photo but I think it's great. Love the red in her hair, wish I could get mine to do that!

Danny Brother won't let me take his photo. Wish I could show you how cute he is, too. Tall, dark and handsome.













Remember the handmade Christmas I mentioned?? Here is more oven mitts and hot pads. These will got to Cindy-Lou-Who my loverly sister in law, my former Mom-in-law who still thinks I'm that cats pajamas, my dear Mama and one set will go on sale here at my website. I love the muted country colors of these and gosh-darn don't I love polka dots and dingle balls.

Well there, that's it for now. I really did do other creative things, like baking dark chocolate thumprint cookies, onion tainted mashed potatoes, a poster for Thanksgiving at the college, poetry and a whole mish-mash of things.

I hope you're well. I'm wishing you cozy autumn nights by a blazing fire with sketchbook in hand and cocoa in the other. Enjoy this blessed season.

I Saved the Best for Last...scroll down.

You may remember that I started this Tarot card last week. I poked at it a few times over the last few days. I added some watercolor pencils strokes that need to be played with using my brushes. This one, as I mentioned before, is a work in progress.

Day 8

More Vespa sketches from the restaurant, on the days I work this is all I can muster.

Day 9

Now remember the Red Shoe entry I did? I started going wild with shoe sketches so these next three have a theme going. How about these bunny slippers? There seems to be a shadow on the scan, but you get the gist of it.

Day 10

More slippers. More bunnies. How many of us tired mothers put on a pair of pink fluffy slippers when we get home and our feet are aching? I don't usually bother to remove my socks, I leave them on, stripes and all.

I kind of wish I hadn't gotten so bold with my charcoal, but what's done is done.

Day 11

Blue, blue, blue suede shoes. Can't you hear the King sing? This one was really fun to make and in person it's a great piece. The scanner isn't doing it justice.

Day 12

Save the best for last, right? Yesterday the art school went on a group field trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Amtrak and then the Green Line subway got us there. We had a super time taking in the work of the Masters and some amazing modern day artists including a huge wall mural by actor Dennis Hopper.

Many times I caught myself with mouth agape. Being in the presence of these important pieces of work left me kind of numb.

One of my favorite artists is Gustav Klimt because of the emotions that I feel when see his work. I literally get all wrapped up in his this painting looking at the loving embrace and the peace in her face as he lovingly puts his lips to her cheek. Oh *sigh*...it's so beautiful.

So this painting is NOT in Boston, it is Vienna, but the museum store sells a silk scarf with this painting on it and in the store the scarf is framed. I kept going back to it and going back to it and going back to it. Subconsciously, that which we find ourselves attracted to is usually our soul speaking to us. "Pay attention, Tammy, what is the message here?" And I know the answer to my reaction of this painting but won't reveal it here.

I came home and googled some more of Klimt's work. I now have a goal to buy a reproduction of this and other Klimt works. His style is something that truly resonates with me. I need to read more of his history.

I printed a pix of his The Kiss work and laid it in front of me and got busy.

This is my version of the kiss. I thought I'd challenge myself. This work is... 1" x 1 1/2" ....yes, for you who are bad with numbers....one inch by one and one half inches... I did it on a scrapbookers chipboard piece. Gesso, acrylic, colored pencil and marker. Looking at it in this size isn't so great, but when it's so tiny in real life, it's a great take off! It took me about three hours start to finish and I'm certain his original painting took him three months to finish, but I am happy with my result.

Today Klimt, tomorrow.....Renoir?

The Challenge Continues

Here I go again, my entries for AEDM. Leah says anything goes and Monday's don't generally go so great therefore I opted for a quick doodle before dashing off to my job. It's just a doodle but I wanted to prove to the Universe that I am really trying to do Art Every Day. I mean it.

so this is it...Day 5

Now this is a bit more interesting. In Color & Design class Tuesday the Teach finally let us do the hands on thing. We are having to prove our knowledge of mixing colors, this time with Fimo clay. We started with red, blue, yellow black and white and had to blend from there. Once our chosen colors were mixed she showed us jelly rolls and how to make specific patterns. Now I am in love with all things pink therefore I was pretty pleased with the pink, lime green and chocolate beads but I got lots of oohs an ahhs from the black sunflower beads I made. The smaller black stained glass pattern is interesting as well and I would choose it for my second favorite. Do you see the round disk? That is the large pattern that is inside of the black sunflower beads. I reduced it four times. Fimo is fun and slightly painful for these cold, Maine hands. I actually had bruises on the pads of my palms. Whaaaaah! Day 6

Cloth, Paper, Scissors to the rescue! I love that publication and always manage to try at least one project and get inspired by many others. This month I decided to try Miss Kelly Rae's method for producing art. I have long been curious about HOW she did it. Mind you, I don't have interest in reproducing her fabulous angel/girls, but I did want to know about her methods and now I can really play with it!

This red shoe is inspired by two things: Miss Muffetts love affair with shoes and Paul Simons Graceland album (I adore both Miss Muffett and Graceland). There are layers of scrapbooking paper which you can't see well on the scan and then I painted the child-like foot and shoe using Miss Muffetts favorite chunky heeled style and then added glitter diamonds to the soles like the song: Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, my fave song off the album. All in all in real life it's a great piece. I'm not convinced it's museum worthy but some art is for self, right? RIGHT! And oh, this shoe piece is 6 x 8 on watercolor paper and involves some effy, charcoal, acrylic and glue.

I was on a role yesterday!! I love to keep little scraps of watercolor paper hanging about the studio (neatly organized of course) so while I was on a tear with Kelly Rae's method I decided to do an underpainting with the scrapbooking papers again. Then, having seen UllaBanulla's blog yesterday I was enamored with the loose Spencerian style of writing and thought I'd try a bird using a minimal amount of strokes. Tah-Dah. Tiny little birdie is 4 x 6 with all of the same ingredients as the shoe piece, and hey, oddly enough, no words on this one and I really love to add words. Hmmm, very strange.

So the shoe and the bird quantify my Day 7 art and truthfully I also worked on two larger pieces that were undone. But since I lost the chord to my camera I can't transfer pix to my computer until I locate it. So no pix....

The best art of all. Miss Muffet used to LOVE to sit and use the Paint program on my computer. She made millions of digital doodles. This little piggy face is of my pot-bellied pet Abby Rose. I cut it out and keep her little face taped on my computer but beyond that....as I was unpacking from the big move I located one of Hill's many love notes to me. This is from when she was about nine or ten. *sigh* ...sniff, sniff... I showed it to her last night and she just laughed and shook her head. Harumph, KIDS!

Hey, I'm doing all right with the AEDM so far. How are all of you doing? Keep on keeping on... till next time.

Art Every Day contributions...

What follows is my entries for Art Every Day Month as suggested by dear Leah. I apologize that they are not full blown attempts at canvases or magnificent pieces of jewelry. I am happy if I get in a sketch or manage to complete my art homework as you will see by my images below.

Day One: I decided a while ago to design my own tarot deck with personal symbology and images. This is the first card and how synchronistic that I started it on day one of AEDM. The card is The Fool, number 1 in the traditional tarot deck. I have begun the first layer of color. You will watch as this watercolor image grows to be a many layered piece.

Day Two and Day Three:

Vespa sketches. Yes, when I should be washing down tables at my waitressing job I spend my time sketching the Vespas that hang from the walls. My boss collects them and I find them fascinating, so I sketch them on the back of scrap paper. I plan to do some art based on these sketches.

Day Four:

Complimentary Colors homework assignment. This is not my best work but it was a neccessary to prove my knowledge of blending colors. I finished this today and it took forever and I don't love it, but I need the grade!!

This is it for now ladies. I'm moved into my new crib and I have a HUGE studio space until the end of April at which time I become mobile again. Two more classes for this semester.

I'm ever transient for now.