Greenhouse @ The Parish

I am very excited to be involved in a new group of OKC artists named Greenhouse.

And I'm even more excited about our first show opening January 11th ~

click here to check out the event page on Facebook to find out all the details.

Hope to see you there.

Squeezing in some Jewelry Time

It's been a crazy busy summer but I've managed to squeeze in a little jewelry making time.

Mostly it just resulted in what looked like an explosion on my workspace.

But I managed to try some new wire work (first picture) and to make some charm necklaces.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

the pinks & oranges in the piece I made for Mary.

Loved it so much that I'm working on some pieces for myself.

And the blues & greens of Carmen's necklace are some of my favorites ~

so calming & don't we all need some of that?

They remind me a little of my vacation.

Yes! We also squeezed in a small vacation ~

a visit to see our daughter in Denver.

It was not long enough ~ I need LOTS more Dani time.

Have you found time to make anything this busy crazy summer?

Arting with Friends

A year ago, my friend Ellen (above) and I took an encaustic class from Ellen Koment

in the Paseo Arts District here in Oklahoma City.  It was a long hot two days.

We learned a lot. 

And then, because we didn't use it right away, we forgot a LOT. 

So yesterday Ellen came over and we practiced, practiced, practiced.

And if you know either Ellen or me, you know we talked and talked and talked.

But that really helped us be loose in our experimentation.

(More on the experiments at the bottom of the post.)

Here's the only piece I made from scratch and finished.

Well, I'm not quite sure if it's done.  I think so but . . .

Makes me think of grapes for some reason

(maybe cuz I am ALWAYS hungry?  LOL)

The next piece is one I started in class and didn't like.

So when I first whipped up my batch of encaustics, I covered it in white.

And I still didn't like it!

So I scraped and dug and put green wax in the cuts, scraped some more, etc, etc, etc.

Still didn't like it!

So yesterday I pulled it out and covered it in black.

Then I scraped in a tree which I filled with gold.

A lot more scraping and torching and this came out.

I like it.  But it's nothing like what I usually do.

Which can be a very good thing some times.

Ellen and I had so much fun! 

By the end of the day, I think she was as in love with scraping as me. 

I'm telling you, it is soooooooooooo relaxing ~ even contemplative. 

And I'm pretty sure she'll be buying a kitchen torch soon. 

They are so much less intimidating than those big old tank things. 

And easier to control. 

My friend Roz loaned me her torch but I'm going to wait to use it til I do something BIG! 

You see, I am deathly afraid of fire and I burn myself all the time in the kitchen. 

Yeah, I'm a little confused as to why wax is my favorite medium. 

Talk about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone!

In my last post I mentioned I was working on 3 art group projects.

This year we're doing a round robin of boxes.  Very cool. 

When they're all done, I'll share pictures.

In addition, every month the hostess gives us a "challenge".  

I've got to admit, I am pretty lax about doing them.

But in May, Lynda gave each of us an unfinished curved wood cabinet door.

LOVED IT!

and I came up with this ~ After the Fire

Working on the curved surface was tricky. 

But again, something new can yield wonderful results.

Also in the last post I showed some works in process.

Here is one of them with a few more steps of wax collage & color.

Looking pretty different, huh? 

Well, I think it's about to change.

You see, while we were experimenting and talking yesterday, guess what happened?

I got distracted (surprise!  not) and ignored a piece

on the heat for a little longer than I should have.

And I loved the glass smooth finish it gave the wax

so I'm going to do it with this piece on purpose.

I have no idea how it will work becuz you just never

know what the wax will do when it gets hot. 

Okay, you know it will melt, but will it run, pool, slide completely off?

I'll let you know what comes next with this.

I love arting with friends.  New ideas just seem to form in the air.

And while most of the women in my art group do work entirely different than me,

I always come away so inspired.

I am so glad I revamped my studio so there's room for two or three to play.

There's even room for small class of four.

If you're in OKC, let me know. 

Maybe there's some arting in our future.

working in the studio

I've been quite busy working in the studio lately.

These are two of the pieces still in process.

I'm also working on three projects for my art group

(I missed a couple during tax season)

But the main thing I've been doing is revamping the studio.

Actually,  the only thing I've FINISHED is revamping the studio.

It's going to work so much better - for day to day studio time,

arting with friends and maybe some classes.

You can see a lot more pictures on my facebook page by clicking here.

You can see what it looked like before the revamp by clicking here.

Of course, my brain has come up with lots of other things to do

but I think I'm going to stick with making art this week.

Thanks for stopping by - Sherry

She's Baaaack!

Yep.
My muse is back and I'm feeling myself again.

It all started with art group. I'd fallen WAY behind on the round-robin projects so I had three of them to work on.  And the inspiration really kicked in while working on the top of Lynda's altered box.  She wanted words and sayings on her box so I wrote some of my favorite sayings all over the top.

About the same time, my daughter Dani asked me to make one of my Cut-Ups! for her (oh!  I just realized I hadn't told y'all about these other than the initial idea in a December post  - I'll tell you more later but in the meantime you can see them on my Facebook page) in the very color I was using on Lynda's box!  And when your daughter asks for something in a different color, well, you do it.  And I have to admit this little guy is adorable!

I was having so much fun that I pulled out a pink heart piece I've been working on for months.  Since I showed you the rough draft (in the same post mentioned above), I had scraped off all the natural wax and the speckled paper.  And then it just sat there.  From time to time when I had a minute to walk into the studio, I pulled it out and stared.  But mainly it just sat there.

Then last week I had an idea.  I wrote out some thoughts on tissue paper.  I stamped some scrollwork.  I pulled out the Pan Pastels and the "white" wax.  And of course, I torched and scraped and, voila! ALMOST OVER YOU is finished. 

AND I'm happy with it!!  Without the natural wax, the pinks are much more vibrantly pink!! And the three or four more layers added a lot of depth.  I was reminded however that fusing each new layer gives you yet another opportunity to mess up the earlier layers.  Which made me invent a new way of warming the piece/
Unfortunately, when my muse came back she brought along another source of inspiration.  Just not ART inspiration.  The kind of inspiration that says "you should do this" and "you should do that" about all sorts of little projects you really don't need.

No I'm not talking about cleaning - I killed off that little you-know-what years ago.
I'm talking about things like "you should move your computer out of the studio" or "you should make such-n-such for Christmas gifts" or "you'd use that supply more if you could see it".

You know.  The LITTLE ideas that become HUMONGOUS projects.

And I suckered to the first one. I realized that the internet was just too distracting whenever I hit an art block and that art was always too distracting whenever I was supposed to be doing accounting so I moved the computer & officey stuff to a guest room.  It's sooooo nice in here - I can even sit on the bed and watch YouTube art videos HUGE becuz I'm using a TV for my monitor!

And the best part? All my great shoes are on display.

  

The bad news is that this is what my studio looks like.

 

That's the problems with this little instigator ~ she doesn't always tell you about the consequences!

I'm also working on a 24x48 collage and trying to remember to take photos after every step.  It's surprising how much that slows things down!  But I want you to see a piece start to finish.  If I can, I'll try to give you my thought process as well.

Phew!
Think I tried to make up for my extended absence all in one big post.
It's good to be back.

Now to go work on that messy studio for a little while ;-p

death BY taxes

Benjamin Franklin famously said "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."  But I think this year for my creative mojo, the outcome has been death BY taxes. 

Not only did tax season wipe out my time, energy and creativity while I was working (thus my lengthy absence from this spot), I think it may have wiped it away for good!!!

Okay, okay, there have been glimpses of life ~ perhaps it hasn't flatlined yet ~ an idea in the middle of the night, a stirring of the soul at the sight of something beautiful, actual success at my part of a group project.

So don't write me off yet ~ hopefully I'll have something pretty to post soon.  In the meantime, I'm going to move around the stuff in the studio.  Nothing inspires like actually touching the art supplies.



(LOL ~ write off ~ still talking tax lingo!)

forgot one!

this is a journal page I did 10/26/2011 and forgot to post

paint & gesso on Venus

a little old tissue paper from Starbucks

splatters of pearlescent inks

line drawing & coloring

poured out feelings written on top of each other

and more gesso to hide them further