This is my latest painting/collage. She doesn't have a name yet but some say she looks like a Maxine. I kinda thought she looked like a Peg... well anyway I painted the background and pasted papers all over the place, then I dry brushed it a little bit. Painted the lady, added her hat using some of the faux sea glass paper I made and then proceeded to add the lace, buttons and nylon tulle for a veil. The lace was dyed with ink, I dry bushed it a little more, embossed some swirlies here and there. It has lots of layers. Not sure you can tell with my pics, I am surely no photographer.

Here is a close up of the face. You probably can't tell but I added a little crystal diamond glaze to her eyeballs and lips. To do the face I just painted it with acrylic flesh, and used some of my pastels to soften and shade then I added the features and using watercolor pencils and a bit of acrylic paint did the detail. I did the face alot like the way I do the doll faces when I make a doll. Hope you enjoy it.

By the Light....Light....Light....Light...Light of the Silvery Moon

Wow another post in the same day! This is another small 5 x 5 canvas painting/ collage that I completed last night. TV in the summer really sucks so this is what I do, unless I am on the puter or talking on the phone, depending on how I feel and what time it is. Not sure what to do with all these little paintings but I am thinking of putting them on Etsy.

Here is a closer look at the actual Moon. This painting was inspired from a beautiful sun catcher my daughter sent me when she was shopping at Cape May. Of course the sun catcher is much more beautiful but I like how this turned out too. Again my photography is not that great but you get the idea.

I have alot of project going, and I should be working on my workshop projects, but I am more or less letting my muse take control and this is what happens. I blame all my terrific fellow artist, they put out some gorgeous stuff that just continues to inspire my muse.

Live Wire!

I tried my hand at wire wrapped, jewel encrusted jewelry and here is the first one. All are free form, and none had a plan. This teardrop is gold with gold wrap and contains some crystals and glass beads. I wouldn't know and Austrian crystal from a Checz crystal to save my behind but I like glittery things!

These earrings were next. They are made of copper and sparklies. I really like how they turned out but they were very hard for me to make. Well actually all of it was but I think for the first try they came out decent. They remind me of my "hippie" days! LOL now I am dated, hey did you happen to catch Cindy Lauper on GMA yesterday? OMG we are heading to Senior Citizenship fast! It seemed funny to see her rockin out on stage looking like an office manager. I think she needed these earrings!

Next up is the spiral pendant. Made of copper and gold wire and of course more sparklies! Another favorite of mine of course because of the spirals. I have this thing about spirals they are continuous and never ending, much like how I prefer to think of life. Squares have corners, you hit the wall and boom nowhere to go but back, so it is spirals for me! Circles qualify too.

Last is the "free form" I call it that because I bent the wire wrong and didn't want to waste it. Again copper and gold wire and sparklies. Actually it looks ok to me and although similar to a spiral it looks like it took some wrong turns here and there much like life happens.

Well there you have it. I did make some other earrings but somehow I managed to mess them up, so once I fix them I will post the pics. They are not anything like this stuff. I could use some work on my photography too but hey gimme a little break!

Introducing the Queen of the Night

This is the Night blooming Cereus and her buds. Tiny little tufts of fluff on a spindly and woody looking cactus. Nothing spectacular at this point other than the wonder and amazement of nature at work. This plant has been in my tree for longer than I have lived in this house which is 24 years. Normally it goes quite unnoticed, has been called ugly, and people ask why do you have it?


Here is a closer view of the bud on the cactus that hangs in the tree. I would guess the tree to be at least 30ft tall and the cactus climbs up and wraps around and hangs down, attaching itself like a parasite to branches, mingling with the moss that grows on air. It quite resembles snakes hanging from the tree like that.


As it reaches its birth, the pods become up to about 8 to 12 inches long. When the time is ripe, so is the bloom and it begins to open. This has also been called a Deer Horn Cactus. Do you see the red pods? They bloomed last night. I have been watching this cactus for 3 weeks, trying to capture the blooms.



It has a trumpet shaped flower with and the cactus itself has a turnip like root. The roots use to be a food source for the Native American that once inhabited this land. The flower itself has medicinal properties, somewhat like digitalis. It is also a hallucinogenic and I hope that the neighborhood kids never find this out.



The flowers will open for one night only, until the first rays of the morning sun hit it when it will forever close.


Behold the Queen of the Night!
Isn't she spectacular? Truly a gift from Mother Nature that is meant to be shared and absorbed by the souls who witness the magic!

New Baby Digital Collage

Lilia Rose Franklin

Well many of you know I am a newbie to digital anything but I tried it again, this time it looks more like scrapbooking! Uggghhh! But the subject is my new Grand Moonbabie who arrived yesterday via C-Section. What a relief! I was so very worried for my daughter and her child because she had a condition that caused me worry! Anyway all is well. She weighs in at 7 lbs. 6 ozs. and was 20-1/4 inches long. I know the first measurments were alot different, chalk it up to an overly excited moment between Daddy and G'ma, not sure which of us said or heard wrong. LOL and will ya just look at that mug? she is smiling already!

It is killing me that I don't get to see her until August, that when they are comming down to visit. I can't go, still in treatment so it will be something like October before I demand a break before rads, which I will be doing! I can't wait to get my paws on her and just love her to pieces. Her big sister is comming at the end of this month though so I get to spoil that one for a little while.....before her Mama catches us. Maile her sissy loves to do artwork, she is making plans.

New Components and Lost and Found

Today I worked on making fabric paper. Remember the fabric paper I made in January? This is more subdued and low key. It is for a workshop over at The Artist Circle Yahoo Group. We are working out of Beryl Taylor's book Mixed Media Explorations. You embed tissue, papers of all kinds, elements ect. with PVA - well I used watered down Mod Podge. Paint it and let it dry. We will be doing more with it as we go on with this month.



This is another one done the same way but this time I took a piece of lavender tulle and laid it on top, smushed it down and let it dry. All the other steps were done first just as in the first picture.

Tomorrow - time permitting I will do the tyvek paper. Not sure I will have time.

Today I also made some felt beads, well 3 to be exact. I think if I really wanted the felt beads I would rather buy them. I had some wool from my doll making stash, and pulled a bit of it until it was all messed up looking and dunked it into warm water that I added a drop of dish detergent. Pulled it out and started rolling it between my hands, much like you would do to a piece of clay. Kept going until almost all the water was out and it formed a ball that stuck together. Let them dry and now they are nice little beads that can be decorated or used as is in something.

I am working on a big project too. Remember the Alphabet Swap from last December? Well I decided to do something with them. I have 26 letters from 26 different artist, so I hope it turns out the way I see it in my head! Won't they be surprised? Stay tuned!

Now the Lost and Found! Two years ago, I belonged to a group called Post Crossings. Nice group where you send and receive postcards all over the world. Well they have a forum and I got involved in a few exchanges. One was a book a diary actually where the book was sent out, and for 3 days the players would record their daily happenings, drawing, painting, postcards, pictures, what not. There was one book that was not returned to me, no one owned up to having it. Well, I am happy to say it came home to me yesterday! It had been held up in the Netherlands for 2 years. The person who had it, had some problems in her personal life and I suspect she just "gave up" fell into depression and let it go. I will not say who it was, she deserves that much privacy and I truly hope her life has improved. (Hugs) I only wish she would of told me, because too many times this has happened not only to me, but to many. I can only speak for myself here, and I would have understood. So thank you my young friend in the Netherlands for returning my book.

The Spirit of the Spiral

This morning I woke up and wanted to paint! and over at Milliande's Yahoo Group she has prompts and this is the "spirals" prompt, I wasn't sure if I should put it under the "mandala" prompt but I chose spiral.

I have seen this picture before but I don't know where and so it is drawn and painted from a memory, it is a repetitive version of many that I doodle.

This is my interpretation...

In the center of the picture the spirals represent the core of spirit made of fire, it is suspended in the sky shooting upwards which represents air, it is held up with the buoyancy of the water for support, and deeply rooted into the earth which surrounds and adds comfort to the spirit of the spirals.

How it was done...

I started with a 5 x 5 canvas. I traced a circle using a CD including the center, so that I would have sort of a guide.

Then painted the background, using tube watercolors, and continued on with the basic elements of the picture.

I used brush markers a little and didn't know at the time that they react to water just like the watercolors. This caused me to have to repeat the line drawing but gave me extra color that worked out just fine.

I used a liner brush for the rest of the painting part. Drawing with a brush is easy once you get the hang of it. You just need to remember a few things, first used a wet brush, and keep it loaded. Use a very light touch, the less stress and grip you have on the brush the better. This gives greater control and makes finer lines, you can always go back for thicker lines.

Next I added some bling, making the moon and stars, and a bit of hologram glitter glue here and there. I tried adding peacock feather for the tree but it really didn't do as I wanted it to so there are very few of them.

Decided to paint the outer edges black and add a bit more bling.

I made a huge mistake next, I decided to varnish this piece. Unfortunately I wasn't clearly thinking because it made everything run. It still looks ok but not as I wanted. I can go back and fix it, which I may do but it doesn't look that bad. In person the flaw is not as strong as the scan, and the bling shines much better in person. Right now I have to clean up my mess and then I need a nap -

My Little Graduate

Consider this a commercial interuption in the Moon's Art world. This is my little pre K grandson. Last night we went to his class ceremony it was very entertaining, they sang, told stories got rewards, all the usual stuff. Clayton got special recognition for his "story telling", seems he was telling stories of killin wild hogs, ridin horse's, catchin gators ect....well you get the picture. What a imagination! wonder where he gets that?

I asked Clayton what color hair to wear, lol he wanted me to go as a blonde so that was the best I can do. So he had his blonde grammy for his special night. He still seems to like me with no hair, hat ect but he is a boy and thinks I look cool. Bless his heart. I was totally exausted when we got home and he was still ready to tackle the world. Can you tell?

Viva La Freida!

Meet Freida Kahol, accomplished and astounding woman. She as most of you know was a great painter back in the 40's and 50's doing mostly surreal type self portraits. I have quite a few regular snapshots of her and picked one for the photo manipulation challenge over on the Yahoo Groups. I am a great fan of Freida's so I hope that it will not upset her spirit that I changed her photo a bit.


This is the part where the manipulation comes in. I used colored chalks, so ink and a bit of gold acrylic paint for her necklace and earrings. I used a linnen cardstock for paper that I got from Marcos at Stampfest/Orlando last year. I am not real happy with the way the face came out but it was ment to be changed so it is that. Freida didn't ever wear makeup so that would be out of her element. Freida loved bright and bold colors as well as flowers. Her house that she shared with Diego was painted bright blue so I imagined herself standing at the wall calling him pi zone, most of the time she was angry with him but he loved him as much as she hated him.

After the Rain

This is a new picture I started yesterday and finished this morning. I like how it turned out for some reason. I used an 8 x 10 canvas board that I found in my stash, sketched it out. I wasn't sure where exactally I was going with it when I started. If you look at the bubble (circles) you can see how the woman was made. I then used my watercolor pencils to do the circles, arcylic paint to do the woman, and the background and the swirls. I touched it up with chalks to deepen the colors a bit and to smooth out the texture of the canvas board. I added so perfect pearls as accents on the swirles in shell pink and gold. Unfortunately you can't see the accents of sparkle but they are there. The reason for the name "After the Rain" is because I imagined a raindrop falling and splashing upon a bubble and emerges a woman with renewed faith in humanity. I tried to convey the whole element idea with Earth, Water, Air and Fire using the colors and some details in the painting itself.

Harmony

In one of my Yahoo groups we are making sand paintings based on Mary Todd Beam's book "Celebrate Your Creative Self". In this lesson you take sand and mix it with gesso, mix it with glue, paint it ect. I had some colored sand but the sand was not the color I wanted so I added ink to some, and arcylic paint to get almost the colors I wanted. I am sure no mixologist in that department. I sketched out my basic pattern on to sticky shelf paper, sketched it again and cut out the parts I needed cut out. This project took a few days to complete, so I could let the layers dry in between.

Did you know that originally the Navajo shamans were the only ones to do sand painting? They didn't use glue, as these were temporary painting created for use in healing ceremonies, and were destroyed after the ritual. I prefer to see the wind blowing the painting away at the end of such ceremony.
Sand painting are made in other parts of the world also, places like Tibet but the Navajo are the most well known. If you are not a Navajo, you really can't and should not create Navajo sand paintings as it is a sort of breech on their religion.
But we create similarly unique works of art for enjoyment and some do it for specific ritual purposes.

Here is my finished piece. I think I will call it "Harmony" that is the word that comes to my mind. My photo does not do it justice, I sux at photography.

I tried scratching the designs into the sand but alas I waited to long. So what to do? Paint of course, I took my tiny brush and started just painting the elements. This canvas is a 5 x5 to give you an idea of size. I decided to add a little glitz by putting on some sticky foil glue, again waiting for it to set up and applied some of Amy's Magic Foil. Then had to put a gem on it of course! I love glitz in the right places. I am please with this piece. I may just do another sand painting because as usual I tend to stray away for the lesson!

*Note- you can make your own "sand" if you don't have any handy. You can use salt and simply dye it. You can dye it with food coloring. You just have to remember not to make it too wet, mix thoroughly and let it dry (the hardest part). You can also use inks, my favorite for dying stuff is Posh Impressions Ink. If you are the more industrious type you can crush small pebbles or shell to make your sand. But to me just going out in the yard is an option. I suppose if I wanted to create a specific "ritual" I would go to the trouble of crushing stones, pebbles and shells.

Not a darn thing to do with art but did ya know?

This was taken from a group email, I did not write it but though how much I relate to it and found it quite amusing. I don't know the person that wrote it, and the name of the person was not showing so if your out here let me know.

"I've been using aluminum foil for more years than I care to
remember. Great stuff, but sometimes it can be a pain. You know, like when
you are in the middle of doing something and you try to pull some foil out and
the roll comes out of the box. Then you have to put the roll back
in the box and start over. The darn roll always comes out at the wrong time.
Well, I would like to share this with you. Yesterday I went to
throw out an empty Reynolds foil box and for some reason I turned it and
looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, Press here to
lock end. Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in
place. How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked
at a generic brand of aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked
at a box of Saran wrap and it had one too! I cant count the number
of times the (expelitive) Saran warp roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something up. Who ever looks at the end of your aluminum foil or plastic wrap box? What a fantastic idea. Now, if someone would just make plastic wrap that didn't stick to itself"?

I'm sharing this with my friends that did not know this and if ya did no fair laughing at me! I had to go check on this and it is quite true! Imagine me yanking all the rolls of crap out to check the ends, hillarious! Come on ya didn't really know this right?

Who Would of Thought?

I drew this pic last March (07)while I was at a boring job where all I had to do was answer the telephone. That is when I started a sort of drawing journal, so I unearthed it today and thought I would update it a bit. Now I think it is sort of funny given my current circumstances that I drew this alien, (since that is how I feel right now) almost to the point of saying I had a little forsight. This was from a few self portraits and that was my alien self at the time.





Anyway here is the updated version, I like her better this way. I left the daisy up in the right hand corner to represent reality. It really doesn't fit or make sense to anyone but me and I may change it but it is here to stay at least for now....and I knew an angel had been sent to watch over me.

Cheers!

Graphics and Myspace Layouts at pYzam.com

Getting there

Just want to say I AM WORKIN ON IT! LOL

Dream World

This is a little 5 x 5 canvas reconstituted from JoAnns Dollar Bin. (Thanks Sis I never would of thought of that) I drew it all out, masked the little girl with rubber cement then I painted the background, and went on to the little girl. Later I decided to add words because I have been wanting to journal this way.


You can't really see the detail much, the actual canvas is better than the photo but I can only do so much with what I got. I tried to do a close up of the little girl and this is it.

I used inks,acrylic paint,chalks,gesso,rub on stitches, and a black pigment pen for the wording.

Celebrate the Earth!

This is an art journal page I did today, lots of watercolor crayons, pencils, gesso, and gel pen. When I started this fairy I didn't have a plan for her but in the background noise I heard Oprah talking about Earth Day today and bingo!





This is the art journal page I did yesterday. This was inspired from my darling daughters who are having a feud with some other people over at my space. I am trying to make everyone play nice. Wish me luck with that one.

Stranger than Fiction Tag Game

Oh Boy! I’ve been tagged by Ms. Dragonfly aka Dinah ( http://dragonflyenchantment.blogspot.com ) for this 6 weird quirks/habits game. Thank you Ms. Dragonfly (Dinah) for tagging me :D Here are my strange facts!

1. I hate shoes! yes it is true, a female that truly hates shoes. I have even been known to bring my house slippers to parties so I can take off the dang shoes.

2. I have worn makeup everyday since I was 12 without fail. The only time I am without it in public is if I have to have surgery. The reason is because I have blonde eyelashes and eyebrows.

3. On my dinner plate nothing touches, no mixing and I eat one thing at a time.

4. I treat my pets like real children, consider their feelings on everything and give them frequent hugs and kisses. I also talk to them constantly, and my puppys place in my bed will be there always.

5. I talk to strangers all the time especially if they look grumpy. I don't know why I do this and only a few times have I regreted it. The strange thing is that in a room full of people I am quiet as a church mouse.

6. Sometimes I can carry on a whole conversation with someone and not know what we talked about. At the time I think I know but opps I forgot! No it isn't a disease I have always been this way since I can remember.

So now there are my strange things....hope you don't think I am way too weird! lol, I think I will tag.....

Mary at http://greenwomandesign.blogspot.com/
Aileen at http://aileensmusings.blogspot.com/
Marcia at http://www.xanga.com/livefreeinharmony
Melissa at http://alterediva.blogspot.com/
Dawn at http://goldbettyboop.blogspot.com/
Inka at http://inkastamps.blogspot.com/


And here are the rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Most of all have FUN!

Something different

I made this Butterfly Woman out of polyclay. The design is Donna Kato's basic design from her book "The Art of Polymere Clay". I don't usually dabble in clay, but I do like it. Not sure if it will be a pin, decoration on a book, pendant or what have you. I just wanted to play with clay.



This is a shoe I made from my leather and ostrich paper. Over at the Paper Transformed Workshop we are making these papers along with many others. This is my project from the papers. The shoe is from a pattern from Ellen Hutson.

Seascape

This is the end result. I am not real happy with it but I am tired of messing around with it. I think it lacks the proper perspective. I am not good at this sort of thing but I played just the same.




The is a close up of the seashore on my Creative Self Workshop exercise. I used sand, and salt, paints, chalks, of course some Gel Medium to stick it all together. I also incorporated some decorative paste? not sure what it is called.