Never Mind...

OK, so I just thought I would be taking a break. I actually was able to get out and enjoy my studio today. I figured I would write a little bit about what I have been doing. To start off with I spent the end of the weekend/beginning of the week at my father in-laws house boat. It was really nice. The weather was a little chilly and it did rain a bit, but we had a nice time. It was just the kids and I. We missed Josh, but it was OK. He came for a visit, but with his work schedule he would have had no time to sleep. So, plans were changed and it all worked out. The other thing I am working on is my house. I have a lot to do. There are some women coming over on Sunday and I want my house to look good. I always panic a little bit about these things. I suddenly decide that my house needs to be painted, furniture needs to be moved, art needs to be removed etc... I usually can stop myself before I go completely off the wall. I do have a lot to do though so today will be completely devoted to the house and outside. Lucky for me I had my studio time this morning. Anyway, that's about it. Nothing too exciting which is how I like it.

I made the piece above last week. It goes with the other three Little White Dress pieces that are now in my friend Keely's house. I just loved doing that series. There might be more to come. I will just have to see. I put this in the shop, and I did a little shop maintenance. I have 39 pieces in there now. I still have a lot of work to do, but it feels pretty good to have a good amount of work in there.

A small little break...

I have to take a small blogging break to do some stuff that has been impatiently waiting to get done. My studio is in hibernation as well. I will be getting back to it at the beginning of next week.

Hope you PDXers are enjoying the weather!

We have a winner!

Thanks for the comments. Thanks Maia for your comment on FB. So, I pulled a name out of the jar and it was..... Alea! Alea I will get you your painting.

So, I have nothing exciting to show! My kids have been staying up REALLY late and it's keeping me from getting any sleep. My routine has been thrown off completely. Instead of getting up at 530 I was awake at 330. So was my son. Right now Josh is blasting music as loud as possible and they are not even moving. O' to be young and sleep like a rock. We are trying to get them up so I can get some sleep tonight. The idea being that they will be tired tonight and fall asleep earlier than they have been.
My studio time hasn't been happening for the last couple of days. But I am out here this morning. I have the new Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's on and am ready to do something fun!

The piece above is one that I did a couple of days ago. I am on the fence about it. Not sure what I think of it.

A Giveaway!

"circle 3"

As promised since today is my birthday I am giving a way a painting! The one above is up for grabs. Just leave me a comment. I will be doing the drawing on Friday morning and will let you know that day.

I hope you all have a fantastic day!

Surprises

"flower"

"Francaise"

I was able to get up early today and get some work done in the studio. The pieces I came up with this morning were a surprise. They are different than what I have been working on. They are collage pieces, but they are on the cute side. I have a lot of things that I want to get done today and I think I just wanted to keep my art simple. It was pretty fun. I am going to be putting "Francaise" in the shop today.

I recovered from my dry spell yesterday. I am picked up this book from the library: Wallpaper Projects: 50 Craft and Design Ideas for Your Home, from Accents to Art. It's a really inspiring book. I love all the small prints. It also got me thinking about crafts and some of the things I haven't spent my time doing. I usually love crafty stuff. This got all sorts of ideas whirling in my mind. I don't actually have any wallpaper hanging around, but I do collect scrapbook paper. Scrapbook paper has some of the coolest patterns. So, I thought I might use some of that. I have a special project that I will be working on for a brunch I am having. I will stay mum on that though since some of the attendees ( I think) read this blog.

Tomorrow is my birthday. To make it fun I am going to be doing a giveaway! I haven't picked the piece yet. Stay tuned tomorrow morning and I will have more details.

Holding pattern....

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday weekend here in the states. I know I did. I think I might have had a little too much fun on the 4th, but it was worth it. I took a little time off from the studio this weekend. I didn't intend to actually take a break it just worked out that way. I am finding that I may not want to take a break. I seem to have a bit of a hard time finding my momentum when I do that. Today has been hard to get something made. I have made a couple pieces, but they are nothing that I feel really good about. I feel like I have some ideas (I know I have said this before) that are just below the surface. I have pulled out my sketchbook and will work in that a bit.

The above piece was made last week. The two I have made today I don't like and I think it just might be that they are not completely finished. I think I will come back to them tomorrow with some fresh ideas.

Another one!

"machine"

"N"




I did a lot of work this morning. I have 7 completed pieces. Some of them were worked on the other day, but just needed some tweaking. It feels pretty good to have some work finished. I just posted the two pieces above to my shop. They were done this morning.

The one titled "machine" was fun. I used silver leaf on this one. The wax over the silver leaf dulls it, but I like the way it looks. I liked making "N" too. It just felt good to get some things made. I actually how everything turned out. That doesn't always happen. Today must be a good day.

I don't have much else to say. I think I said it all in my previous post. Plus I am getting a little tired. I know it's early, but I have already been up 5 hours. Time to take a break.

Hope you have a great day. Enjoy the heat if you are here in Portland.

Hi!

I just wanted to say hello. It is 6am and I am out in the studio. Usually I would be waking up right now, but I woke up at 430. I can usually fall back to sleep when I wake up that early, but today I didn't. I was actually really excited to make it out here. It's a little chilly which is nice. I was told by a friend that it was supposed to be 95 degrees today. I guess summer is here for real.

Today I have some ideas swirling in my head about what I will make. I don't know how things will turn out, but I think it's going to be fun to work. I am currently waiting for all the wax to melt. Sometimes that can be the hardest part. Unlike another medium where you just get started you have to wait on the wax to melt. The plus of that is the wax smell fills up my studio and makes it smell nice. The downside is just the waiting. Most of the time I turn the wax on and do something else while I am waiting (like doing this post). Other times I literally just wait until the wax melts. That of course is like waiting for a kettle to boil. It feels so looong.

I have noticed that some of my pictures of my art in the shop look off in color. I think I have to go back and fix them. It's the crummy monitor I have out here. Unfortunately it is all I have so I have to go with it. I checked the pics out on our other computer (with a much better monitor) and realized that my reds look more like magenta. Also, some of the contrast is off with the other ones. If you have looked in my shop you might want to check it out later. I am going to re post some photos here in the next couple of hours. I will probably leave the photos the same on the blog. Maybe not, but most likely I will. So if you want to see the actual colors check out my shop!

Not much...

Not much happening today. I didn't wake up early to get out in the studio this morning like I planned to. I was giving myself a little leeway because I finished the two paintings above yesterday afternoon. I even posted them in my shop. I am out here now though. It's hard to take a day away from my space. So, here I am. I am not sure if I will actually do anything productive or not. I know I need to go in sometime and make cookies (which is crazy talk since it's so warm out). Lucky for me the kids are completely distracted right now so I have time to write this.

I even took some new pictures of the studio yesterday. I mainly took them of my electric frying pan which I am still loving and am so glad I found. I thought you might want to see exactly what I am doing with that. The little metal muffin tin and the individual tins all have my different colors of encaustic wax in them. I was buying colored encaustic wax, but have since started making my own. It give me a lot of freedom to decide which colors I really want to use. Its a fun process and I am still really enjoying it.

I might actually have some prints done soon. I have some acrylic collages and painting that I did that I am going to try to turn into prints. I haven't figured out much about how to do this so any suggestions would be welcome.

Crisis averted...

Ok, I'm just kidding. It wasn't really a crisis. It was just some anxiety I had to get over. I did too. I worked some more and came up with the above piece which I like. I just posted in my shop if you are interested. It felt good to put something new in there! I am loving this Alzarin Crimson encaustic paint. I made it myself. I just love the deep color of it. I used the red and then burnt umber. I think this might be one of my favorite combinations. They look so good together.

So, I just worked. That is all I did. I am out here again ready to work. I am starting a little later than normal, but that is alright. My kids stayed up too late last night and are both dragging today. Which means more work time for me. As long as they don't get too cranky this could be a really great day!

It looks like it's going to be another beautiful day today. I hope you all are able to get out and enjoy it.

Anxiety...

I have been having a little anxiety when I come out to the studio over the last couple of days. Not sure what is up with that. Unfortunately it shows in my work. It's mediocre at best. I know it can't always be easy, but I wish I knew what was stressing me out. As one solution I have been slowly cleaning my space up. It's helping a little. Part of my anxiety I think stems from the fact that I am just not feeling very inspired. I know that it helps me if I just keep working and something will come. I have been doing that. My work is just kind of flat. Nothing really great about it. You can see it in the picture (sorry for the crookedness). I am embarrassed to post it, but I figure might as well not hide it. I think we all have those times where our work just is sub-par and you just have to deal with it.

One cool thing that did happen this weekend is I know have internet in my studio. I am actually writing this post from there. I also am able now to post my pictures from right here. I like having it all in one spot. My printer and scanner are still in the house. I just don't have room for another thing out here. I might change my mind later.

On another note I have been listening to The Vaselines and loving it. I wish it would get my motor going when it comes to painting!

Copper

I worked with some copper yesterday and I really like it. I have some copper tape that I used for soldering and I put that on a piece. It had started to rust a little and it turned out really cool. I also had some copper sheets that I cut holes out of and used it for one of the pieces. I used it on the two above pieces.

I sent my check into today for my booth at Skating with Scissors (September 19). It feels pretty good. I am really happy to get that out and know that there will be a booth for me. I still have no idea how I am going to set it up. I don't have a display idea yet. I need to check some out and get some ideas.

I have sold a couple pieces to some friends this week. It feels nice to know that my friends want something I made in their houses. I love that. It's really neat to see my art in a different setting. Keely bought the "my little white dress" series. I am thinking of making another series. Not sure of what yet. I just had such a good time with those. It was fun to think of a theme and see it come out.

This week has felt extremely long and I am happy the weekend is here. I am looking forward to some long studio time. I also have some books that I am hoping to read very soon. Not to mention dishes, laundry and my very sad looking yard. So much to do!

Hope you have a very good weekend!