Art Heart Healing; Week 2-A

For week 2 of Tam's Art Heart Healing course we're embellishing a board book. Subject? Ourselves.

I've not had great luck with board books in the past. And this one didn't go all that smoothly. First, I should have sanded the book even more before I applied 2 layers of gesso. It was still too slick to hold my paints in a few places. I covered by doing my background in the same original color as the book so it's hard to tell at a glance.

Also, I have a terrible time with transfers. Honestly, this one is the best I've ever done. And it's still not great. I look cross-eyed in the photograph and really, I'm not!!! lol I think I moved the picture a fraction of an inch when I did my transfer cos it came out slightly blurred. And you can't see how I'm rocking my Cindy Brady bologna curls!

This weekend I'll work on lesson 2-B and hopefully post it by Monday.

Oils No. 2; Introspective

I think this is done. I'm leaning more and more towards "done". I'm diggin' her.

The painting is called Introspective. Of course it's oils so I could always pull it off the wall 6 months down the road and rework things, should I desire.

a quick post for a quick picture

I've been really enjoying my exploration in oil paints these days. But the other night I did a quickie in acrylics. I had an "Art Night" with my friends and wanted to do a painting I could complete in one sitting. Wellllll, really it was a "Movie Night" but me and Zee sat on the floor and painted while C & R watched Get Him To The Greek. Funny movie :) This painting is the female character, Jackie O.

Art Heart Healing; Week 1

Here's a journal spread I did for Tam's FREE online course Art Heart Healing. Quite fun! I love doing these kind of journal spreads. I could have gone on for days and days and days with this; adding more layers of painterly goodness. :) But eventually I had to say DONE so I could begin week 2.

The Creative Journey

I wish I had fabulous pictures to share with you all of my day soaking up the wonderful aura of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. And thought He radiates pure white light, it's rainbow colored aura I might add. Sadly all I have are these blurry camera phone pictures.

We had general admission tickets. So we were pretty far back. But the large screens helped. And we could hear everything (though the Dalai Lama switches back between English and Tibetian rather rapidly!!!)

I thought the discussion was very interesting. We covered a number of topics. The one that I'm still thinking about is whether we as artist have a responsibility to produce uplifting work? Or is the artist's job to show the darkness in the world, allowing the viewer to compair between light and dark? Very interesting stuff!!! As someone who gravitates towards sadness and gothic images, I've been wrestling with these thoughts for as long as I've been painting and sculpting.

This is the ever handsome Mr Richard Gere... from a great distance lol

2 pictures of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

and in the mail from @HiddenEloise...

My winning necklace from Hidden Eloise's blog give-away arrived this weekend! It's just as lovely in person as it is in the pictures. I've been wearing it non-stop since it arrived.

Yes, the necklace is beautiful. And the packaging? Wow!!! I love when people put such thought and care into how they present themselves. And this lovely little package couldn't have a better presentation. I was so impressed!

Her etsy shop is one of my "must check regularly" shops. I know that when I purchase from her, the package will be as lovely as what's inside.

Oils No. 1

I'm calling this Oils No. 1 though it's not technically my first oil painting. I've done a few more. They were paintings I did following another artist's instruction. And they were not my style. I knew that going in. Painting "my style" wasn't the point of those exercises. I was just trying to get a feel for the medium.

With this painting I'm still feeling out the medium. But I feel ready to branch out into a painting that was "me". I learned a lot while working on it. And I really enjoyed working with the oil paints. A LOT!!! I'm knee-deep in Oils No. 2 at the moment. :)

This is called She's Nothing To Crow About.

As for the other paintings I did prior to her? Well they will probably never see the light of day. Unless I decided to rework them and make them more "me". Maybe I should add a few crows?