fox

Had a fabulous art day on Saturday! (Sunday too but more on that later)

Our friends were in town and we always like to work in a little art time. This weekend we wanted to do the tutorial posted to artist Susan Buckner's blog. But since both of us can only go so far with following directions we followed the first several steps and then changed things up to make it our own.

Here is my piece and Joy's piece side by side. To see more of Joy's piece, read about her processes and see all her fabulous art visit her blog here.
A closer look.

Here's my finished fox. I thought this piece needed a glossy finish. It made it harder to photograph but in person I think it looks great! I'm very happy with how it came out.

When Joy and I started these pieces we both decided to work outside our comfort-zone. We both chose color combinations which we don't normally use. We both used slightly different subject matter. I mean, I've draw lots of foxes... in sketchbooks (such as the fox I featured in my 2011 Sketchbook Project book) and it my art journals. But this is the first time I've featured my fox on a canvas. I dig him. :)

Amour

This weekend our best friends were in town. The Men had an errand to run which left the women-folk to fend for ourselves. That meant Art Day! When ever Joy and I get together we inspire each other to work on new and different things.

Joy had said she wanted to learn more about working with clay so I came up with a basic design for a mixed media piece we could both make.

Here is both of our finished hearts, sculpted in a low-temp clay with metal embellishments and a wire hanger attached. Before firing them we stamped the clay to give it texture.
Here is my heart and partially finished wooden frame. I covered the cardboard backing to the frame in decorative paper that looked like old love letters. I painted the frame red and painted on a crackle medium.

Over the crackle medium I painted an acrylic paint called Wrought Iron

Here is the finished piece! I used 3 different font text stamps and added the French word for love: Amour. I painted the heart with several different layers of red paint. I then rubbed on a walnut alcohol ink. As of yet I'm not overly impressed with the alcohol inks. Will need to play with them a bit more.

Here's a detail picture of my heart. It's attached to the frame with a brown silk cord. And hanging at the end is the key to my heart.

Joy's finished artwork is posted on her blog over here. It came out fabulous!!! I always love how we can do a piece side by side and come out with 2 distinct works of art!

a few Christmas presents I forgot to post

I'm still learning PMC so these didn't come out exactly how I wanted them. (But I don't wanna share how I wanted them because I'll continue to work on that design.) But here's a little peek at a few pendants I made this December. The top 2 were for my sisters. The hummingbird was for my Mom.

SHINE
SOAR

hummingbird

All three, ready to go.

did you hear it's snowing in Georgia?

That's right. SNOW. In GEORGIA. This rarely happens. So of course, the whole state had to shut down for 3 or 4 days.

This is part of our front yard. It's really pretty out!
We all need a little Zen. Even in the middle of a snow storm. Here's the bottlewall in the Zen Garden. Here you can really see how much snow we got. All in all, about 9 or 10 inches.

But the front walk still needs to be cleaned. Here He is sweeping off the walk.

And since we live in the mountains, snow means no one is going ANYWHERE!!! At least not until the Spring thaw.

If this tree was in my yard, I'd put Christmas lights on it every year. It looks beautiful in the snow.

frozen randomness

Snowman by the lake

snow-rooster on the roof of the hen house

snow dogs

snow dog with his very own snowman

snow-dragon

the great escape

Our driveway is quite a job!!! But unless we wanted to stay in the house until Spring, it needed to be shoveled.

This picture just does not do the driveway credit. It is loonnnnggggg! It is steeeeeeeep!

This picture doesn't really do it either. It's one of those things you must see to believe.

Well, it's a start.

Break Time!!!

whew! Almost halfway done!

FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It took use 2 1/2 to 3 hours to dig out the whole driveway. Quite a job!!! Now 2 days later we're both still eating Advil like candy.

anything's a sled

Here in the mountains of North Georgia we are experiencing our own Winter Wonderland. Anyone whose smart is staying close to home.

Well you don't wanna DRIVE in this stuff and end up like these guys!!!

What happened to this Stop Sign?

Ahhhhh. Here it is! Stop Sign makes a perfect sled! So do these boogie boards!

And so does a jonboat! This one holds 4 people.

But it doesn't steer all that well.

snowbound sketches

In between cooking, eating, shoveling snow and playing World of Warcraft, I sketched quite a bit over the last 2 snowbound days. I finished my book for The Sketchbook Project 2011. And I drew a lot of random pictures.

Like my Goth Gal below:

eggnog donuts

We've been snowed in for the past 2 days. We started with plenty of supplies but we slowly ran out. Yesterday I started getting creative with my cooking. I had run out of both milk and any kind of creamer. But I still have eggnog!

So I found this recipe for eggnog donuts. And they came out great!!!!! I'll make these again and not just because I ran out of milk.

• 3 cups Bisquick, Plus Extra For Kneading
• 1-¼ cup Eggnog (or Milk)
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
• Vegetable Oil, Enough For Deep Frying

Preparation Instructions

Heat oil in a deep fryer or heavy Dutch oven to 350 degrees.

On a plate or cake pan, mix the sugar and spices together. Set aside for coating the finished doughnuts.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix bisquick with eggnog (or milk). The batter should be slightly sticky, so add more milk if the batter seems too dry.

Sprinkle your counter or cutting board with extra Bisquick and dump dough onto this. Begin to knead, until the dough comes together into a nice ball that is no longer sticky. Roll out (or smoosh out with your fingers), then cut into doughnut shapes. (I used a biscuit cutter and the cap of my vegetable oil bottle for the center).

Very carefully, drop doughnuts into hot oil. Do not let them get too brown on one side before flipping, or they will get bottom heavy with oil and you will have trouble keeping them flipped, so both sides brown evenly. Repeat with doughnut holes.

As you take the doughnuts out of the oil, briefly blot by laying the doughnuts on a paper-towel-lined plate, then immediately dredge in the sugar and spice mixture while doughnuts are still hot.

This should make 15 doughnuts with 15 doughnut holes.

Dali

This past weekend was the end of the Dali exhibit at The High Museum of Art - Atlanta. To give Dali a Dali-worthy exit the museum held a continuous party... all weekend long. And I mean ALLLL weekend long. The museum opened Saturday morning and didn't close until it's normal time on Sunday.

We went to a play at Cobb Energy Center on Saturday so we decided to go to The High after our play. (the play - Oklahoma - not great. it was ok.) We got there around 11:30 pm and the line was several 100 people deep. Thankfully we then saw the Member's line. Maybe 50 people in line. So we took our spot and it moved rather quickly. We were inside shortly. (good thing because temps were dropping and would soon bring snow to Atlanta).

The Dali section of the museum was packed. We had seen the exhibit once before but at that time The Persistence of Memory hadn't arrived yet. So we made our way to this painting. I was shocked! It's a tiny canvas... maybe 6 inches by 9 inches. Still no one beats Dali in the craftsmanship of oil painting. I've read sometimes he used brushes that only had 1 or 2 hairs. His technique was just amazing!!!

But we couldn't take the crowds for too long. So we decided to wander the museum. We went upstairs to the Surrealist Gallery. The High has a great collection of Dali's fellow surrealist and it was interesting to see the group Dali started with... though eventually they kicked him out of the Surrealist group. The reason? Dali was too surreal.

Ya know, people become well-known for a reason. There were lots of paintings, sculpture, assemblage pieces. Some great. Some just didn't move me. The pieces I gravitated too? When I looked at the description card, they were all by artists I know of: Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Cornell, Man Ray to name just a few in the Surrealist Gallery. Also in the Modern & Contemporary Gallery we saw wonderful works by Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Jean-Michael Basquiat (LOVE LOVE LOVE Him!!!!)

The exception to that "well known name" rule is Mark Rothko. Man, I just don't see the attraction there. Personally I think his work is just boring.

Yum!

yes, i baked a cake :) as with all my recipes, i just made it up as i went along. i started with a white cake mix. but i only had egg beaters; not egg whites. so it didn't end up white. no matter. it still tasted great.

i added a cup of chopped walnuts to the batter. then between the layers i spread homemade fig jam a coworker gave me. i topped it off with cream cheese icing and more chopped walnuts. it came out great!

I've been framed!

Last weekend I really scored on frames at a local thrift store. I keep a list of the sizes I need in my PDA for just such an occasion. And I came across 2 lovely (and reasonably priced!) frames. And even more importantly, they both convey the feel I wanted each painting to have! How lucky is that?

She's Nothing To Crow About

Decay

Hanging side by side in our hallway

The one I call "Decay" is an acrylic on canvas mixed media painting. The falling leaves are made from resin paper. Her crown and wings are newsprint. Her crown's jewel and her tata's are pink crystals. The painting (and the frame) have a tattered elegance to them. When I was painting this piece the name in my head was Fae of Decay. She is a Fairy Princess. However her Kingdom is crumbling around her. Not that it matters to her. She's still strong and proud, even in deteriorating surroundings.

The one I call "She's Nothing To Crow About" is an oil on canvas. She has no back-story. lol She just "is".

Both paintings are 18 X 24.