Halloween Paintings Are Done And In The Shop!!

Woo-hoo!! I am so excited to show you my Halloween paintings! They are all done and prints of them are available in my etsy shop if you are interested in jazzing up your home with some of these fun pieces this Halloween. They would also make a great gift! I hope you love them as much as I do.

"Lenore" 

 "Tabitha & Vesta"

 "Viktor"

"Zora"

Plugging along...

Here is my progress on the paintings. I am super excited to finish them up and get them (or at least prints of them) up in my etsy shop ASAP! I always have such a tough time letting go of the originals. I love making Halloween art. It is so much fun.

In these first two photos I worked on scraping on paint for the background with an old hotel room card.

After a layer of black and a crackle medium to finish off the background, I started working on the skin tones.

Next came the hair.

Then the facial features... fangs and all (on two of them.)

Then on to the clothes, hats and animals. I am still working the animals and the additional background stuff. 

It is fun to see the progression of the pieces. I hope you enjoyed it too!

I'm back!

Sorry for the long absence. I have been trying my best to not do that with my blog, but the end of summer/beginning of the school year had finally taken away all my time. Don't get me wrong... it was all for super fun vacations, exciting new school year stuff and birthday celebrations. My youngest just turned 4! Time has certainly gotten away from me.

BUT... now that I have fulfilled all my duties as a Party Thrower, Vacationer, Graphic Designer, and Volunteerer of many things, I have started 4 new paintings!! I am so jazzed about them. They have been sketches in my book for a while now and I am finally putting paint to canvas and IT FEELS SOOOOO GOOD!!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because it is such a fun time of year. It is fun to decorate for, create crafts and art for, and really enjoy the weather change after a long hot summer. It also happens to be my daughter's birthday. So I get a little giddy about it all.

Here are some photos of the beginning stages of my paintings.

 In the above photo I covered the canvas with black gesso and collaged old music paper. 

 I then sketched a general design for each one over the gesso so that I could plan out my next move.

After drawing them on, I used molding paste to build up areas of the pieces where I would like some definition. Since they are Halloween pieces I wanted to have their hats to have a little emphasis as well as a few other spots. 

I'll try to be good along the way to keep taking photos so you can see the process. I took a break this time because the molding paste will take about a day to dry because we are having an unusually rainy day. So, I hope to show you more in the next couple days so check back!

AU -Shopping & 5th & 6th Classes

This is my last post about my fantastic time at Art Unraveled. There has just been so much to show, it would have been the longest post ever if I had piled it all into one. I hope that this will encourage you all to attend AU if possible because I can't stress enough how much this retreat has become one of my favorite weeks of the year.

So now on to Saturday's Shopping Extravaganza. Many also call it Vendor Day... I call it Heaven! There were (I believe) 55 vendors with yummy goodies for sale. All there to sell their jewelry, sculptures, vintage items, stamps, art supplies, journals, fabrics and fibers, clothing...etc. You name it! If it's artsy then it is probably sold there.

That evening I was lucky enough to attend the Artist's Showdown. This is the first year I could make it to this event. It was rather fun. There were many of the teachers who were grouped into pairs to make a piece of impromptu art that was then auctioned off to the highest bidder. All proceeds were given to YDI (Youth Development Institute). Here are a few pics of the fun night:

This was the cute cake to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of AU. Paint brushes as candles... clever!

Below I have a couple of examples of the artists and their masterpieces.

Ruth Rae paired up with Leighanna Light. This is their finished piece. 

Jane LaFazio & Mary Beth Shaw paired up to make this eclectic turquoise piece.

While we (the spectators) were waiting for the masterpieces to be made, we were treated to some pretty fancy glitter tattoos applied by none other than the Crafty Chica. Fun stuff!

Now on to my final day at AU. I had two classes that day as well. First came a class called Transferring Memories taught by Lisa Cheney-Jorgensen. Lisa is new to teaching at AU so I hadn't heard of her or seen her work before. I just knew that I wanted to learn some transferring methods and this sounded like the class to take. I was right. Lisa was very informative and had a nice packet with the information all there for us to work on these techniques at home as well as in class. She had some amazing journals for us to look at. Lisa is an unbelievably talented artist. I would certainly take another class from her in the future! 

Here is Lisa giving a demo on making our little journals that we were to use the transferring methods in. I am now realizing that I didn't take as many photos this day of classes. I guess my hands were just so busy working instead.

My sister Holly came over to the hotel that evening to join me for dinner and to see what I was up to. It was fun showing her a bit of the goings on. 

My last class was called Resin Wire Forms taught by Deryn Mentock. I am so glad I signed up for this class very early on, because it sold out very fast! I had never worked with resin before and really wanted to be introduced to this product in a class environment because I was kind of intimidated by it. I guess it is because of the need for very precise measurements. I now realize that it was no big deal. I am so excited to use this stuff with my art! Here are some photos from class. 

These three photos above are of Deryn's class samples. She does some amazing things with resin and wire. The photo below is one of my little pieces that I made in class. I actually made quite a few more, but don't have photos of them yet to show you. I also cannot believe that I don't have a single photo of Deryn to show you. I was really slacking on the photo taking that day!

Alas, it is over. I am going to be dreaming about the next AU all year. I hope to see all these teachers and new friends at next years as well. I also hope to finish all these fun projects soon too. I'll post them as I do... but don't hold your breath. It will probably take me a while :)

AU - 3rd & 4th Classes... Quite the busy day!

Friday at AU was a busy one for me. Actually Friday through Sunday were all busy days... which is the reason I am just now getting to blog about them all. But Friday is what I am blogging about today... so back to that.

My wonderfully art filled began with a class taught by Pam Carriker. She taught me a journaling class last year that left me wanting more. So I quickly jumped on board to take this class and I couldn't have made a better choice. The class was called "A Cut Above". The purpose of the class was to learn how to carve linoleum into a stamp. I have dabbled in a bit of carving earlier this summer in preparation for this class, but had no idea how much more I was capable of doing. (Thanks to Pam!!)

Also thanks to Speedball, Faber-Castel and Stadler, we got some pretty great goodies to play with!
Here are some photos of my first class:

This is the stamp I carved! I love it. I even printed it on the little bag that we got our class goodies in. Instragram makes it look lighter than it is. It was actually a nice print. 

This is my new friend Julia hard at work. We were in a couple of classes together this year. (It is so much fun meeting new friends at AU!) And next to her is Leighanna Light who is also a new friend and amazing teacher. I might have to take one of her classes next year. :)

Pam was giving us a demo. 

This is the class all hard at work.

All that work called for a little relaxing time and a beer with good friends before my next class. Here I am with Pam Carriker and Jane LaFazio. 

Now for my evening class. This next one was called "Couture Corsage" taught by Ruth Rae. One of my goals for this AU was to take a class by Ruth... no matter what it was. This is the one I chose that worked with my schedule of classes. I was very happy to have made this choice! First we got an informative demo on hand dying your fabrics and lace and such. Then on to making the corsages. I was so fortunate to have Pam Huntington sitting next to me not only keeping me company, but also giving me helpful pointers on how to 'loosen up' :) 

It was a short class, but a really fun time. Here are some photos for you to see the results:

These are the two corsages that I made! They turned out nice, I think!

Ruth Rae and I modeling our corsages. She is one talented lady, I tell ya!

Did I mention that Barb Solem was in that class as well? We have been friends for a few years now. It all started at AU! We took a class together my first year. We quickly figured out that we go to the same church. Small world! She has such fun style. Always dressed so cute! Here she is in her Magnolia Pearl top. I could seriously raid her closet!! 

Go and check out the link on her name and you'll see that she is up to some fun stuff! She is planning many new art retreats for the near future that you won't want to miss!!

My new sweet friend Pam Huntington and me. I feel so lucky to have met her (and taken a class from her) this year. I look forward to that friendship blooming! 

Here are the class samples made by Ruth. Beauties!!

Ruth and Pam finishing up the night with a bit of fun banter. 

As you can see it was a fun, but long day. So I will fill you in on the next couple days in my next post.

AU - 2nd class... SEW amazing!!

I was WAY too tired to blog after getting home last night, so I am trying to get this in real quick before I leave for class today.

Pamela Huntington taught my second class. It was her first year at AU and I am sure it won't be her last. She is such a sweet lady with so many amazing ideas. The name of the class was a Dressmakers Book. We got to use all those old pieces of lace and seam binding, hankies and doilies and we went to town constructing little books. Mine is still in the individual pages stage where I am decorating and collaging, so I will just show you photos from the class and a few of Pamela's beautiful book. Enjoy!

note: I didn't bother instragraming them because in that dark room, it took all the fabulous color and detail right out of the book and I wanted you to see them as best as you could.

 my little sewing area