Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Thank you for all the crackle love and questions that came with it. I am preparing a post about my experiments with different products for crackling and my results with them. The results are not always pretty, but I hope that it will be interesting to show all of it - the good, bad and the ugly. xo

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Feeling grateful for happy weekends

Not only I didn't make the last video, I didn't see my studio at all. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we spent a wonderful and active weekend enjoying every minute.  Here are some snippets of our days seen through my husband's lens.
I planted a vegetable garden.
He says that I'm a humming bird, because I can't pass the wisteria without putting my face right in them, drinking in the amazing fragrance.
Hana's eye.
A welcome guest.
Unwelcome guests.
Yummy grilled dinner.
Do you know that when we moved into our house the cala lilies were just starting to grow (no flowers and tiny foliage) and I thought that they were weeds, so I tried to destroy them. I'm so happy that they survived!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Painting on Rosin Paper - Part 3

I paint so fast! The music is fast, my brush is going like crazy... it is pretty funny. This is another video of my Rosin Paper experiments. It shows how I painted on a collage background. I used acrylics, water soluble crayons with gesso, inks (or just one ink - not sure)...The journal from this painting is already in hands of her new owner (I hope that she'll enjoy seeing the process).
My computer received a fresh pack of added memory (thanks to my dear husband) so now editing videos will not (hopefully) take forever. I might have the final video (#4) tonight.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Reverie

1. Daydream
2. Lost in thought
Did you know that daydreaming is good for the brain? Not to mention the soul... I read about it HERE. Good to know that I'm doing something healthy and useful when I think I'm wasting time.
I don't know if she wanted to have a crackled surface as the previous one, but I know that I wanted to play with it again. It is so interesting when you pour something and know that you can't really control the way it will turn out. I love the feeling (but won't be able to play with crackly surfaces for a while because I used all the crackle making stuff).
 This is what I wrote on the back:
Reverie is not a mind vacuum. 
It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul.
~Gaston Bachelard
She lives HERE now (in case anyone is interested). Happy pre-Friday!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Promise

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep...
~Robert Frost
I spent the afternoon with a piece of wood (6.5"x14") and she showed up.
She said that the painting should be called Promise. And that it should have a crackled finish.
So I made it that way. I also wrote Robert Frost's words on the back. And she's now finished and living in my little shop. I wonder who will show up today when I sit with another piece of wood...

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Painting on Rosin Paper - 1 & 2

You may know from THIS post that I love rosin paper. I like that it is inexpensive and that I can create freely on it without thinking about the outcome. I wanted to see how a similar painting looks on different backgrounds and I thought that rosin paper would be a good surface for it. In the first video you'll see how I created 4 different backgrounds and sketched a similar face.
The next one shows me painting two faces. One of them is hilarious.... I choose colors so poorly that it was making me laugh all the time. I guess it shows that if you just continue painting, not reacting to the ugly phase, something will appear. After all, it's only paint and paper...
I hope you'll enjoy them. Two more to come. Happy almost weekend!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Finally!!!

I finally carved out some time to edit my photos, list my journals on etsy and write a short blog post. I'm not done with the movies yet, but I know that at least two will be up tomorrow. I listed one of my journals for a very cool price of $2,550.00. One person saw it before I caught my mistake and probably thought that I am out of my mind :-)

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Love

I had a very lovey-dovey weekend, which I guess made me think about what love is and how wonderful it is... and all stuff that comes with it.  I liked painting the birds sitting in opposite directions but in a way looking at each other. Actually, no explanations needed. I needed a stress relief in the afternoon, so I just played and this is what turned out.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Tired of faces?

I must admit that sometimes I am tired of looking at faces... and yet - that's what I want to paint. I love waiting for the new face, new expression, new everything that emerges whenever I paint them. I keep thinking that it's probably boring and that it might be time to move on... to challenge myself with something different. But for now - it's still faces.
I had the camera on when I painted the last four girls and I hope to be able to edit the material by tomorrow. Not easy squishing many hours of painting into 7 minutes... what to leave, what to take out? We'll see how it turns out.
Happy weekend!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Stitches

I can't stitch anything that makes sense. But I love playing with my machine and I went completely wild with the free moving needle (I'm sure there's a better name for it). Color of the painted paper, texture from the holes and threads..... I love it. I'll show you the whole thing soon.
xo

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Good morning! How are you?
It's a very cold morning. I had to jump out my warm bed at 5 a.m. and I really didn't want to. But I did. And now I'm sitting with two heaters around me, sipping mint tea and getting cozy again. Hope that everyone is warm. :-)

Friday, March 5, 2010

King/Queen of the house

Thank you for the comments and for saying that my previous painted lady is my prettiest. I don't think that you'll say the same thing for this one. The pretty one was painted carefully and slowly, with light transparent layers of paint. After that I needed something opposite - more paint, less thinking, less planing. I knew I wanted to paint a cat. Maybe it is because Janet's Lulu was recently sick (and doing well now - YAY!), or because I'm thinking often about Dot and her lovely cats, or because our cat Bart is even more cuddly than usual .
Meet Bart:
I wanted to paint a cat, but had no idea what else. I tried sketching and didn't like anything, so I decided to start with the cat and see from there. I thought you might enjoy seeing the process:
Painting this left me feeling very happy. Truth to be said - this whole week has made me feel happy. I painted more and filmed some of it. I'll be sharing soon.
I'm off to have my pre-sleep cup of tea...
Have a happy weekend!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The gentle one

VintageSusie asked me to paint a spring angel surrounded with birdies with "crowns of joy".  Somehow the birds didn't appear in this painting, but knowing me they will be in one of the following paintings.
This gentle girl is living on etsy, and a one a bit different will show up in the next post.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Trying to relax

I took a full week off work to try and center myself and rest. And I'm feeling so guilty for doing it... it's ridicules. Plus - I'm already counting how many days have passed and how many I have left.... I'm not sure that I will be able to really, completely relax. I'm trying. I did some fun things - sketched a little.
I said thank you to our lemon tree for providing us with such amazing fruit.
Some of our lemons are bigger than grapefruit (as you can see on the picture). 
I made molten lava chocolate cakes for the first time. Hana loved them.
I resisted the temptation and didn't try :-)
I finished a project that was started a month ago. 
Recently Magickal Meliss asked me and a group of other artists some cool questions. I enjoyed reading all of the interviews and think that you will too. If you're interested in what I said - you can read it here.