In Progress - 12"x12" - YOR Swirl

Here's the background for the final checkerboard painting. I forgot to snap a shot of the last one after I layed the spiderweb (as my daughter calls the checkerboard outline) down, but will try to remember this time.

Blue Green Purple - 12"x12" on Canvas

It's not as refined as I would have liked (the cover-up wasn't as smooth as it should have been), but I think I'm ok with the results. I have one more checkerboard that I'd like to do and then I have an itch to do another mandala ...

In Progress - 12"x12" - Blue Green Purple

Here's a background that I started the night before last:

The original version was very similar, but when I put the lines down for the checkerboard I had an epiphany and had to cover up the original last night. I used Liquatex acrylic paints in Emerald Green, Cobalt Blue and Titanium White, plus M. Graham and Co. in Dioxazine Purple. I'll lay down the checkerboard outline in Sharpie at some point today and will take a snap prior to filling in the squares. I wasn't very happy with the way the hearts version turned out, (uber-spouse will be "erasing" that canvas for me to use again) so I am hopeful that I have a better result with this one ... guess we'll see.

On a side note ... our anti virus program expired and we won't be able to renew it till next week. I won't be able to visit anyone's blogs till we get it updated, but I'm looking forward to visiting again soon.

Friday Fill-Ins #65

Friday Fill-Ins #65

1. Some relationships are meant to last forever.
2. It's been so long I can't recall the last concert I saw; it's a little depressing.
3. Spring should be sprung.
4. Oh no! I forgot to invent that thingamajig that will provide us with a somewhat disposable income!
5. I've recently started painting again.
6. Watching uber-spouse and critter-child have tickle fights never fails to make me smile.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to re-working a paintings background, tomorrow my plans include getting out of work early to paint a little more and Sunday, I want to sleep in, make blueberry pancakes for breakfast, read a little and paint some more!

Inspire Me Thursday - Wallpaper

Wallpaper - Thursday, March 20, 2008

This week’s creative prompt is Wallpaper. Look to your own favorite papered walls for inspiration of pattern and color… use wallpaper scraps in your art… design your own desktop wallpaper… or perhaps feature wallpaper somehow in an illustration, painting, collage or sketch.

For years my uber-spouse has been trying to coax me to embrace color (for I only worked with two colors at a time and one was almost always black). It's been a real struggle ... you see, I am afraid ... very, very afraid. As a general rule, my eyes don't seem to put colors together well. I thought the wallpaper challenge would be a fun way to play a little with colors and patterns. I wanted to do something bold and bright ... I also needed to stay a little safe by sticking close together on the color wheel ... here's what happened:

This was done with Prisma Color pencils on a piece of 4"x4" Bristol Board.

Thanks for stopping by. Comments are most welcome. :)

Hearts - 12"x12" on canvas

I'm calling this one done. I can't say that I am thrilled with the results. Doing the checkerboard freehand was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated ... there's an obvious area where the design got off and I wasn't able to correct it. Ah well. Good for practice, I suppose. I do plan on doing another one similar to this. I'll definitely use a finer brush to lay out the grid lines ... I think I'll try a crazy more colorful background ... maybe I'll even take a shot at it tonight. :) ... or maybe I'll entertain myself by doing that list-o-things ...

In Progress - Hearts - 12"X12" Acrylic on Canvas

I started another painting last night. I completed the background and feel pretty good about it:

I have been trying my hand at playing with color a little more (I have a tendency to stick to black and whites, but the spouse has been working on me - for a long time - to get a little experimental. I'm still afraid of color, but am really trying to give myself a break.) :) I wanted to do a background using Cadmium Red and Titanium White - red, white, shades of pink ... my mind naturally went to hearts. Next I'll be adding a morphy checkerboard (in Mars Black, of course - hey, I can't stray too far all at once!). I'm nearly certain the checkerboard will obliterate the hearts, but if it works out the way I imagine, the effect should be a pretty cool ... I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Sea Turtle - 18"X18" Acrylic on Canvas

One of my Friday Fill-Ins was to start a painting ... tada - I actually finished it. The painting is 18 inches square. It's a gift for my uber-awesome girlfriends new baby boy. The background colors are (as close as I can recall) the colors in the rug on the critters bedroom floor. I ended up doing the background Friday night. I used Liquitex Acrylic paints, an eyeshadow blender brush (for the background) and one of my new brushes (for the sea turtle) - it's a sable filbert size 2 brush from the Blick Masterstroke line. Holy smokes! The new brush is AWESOME. It holds a good amount of paint and ends in a super fine point that is really quite easy to manipulate. The top half is painted Emerald Green mixed with a small amount of Titanium White & the bottom half is Cobalt Blue mixed with about the smae amount of Titanium White. The entire sea turtle is done in Mars Black. I was thinking that it needed something more, but both the spouse & kid tell me they disagree, so I am considering this piece done ... now let's see how long it takes me to ship it. :)

Friday Fill-Ins #64

Friday Fill-In #64

1. Learning something new is so exciting!
2. Strawberry fields forever (yeah, I know, not very original) :).
3. Cream of asparagus soup in a bread bowl sounds like it would taste delicious (right about now)!
4. Why does finding sharks teeth and cool little rocks at (Stump Pass State Beach Park) make me feel so good?!
5. A moonbow (also known as a lunar rainbow ...) is something I've always wanted to see.
6. It's sad when you see people behave nasty to other people in order to make themselves feel better ... hmmm, pathetic, too.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to dinner, tomorrow my plans include work (as usual) and Sunday, I want to start painting (the long overdue sea turtle for "Boots")!

The Pink Artist Doll Project Update

If it's been a while since you've visited the Pink Artist Doll Project, now is the PERFECT time to get caught up on the progress Amazing Miss Monica is making on the most fabulous doll known as Love Squared. If you aren't yet familiar with the project, here it is in a nutshell:

"the pink artist" is a community of artists joining together to create one joint art doll to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure. When doll has been completed, it will be mailed in to Art Doll Quarterly™ before finally being auctioned off on eBay at a later date.
ALL PROCEEDS WILL DIRECTLY BENEFIT CHARITY.
Remaining squares have made our wall art piece a reality! BRAVO!
***
Group members include:

quilters, quiller, tatting, needlework, mixed-media artists, polymer clay artists,painters, doodlers, felting gurus, beaders, childrens illustrator, collage artists,abstract artists, stitching queens, yarn goddesses, paper artists, rubber stampers,photographers, digital junkies, rusted ART connoisseurs, poets and friends."

... and as for me, daily life and work life have been monopolizing the majority of my time. I am hopeful that thy-hands-they-will-be-creating again before too long. I've been really, really, really wanting to try my hand at making a little beaded doll & owe my uber-awesome bestest girlfriend a painting for her new son ... where shall I begin?!?

Hope all is well with you and yours. ~M~

Friday Fill-Ins #63

Friday Fill-Ins #63

1. Contact may cause spontaneous combustion.
2. The parties hereto do mutually agree that life is good.
3. Disney parks make me twitch.
4. A massage sounds really good right about now!
5. I positively adore my family.
6. A laughing child always makes me smile :-)
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleep, tomorrow my plans include work and then the 2 hour drive to Vero Beach and Sunday, I want to take it easy!

Checker Board

Here are two more 4X4 Sharpie pieces. I remembered a time in my life when I covered most pages with random oddly shaped checker boards and decided to revisit the theme. They tend to be fairly simple to design and don't require a lot of brain cells (in regards to coloring them in).

4X4 Friday - 03/07/08 - Pets

The Friday, March 07 4X4 Friday challenge was ... pets!

How fun is that? I decided to go a more literal route for this weeks challenge. The above is composed of pictures of our very own wonder-dog, Fern. She's a pound puppy (at about 8+ years old, at this point) and since bringing her home, we've been advised that she's actually a "puggle" - mix breed of pug and beagle. Talk about a terrific little critter - everyone that meets her, loves her - she really is that great. She's sweet tempered & has a tongue that's too big for her mouth. :)

The central image is a photo that I took in 2006. I used Jasc Paint Shop to give it a weave affect and then made a copy of that and flipped the image (to achieve the mirror image). The banner of Fern at the top and bottom is the image you'll find on my blog. (I printed the images on 30lb Business Gloss paper.) Love that face! At either edge I globbed on some Liquitex Iridescent Rich Gold acrylic paint (to cover the little bit of white space that the images couldn't quite reach). The heart that surrounds the mirror image is also Liquitex acrylic paint, though it's in Quinacridone Rose with the Rich Gold dots. The whole piece was rather quick and simple, but I have to admit that I'm happy with the results.

Thank you for stopping by. Comments are most welcome. :)

Friday Fill-Ins #62

Friday Fill-Ins #62

1. Ahhhh, it's so nice when uber-spouse makes one of his dreamy creamy soups.
2. One of my favorite things on my desk or bureau is pretty much everything (I surround myself with things I love), but I'll narrow it down to three things: 1) a bronze buddha that the uber-spouse cast at a foundry he worked at when we were first married, 2) the glittery fairy princess picture Sadie drew for me a couple of years ago & 3) the love bug that I made for said uber-spouse (it's a painted rock, but I dig it just the same).
3. Japanese Cherry Blossom's should be painted on my bedroom wall.
4. Outside on the lanai when the weather is just so (or the rain is falling) is my favorite place to sit and read.
5. Olive loaf from Trader Joe's and butter is delicious!
6. I love to watch chicks kick ass in movies.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to bed (go figure), tomorrow my plans include work (of course) and Sunday, I want to make something pretty!

What's in a Name?

I love letters. I could freehand personalized monograms for hours and hours on end. There is something about letters that my brain (and hand) finds so soothing. I'm sure that it has a lot to do with letters being symbols (yep, I love, love, love symbols & patterns - especially repetative patters and symetrical symbols) and that you can change the expression of the symbol by shifting the script/style of the letter. "M" has always been a great letter for me ... first letter of my first name, the month I was born, and the following fantabulous words ... mama, mother, magic, mystery, muse, music, moon, mist, myth, mirth, move, maze, maize (hehe, I like corn-knee stuff), mitten, mouse, mastery, maiden, moth, monolithic, mercurial, Matisse, Monet, Moore, marigold, mandolin, magnolia, macrame, malochite (sigh), macadamia (yum), mud, Mabel ... uh, I could go on and on, but I will refrain ... all this leads into a thank you to Monica for her fun post "Celebrate your name by throwing it a party" ...

... You see, I haven't been making anything for the last few days. Typical - I tend to feast or famine. It's not that I don't want to make/draw/paint/create anything, it's just that I'm ... dry. The feeble attempts have been just that - pretty feeble. I'm not good with that. Not good with trying to force something ... it's like, when I hold a pen in hand my strokes aren't just flowing, but stagnant or strained. It feels cramped ... that doesn't quite capture it, but I am at a loss for a better word ... so, I've been spending a few days checking out other peoples blogs which leads me back to Monica and that fun post ...

I decided to check out the meaning of my name .... drumroll, please

Michelle

ORIGIN: Hebrew
MEANING: Who resembles God

The French feminine form of Michael that debuted on the popularity chart in 1938 and has been listed among the top 100 since 1954. The name spent nine years at No. 5 after the release of the famed 1965 Beatles' song "Michelle" known for its bilingual lyrics.

I have been known to tell people that I was named after above mentioned Beatles song (I have always, always liked the Beatles, thank you ... plus, how can you not like hearing your name and then, "I love you, I love you, I love you ..."?) ... alas, this is not really true. My brother's first girlfriend was a pretty little strawberry blond with a serious lisp (they were 5) and her name was Michelle. My mom said she just liked the name ... want the better part of the story? My middle name is Dawn ... I have no issues there - daybreak is pretty spectacular - but, get this ... Dawn was the name of the bassett hound that lived next door ... such is life, eh? :)

Just the same, I don't think I'd trade it ... even for all the Sharpies in all the lands.