My Charm Entries

4/24 - Woohooo! Looks like the elephant charm won out. Time to get-a-making. :)

I just emailed Amber Dawn with my two attempts for her Black and White Charm Swap - the entries are juried, so there's a definite possibility that my attempts will not be accepted. I am so totally OK with that and no matter the outcome, I am really happy that I worked on these. The first is a beaded doll. The head is a black Swarovski crystal and the rest are glass beads:

This second option took two of the ideas I originally had and morphed it into this:

As you can see, it's a reversable charm. This (being the first attempt) isn't as refined as future versions will be - I plan on much smoother coats of paint, a little finer sanding of the wooden pieces and a little more border of the silver painted edge. If you click on the pictures to see a larger view, don't be surprised by the grainy looking elephant - the photo's are much larger than actual size as this charm measures 3/4 inch x 3/4 inch. I will keep everyone posted on if either of my submissions are accepted. Wish me luck!

For the latest Art Doll update, check out the newest photo's here.

Red Checkerboard - redone

I wasn't happy with the results of the first attempt of the red/heart checkerboard ... here's the updated version:

YOR Swirl

I thought I was going to start a Mandala next, but I think I need to do just one more checkerboard. I'm waiting on da mahn to cover the hearts canvas. I'm planning on revisiting that same hearts background and either using circles (like this one) or hearts in the checkerboard ... the main difference is that the checkerboard will cover the entire painting rather than be quartered.

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 ...

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 ...

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. :)