Marie Antoinette Gothic Arch

This is my really late entry for the Gothic Arch challenge this week. I wish I could have finished this sooner, but I had a really hard time with it.

Once I saw the theme was Marie Antoinette I knew I would do something whimsical. Well actually when don't I huh?

It just so happened that I had gone to a museum a few weeks ago and saw a painting there of a lady of some importance wearing the widest dress I ever saw in my life. Seriously I'm not sure how she would have gotten in and out of doorways with that thing.

Since it was so outrageously huge, I remember thinking, gosh it's like she's wearing a sofa. I swear that's what it looked like.

So when I saw the Gothic Arch challenge this week, naturally I had to use a sofa as her dress. The problem with the sofa however, was what to do about her appendages. Hmmm...well, wouldn't it be kinda cool if she had some arms? And maybe little feet? No not feet....How about... Roller Skates! Why not? Let's have fun with this.

So she got her arms and skates, but then it occurred to me, wouldn't it be even better if she were holding a cake in one hand a fork in the other? After all one of her famous quotes is, "Let them eat cake" right?

Just so you know, the arms are me, the fork is mine, and the cake is our wedding cake. After spending way to long looking for the just the right picture of people's hands and cakes, I decided to do it myself. Much faster that way.

So after adding all that, I felt the inside of the arch was way too serious and plain. It was really bugging me, and just the other day, I read on Lemoncholy's blog, something about when in doubt add polka dots! I couldn't agree more. I added the words and the dots inside and I think it gave it the final whimsical touch it needed.

My husband liked the more serious version better without the red hair and polka dots, and birthday party look as he calls it, but sheesh, a girl's gotta have fun right?

P.S. Please excuse the photograph, I took it tonight despite what I learned the other day, and it's just not as bright as it should be. I know I should have waited til daytime, but I just couldn't wait to get it posted. I will take another picture in the daylight and update it later.

Yippee!! My teapot is done! I have been working on this for over a month. I am super slow, but it's not like I've been doing it everyday. It took about seven visits to Petroglyph, until it was finished.

Speaking of slow, my husband is still working on his bowl, which means that I got to purchase a latte mug to paint while he finishes. Hee-hee. Now I'll have two pieces. *Smile*

I cannot wait til his bowl is done! When it is, I'm totally showing it here, because it will blow you away. I'm not kidding, it's like the best bowl ever. Too cool.

Anyway the picture at the top is the front of the teapot. The designs are doodles I did while at work. Yes I was working at the time, just that I was on the phone, and isn't it like the law to doodle while talking on the phone?

I did the insides and back to, which if I remember how to add more pictures I'll show you right now....


This is the back. And...



These are the insides.

What a project that was!! It takes forever and a year to paint, because you have to add 3 or 4 coats of paint to make it smooth, and when you do something detailed it's that much slower.

It's also distracting because when the colors are painted on they are so light, it's really difficult to know what it's going to look like. For instance I'm not at all happy about blue top. It so doesn't go with the dark purple background of the rest of the pot. I wish I painted the top purple too, but it was done first, and when I was painting the body, it went well with the blue on top. Well! Now I know. I will not make that mistake again!

Mushroom Queen

Okay here is a mixed media canvas I did tonight. It's my first real completed collage on canvas. Well, one that came out decent anyway. ( Don't get me started on my Katherine Howard one).

Anyhoo, I'm going to do three of these little 11x14 canvases. Each with a different character. This is the first.

Images are from my personal stash of magazine cutouts and papers from K&C company.

I like this girl, but something is missing I think. I'll work on the other two tonight, and hopefully it will come to me, what to do to make it better.

It's not as busy as I usually do, so maybe that's it. Then again, maybe less is more?

If they turn out okay, I might continue with this idea. I really like this size canvas too, it's so easy to work with.

I'm also working on a large piece right now, that was supposed to be entered in a couple of last week's challenges, but it's not coming together and it's driving me crazy. The size is very awkward for doing collage, at least for me it is. I'm used to my art journal which is a tiny bit smaller than this canvas. I guess it just takes practice, practice, practice.

Okay, back to the studio today, hopefully I'll get something accomplished!

Thanks for the memories...

No this isn't a painting I've done recently. In fact it's pretty darn old. Probably 8 or 9 years old actually. But the reason I'm putting it up today, is because last week I had the extreme pleasure to see the original Monet painting at the Legion of Arts Museum in San Francisco.

I know! Imagine my surprise. I had no idea it was there, and the crazy thing is I almost missed it. It was the very last room we went in, and it we had almost skipped that section earlier by accident. Thank goodness we didn't.!

Now I have to admit, that most of the artwork at the museum didn't ring any bells for me. I know. I'm supposed to appreciate all that fine art, and I do! I totally appreciate all the work and details they put into each painting. How they are able to make them so realistic looking is beyond me. I will never be able to do that. It's just that the subject matter is not my cup of tea. Loads of dead animals, and religious paintings. Plus everything is in browns, blacks and grey. Um. I love color. So yeah it was a teensy bit drab for me.

The truth is, I don't really start digging Fine Art until we start getting into the impressionistic period. That's more up my ally. Something about not being too detailed, the use of color, and more interesting subject matter.

Anyhoo, Monet is my favorite artist from that period, and back when I was just venturing into the painting world, I used a lot of his paintings as subject matter. Like I said the painting above is one of my favorites. It really caught my eye, and I set out to duplicate it.

Well, as you can see, I didn't exactly make it identical to his. Obviously my love for bright color came through loud and clear, (the original is very pastel) plus I don't do the whole little brushstroke/dot things that impressionists did.

However, I do like this painting a lot, even though it's not at all my style anymore. I probably wouldn't make anything like this again, but at the time I thought it was the bees knees. I like it so much I made an oil pastel of it too, which actually came out better I think, but unfortunately I don't have a picture of it.

So, since I don't have any recent artwork finished other than a ton of backgrounds I made for my art journal, (playing with water crayons and gesso, so much fun!), I thought I would pay a tribute to the artist that started it all, and show you guys this painting from way back when.

Fairy Of Secrets

This is my entry for this week's Created Byhand Challenge. The theme is fairies.

Right away I knew I wasn't going to do a typical fairy. I had the Mona Lisa face, and saw the cabinet in a magazine, and thought wow that would make a cool body. Let's put the face on it and add some wings and voila! The Fairy of Secrets was born. Though honestly I never knew until now, how masculine Mona Lisa's face is. No matter what I did, she still looks like a man dressed like a girl to me. Strange.

Anyhoo, I thought the cabinet for a body, indicted that she had things locked inside her, hence the secret idea. Then I found the lips, and thought oh boy a zipper would be good here, but totally forgot that idea, until my husband saw it and said he had a zipper I could use. He actually drilled holes into it, so it could be sewed onto the canvas.

See, I would have glued it, and then it probably would have fallen off. It's a good thing I have him around to make sure my artwork is stable. :)

Oh yeah, I totally stole the words Fairy Tale and the butterfly from Nancy's Crowabout Challenge pages. Thanks Nancy!

UPDATE: I have since gone back to the Created byhand Challenge website, and realized that you are supposed to use images from them for your challenge. Oops!

I also have uploaded the a new version of the picture, since the first one was wrong. I took the picture at night, and the colorswere way off. The background wasn't supposed to be all orange. It has been bothering me ever since I posted it, and today I decided to try to fix it. The picture now reflects the true colors of the painting, *smile*, unfortunately the resolution is terrible. Oh well. One thing at a time.

Parlor Queen

Here is my journal page for this weeks College Play with Crowabout. It's a wee bit late, but oh well. It's still so much fun to create these collages that I decided to finish it and post it anyway.

I really love this group, and it is very cool to see what other people do with the same images. The hard part is not peaking until you are done with your own collage, since I don't want to let anyone's pictures, influence me.

Oh yeah, I just want to say that some of the colors are off. So whatever looks to be grey or blah looking is actually flourescent pink or orange. I don't know why but the scanner won't scan those colors.

My First Mosaic

Well here it is, 7 months later, and I'm finally writing the post for this picture.
I swear I have no idea what happened to me after Christmas. I was busting out art left and right, and then come Thanksgiving, I put all my effort into the mosiac you see in the picture.

This was my mom's Christmas present. It took a month and a half to make, and for some reason that was the last bit of art I did until recently. On my husbands birthday, we went to Petroglyph. You know, that place where you paint your own ceramics. It's a pretty cool place, and right on our way home, so we gave it a shot.

For the past 5 weeks (yes we are reallllly sloooow), we have been working on our pieces (I'm doing a teapot, he's doing a bowl), and after painting there for a few hours, we are inspired to do more art when we get home. Of course that meant I had to check out all my favorite art blogs again, which totally fired me up even more, and then I found a whole slew of new artists that I have to follow which means that I spent a large amount of time looking at wonderful, and inspirational art work. Oh and don't get me started on the art challenges, I've been missing. What was I thinking?

Obviously It was time for me to re-enter the art world. I have started working on challenges again to give me a jump start. Right now I'm working on a challenge for the Three Muses, and Collage Play with Crowabout, which reminds me I need to finish my piece tonight!!

I also as you can see, revamped the look of my blog, and I have to admit, that I totally stole the idea from Nancy Baumiller once I saw her site. Sorry Nancy, but it was too cool to pass up, and I tried a load of other cool Wallpapers from Itkupilli (where I got my background) but as cool as they were, they were too busy once my art pictures come on board.

Alright, now I'm ready to go, and hopefully I won't stop creating for such a long period again.

Which reminds me, I want to talk about that mosaic.

Now that project started thanks to Laurie Mika. Oh my gosh I love her stuff! I grabbed her book in an art store one day, and fell in love. I have always wanted to do mosaics, and I just had to try it now that I saw what could be done.

It was so much fun, but seriously time consuming. Like I said it took a month and a half, and honestly when I was done, I wanted to keep it for myself! Don't worry I didn't. I gave it to my mom, and the shriek of delight upon opening her present was worth every second.

I still really need to do one for myself though and I will, but I want to get some canvases and journal pages done first. I'm really trying to incorporate my collages onto canvas, and for some reason it's a lot harder! I'm hoping to get the hang of it soon, and my goal is to get enough pieces that I can finagle my way into our local gallery. Wish me luck!