Posts Tagged ‘art triumphs/woes’

Studio Friday: 7 Random Studio Fact/Habbits

Friday, November 30th, 2007

is this week’s Studio Friday topic. Here are mine:

  1. I work best when nobody is home and I crank the stereo up as loud as I can
  2. Viva paper towels are the only ones that work well for me when painting, and if I’m out, I’m like a spoiled little kid and refuse to open a single bottle of paint
  3. My paint brushes have teeth marks in them from either biting down when I’m holding them, or giving them a little chew in hopes of continued inspiration
  4. I always drop a bead or two, and I almost never go after it/them (I know, I know)
  5. On occasion I have dipped my brush into my beverage, mistaking it for the water cup
  6. I dance wildly around the house in between coats of paint… which is why I like it when nobody is home
  7. I get jazzed by other artists, so I like to read my fave blogs with a cup of coffee in the morning before getting in gear

    Tracy?s Art Buttons{These are buttons I made for a button swap back in 2003! I just found the pic so I thought I’ld share.  Hmmm, maybe I should make some more.}

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    Posted in CHALLENGE |

    Spirito di ZNE

    Sunday, July 1st, 2007

    Yesterday I was featured at Sprito de Zne!
    They wrote a really nice blurb about me – how cool. (thanks gals)
    Check it out here.

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    Posted in CHECK IT OUT, LIFE |

    My house to yours….

    Friday, June 8th, 2007


    This is the glass house I made for the Habitat for Humanity Auction. This is how it was done:

    • cut glass in shapes for the house (2 pieces for each side/roof)
    • made the collages for each side in photoshop and printed (credits to follow)
    • added glitter to the butterfly wings, then sandwiched each collage in between each set of glass and edged with copper foil (available at www.artwerx.us)
    • soldered up the edges, forming the house
    • glued on twigs and moss found locally, then the little birds, pocket watch (available at www.artwerx.us), and silver spoon.

    I left ‘vent’ space in the walls so tea lights could be placed underneath. For the roof I sandwiched a printed paper and copper mesh that was heated to color. I’m pretty happy with it. I need to make another to keep for myself, but I think I’ll go a bit smaller.

    House collage was made using my fave digi-artist’s kits:
    Tracy Ann Designs
    *Peek-A-Boo Words 2
    Holly McCaig
    *Flourish
    Jen Wilson
    *A Little Birdie Told Me
    Rhonna Farrer
    *Peachy Keen
    *June 2006 Freebie
    Kathryn Balint
    *Make a Fairy
    Melanie Willman
    *Call of the Wild

    The layout I made used:
    Holly McCaig
    *Summer Lovin
    *Journal Dates
    Meredith Fenwick
    *Covered Stamp Sheets 2
    Jen Caputo
    *Torn Out & Curled Rips

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    Posted in ART, DIGITAL |

    Snow Day …. Charms & Headache Free

    Monday, January 15th, 2007

    Last Thursday we had a snow day! Oh ya – we got a whole 2 inches and the town was in a tizzy and canceled school. They just have no idea what snow is around…. it NEVER happens. Sometime we get slushy snow mixed with rain, but it never never sticks on the ground, so to wake up last Thursday and this was amazing!
    I was so sick with my damn headache, I wasn’t able to go driving around to take pics of the dunes or anything, which was a drag, but I was happy to know it was there.

    So yesterday (Sunday) was my fist day, migraine free, in almost a week! I just had the best time finishing up my charms for the other charm swap. Tyler spent the whole day with me (instead of being in his room hooked up to his headphones and guitars), so I was sheer heaven. After spending the entire day taping and soldering I hopped online to read my mail, surf the net, catch up on some blogs and even managed to crank out the two scrapbook pages for the snow and charms in photoshop! I was a little too excited and stayed up till 4:30 this morning playing, but I don’t care – it’s the first day I have felt like myself in weeks!!!

    Here are my charms… I had made up the pic with brushes in photoshop, punched them out and stuck them to the glass pebbles earlier, so all I had to do was wrap them in copper tape and solder them up, but it took pretty much all day because I did quite a bit more than the 25 needed for the shop, since I knew that some of them might would be duds. I am not a master solderer, so I always make extra ;)

    (All the credits for my layouts can be found on my flicker page… click on the link to right)
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    Posted in JEWELRY |

    photo a day…

    Sunday, January 7th, 2007

    is one thing, posting them is another. I have been taking pictures, but I don’t always get the time to log on, hook up my camera, edit the size, etc. Oh well – at least I’m taking more pictures.

    I bought a 250 gig external hard drive last night. I have a dinosaur of a computer and it’s full to the brim with all my pics, songs, and digital files. So full it won’t even defrag properly, so I got some extra storage and it’s nice to have my important stuff off my computer in case it ever crashes, I won’t loose everything. I got an external one so the whole family can use it. My son can take it to his room and put his stuff on too. I’m pretty happy with it.

    I’m working on my second set of charms for the other swap. I have to get them in the mail pretty quick so I better finish. I’ll post pics later.

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    Posted in LIFE |

    Took the hubby

    Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
    Today I took my hubby to the gallery where my art is on display. We took a few photos, pardon the glare from the glass case the shadow from the display on the tree pic. You can’t tell from the photo, but ALL the stars in the sky on the tree pic are Swarovski crystals. {photo frame credit: Anna Aspnes}

    I’ve had requests to put my charm back on Etsy, so I’m going to do it. Again, if you are in the charm swap – don’t look because these are being sent in to one of them (I won’t tell you which one, so even if you do peek, you won’t know)

    Immigration update for those sweet souls who have been following along and sending me emails of encouragement…. We have filed our final papers – woo hoo! Ty can be out of school for some time still, but the superintendent is a champ and promised he would day anything it takes to get him caught up again, upon returning. At least that’s a load of my mind.

    Peace!

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    Posted in JEWELRY |

    Too much of good thing….

    Sunday, November 5th, 2006

    I woke up this morning to find a letter, from a very upset artist, thinking that I had stolen her idea, and she wanted me to credit her for the design. Horrified that I was being accused of stealing, I wrote her back with my sources of inspiration (home decor items). Because I felt her pain of having an idea ‘out there’ when she was trying to keep it under wraps for an upcoming publication, I pulled my photos from flickr… my item for sale on Etsy…. but there’s a bid on my auction on ebay, so I couldn’t pull that. I pulled all those things out of empathy for her. After searching and finding all my links to send her, I found a ton of the same item on etsy already. Both posted before mine, and after. Hey they are adorable – who wouldn’t want to make some? It just goes to show you there are no new ideas out there, lol.
    I’m happy that we have worked it out this morning…
    she has no ill feelings for me, and vice versa. As a matter of fact, she’s one of my fav artists, so I couldn’t be happier that this was all a big misunderstanding AND bad timing for other reasons.

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    Posted in LIFE |

    Going for the hat-trick

    Friday, November 3rd, 2006

    Wow – what a great 2 days it’s been…. first finding out I got into the show, then tonight we went to the reception and found out I got 2 honorable mentions! (for this one and this one) That’s my first score.
    My second score was our fantastic visit with my son’s neurologist today. He found the answer we have been looking for, for 13 years. The tears just started welling when it happened – such relief.
    So… the third score I need for my hat-trick is immigration to say yes to school with out 485 filing.
    If you say prayers – we need one for that.

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    Posted in LIFE |

    Doin’ the Happy Dance

    Wednesday, November 1st, 2006

    All day I had my phone call forwarding to my cell, waiting for the call from the selection group at the FEC gallery, to hear if I got in the juried show I’ve been making art for. I didn’t get a call so I went down there (because I know the stuff had to be picked up by 5 tonight). I didn’t realize they were only calling people to pick up art that didn’t make it into the show… that’s why they didn’t call me because all 3 pieces of my art made it!!!! I am so excited!!!!! There is a private reception tomorrow night for all the artists who submitted. We can bring one guest, so I’m bringing Tyler, since he’s seen me fret over this since I started my show pieces, and he was with me when I found out. He was so proud of me – that was the best!!!! He’s never been to any of my receptions yet either, because he was Canada all year, so this will something I can share with him.

    I’m so happy to have some good news, especially since we are going through this whole immigrations/school thing. The X’s new wife told him this is my problem, so he won’t help pay for this, which is our only stumbling block at the point. This really sucks – it’s not me they need to help, it’s our son. I swear, every man that leaves his family and gets a new one, leaves his original kids behind…. it happened with me, it happened to my best friend’s kids…. and now poor Tyler. I just want to call the ‘latest’ wife and tell her she better not get too cozy, cuz sooner or later she’ll be old news and she just might feel this frustration with the kids they have together too. But I’m not going to call – I’m just going to find a way and when they call seeing if he’s coming up for Christmas I’m going to tell where to shove the mistletoe!

    OK – back to the good news…. I recently got accepted into a group of artists that I not only admire, but really respect. I’m now a member of MMCA (mixed media collage artists) and I’m tickled pink. I accomplished my art goal for 2006 – to get my work out there in shows and galleries and start selling. My goal for 2007 is to start submitting my art to publications that I admire and really focus on some pieces that I can market to shops/galleries (they need to be reproducible)

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    Posted in LIFE |

    Doin’ the Happy Dance

    Wednesday, November 1st, 2006

    All day I had my phone call forwarding to my cell, waiting for the call from the selection group at the FEC gallery, to hear if I got in the juried show I’ve been making art for. I didn’t get a call so I went down there (because I know the stuff had to be picked up by 5 tonight). I didn’t realize they were only calling people to pick up art that didn’t make it into the show… that’s why they didn’t call me because all 3 pieces of my art made it!!!! I am so excited!!!!! There is a private reception tomorrow night for all the artists who submitted. We can bring one guest, so I’m bringing Tyler, since he’s seen me fret over this since I started my show pieces, and he was with me when I found out. He was so proud of me – that was the best!!!! He’s never been to any of my receptions yet either, because he was Canada all year, so this will something I can share with him.

    I’m so happy to have some good news, especially since we are going through this whole immigrations/school thing. The X’s new wife told him this is my problem, so he won’t help pay for this, which is our only stumbling block at the point. This really sucks – it’s not me they need to help, it’s our son. I swear, every man that leaves his family and gets a new one, leaves his original kids behind…. it happened with me, it happened to my best friend’s kids…. and now poor Tyler. I just want to call the ‘latest’ wife and tell her she better not get too cozy, cuz sooner or later she’ll be old news and she just might feel this frustration with the kids they have together too. But I’m not going to call – I’m just going to find a way and when they call seeing if he’s coming up for Christmas I’m going to tell where to shove the mistletoe!

    OK – back to the good news…. I recently got accepted into a group of artists that I not only admire, but really respect. I’m now a member of MMCA (mixed media collage artists) and I’m tickled pink. I accomplished my art goal for 2006 – to get my work out there in shows and galleries and start selling. My goal for 2007 is to start submitting my art to publications that I admire and really focus on some pieces that I can market to shops/galleries (they need to be reproducible)

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    Posted in LIFE |
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