Sam's Love Glasses

I love Valentine's Day. Actually that is untrue. I love the time after New Years leading up to Valentine's Day. I have trouble with the actual day itself BUT all the days leading up to it can be filled with an abundance of cuteness: pink, white, or red. Deeelightful.

Sam (to the left) he loves it too!

Holiday Paint Out Week 3: Joy

Here's my final image for this week's Holiday Paint Out with Creative Catalyst Productions. This week's prompt was "Joy," and for me there is something incredibly joyful about a fresh bouquet of flowers. Especially at this time of year in Oregon.

I have mixed feelings about the piece's outcome. I have to remind myself that I'm still struggling with basic things like color mixing, design, and composition. It's easy to get critical at a point in the learning process where really I should keep my criticisms quiet and just keep creating. The thing between me now and where I want to be is probably a couple hundred hours of practice so that is what I will keep doing.

Holiday Paint Out Week 2: Peace

I'm just coming in under the wire on this week's Holiday Paint Out with Creative Catalyst Productions. I have mixed feelings about it. I know I want to use this type of stenciling, but I'm not yet sure if I want the value to go light to dark or dark to light. I'm also not completely clear in my head about how to do that.

I do know thought that if you put too much matte medium in your fluid acrylics, yes, it makes a very subtle glaze, but oh goodness you may spend 3 hours trying to get anything dark.

This was originally just sort of the throw away piece, but then it developed better than the rest. Due to the time crunch, it has the darkest section smack dab in the middle. That creates a good challenge to work through!

I need to keep working with the silhouette idea. I also probably need to learn how to draw. Oh *sigh.*

Holiday Paint Out: Community

I'm doing the Holiday Paint Out over at Creative Catalyst Productions, and this is my first entry. The prompt was the word "community" and I thought about Thanksgiving. I was trying to evoke a sense of being around a table but your perspective is up through the flowers. As I learn to draw better hopefully I'll do a better job at capturing gesture and all of that. But until then, basic human shapes it is!

I used a mix of Anne Bagby 2 (Pattern & Form: Advanced Collage Techniques) and Jane Davies (DVD release set 2012) for the papers.

To see the steps, click "read more" down at the bottom.

Weekend Wax, "First Rain"

Here's my weekend's attempt at beeswax collage. I always forget how slow beeswax collage is compared to collage where there's paint and mediums flying. So yes, there was a little fight with the new skill set but it was completely worth it and I'm hooked.

 Click read more at the bottom to see the step by step.

Love Story

I have been somewhat absent from CraftAmor, but there is a glimmer of hope that I can return. Work and weddings and all things merry. BUT I finished a project long in the making. And by long I mean, I mean I did 99% of it together and then sat on the final 1% debating music until LAST NIGHT I finally said, "Oh wait, this could be finished." And alas. There it was.

On Friday I introduced you to Yarn Engagement Buds. Here are those beauties in action. Here they are as part of the flowers at my sister's engagement party. Most people didn't even realize they were yarn and it was great to see them realize that they weren't what they expected.

(Also, seeing all these pictures of donuts just makes me want to wander down the street and buy a donut!)