I have Craft A.D.D.

Ever since we moved into our new home and my new studio, I can’t concentrate on one art or craft technique.  I want to do it all and there are just not enough hours in a day.  So what happens? Well, a whole lot of little crafty items that I normally wouldn’t do.

So other than getting the studio set up, and that’s not done to my satisfaction yet either, it’s a whole lot of little “getting to know you again” projects, most of which are inspired by Pinterest In fact, I’m blaming 50% of my craft ADD on Pinterest; 25% on the unpacking of some of the supplies that have been in storage for 2 years; and the other 25% is just my natural tendency to flit from technique to technique.

So what have I been up to? And just so you don’t think I’m exaggerating, here is some proof of my actual “craftiness”.

This first one is directly attributable to Pinterest.  If you use Pinterest, tell me you haven’t seen this before? I made it for my grandson’s room in our house.

Then I decided I wanted to add Crochet lace around the edge of some, not yet made, homemade pillow cases. :)  However, I didn’t know how to crochet, so I had to teach myself to crochet. And yes, with Pinterest help, I found some great sites that would teach me how to crochet.  (Sensing a theme here?) My first project was a scarf…just as winter was waning. 

Second crochet project is a multicolored afghan that I’m working on at night as I watch TV if it isn’t too hot to work on.  It does get warm under all that yarn.

 

Recently I’ve let my hair grow, at my husbands request, I might add.  So much so that it’s getting in my face and annoying me.  So before I cut it, I decided to make some barrettes using blanks I found at Hobby Lobby.  Here are the first 3 I made….any body who snickers will be….What? Patted on the back for having good taste?  Yeah.

The barrette below was finished yesterday and I do like this one. The main body of the barrette was made from a watch band that belonged to my mother. The actual watch part was missing and all that was left was the cool looking band and the glass crystal face. So I removed the bottom portion of the band leaving only the decorative portion. Then I found a metal shank button that seemed to be made just for this piece. I removed the shank and glued the button to the glass crystal using some E6000 glue. When it was dry I glued the piece you see here to the barrette blank. After drying for 24 hours, it’s ready for use.

What’s next? Yesterday I finished digging out a 13’ x 4’garden plot and I plan to do some Square foot gardening. It’s not crafty but it’s something we’ve been wanting to do for the last 2 years. I’m a little sore from all that digging.

As for crafting/Art, if I made a list of everything I want to do, I’ll drive myself crazy.

I‘m having fun but why can’t I just win the lotto so I don’t have to work for a living?  My husband says “You have to play to win.”  Oh yeah, there is that.

March 9 - National Panic Day?

Hi again.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I hope you haven’t all moved on to someone funnier, smarter and who posts much more than I have been lately. But if you have, I totally understand. :) 

Until lately, I’d been completely uninspired to do any art work.  Back in November we learned that due to our short sale in 2010 we wouldn’t qualify to buy a new home for at least another year.  It didn’t matter that we had enough saved to pay 20% down.  It was depressing.

I hated renting….especially renting from someone who was more than a little anal about his lawn…of all things. We lived in that house for over a year and never fully moved in, if you know what I mean.  We never wanted to make the rental a home and get complacent about living there. So it was depressing to find out that we would have to stay for yet another year.  

But My Guy and I decided to get creative.  Instead of going for a conventional mortgage we decided to look for a home whose seller was willing to finance the purchase. I’d done it before so I had no qualms about it.  But we had a lot of “Wants” and “Must haves” so we were sure it was going to take a while.  We got lucky, after few short weeks of looking we found one and  WE MOVED!!   Packing, moving, cleaning, unpacking, rearranging etc… it all takes a while. 

Among the wants and must haves was a studio/office for me. This place has a detached  studio space that is 18’ X 15’ ---how cool is that? Here are some pictures of the  space just before I moved in. 

This is my art side:  Love those shelves!  I plan a painting area, a paper crafting/collage area and a sewing area. I have lots of fabric that’s still in storage that I want to pull out and play with. I also have glass and plates to mosaic with and I want to paint furniture..see there is no end to those “wants.”

This is my office side….there is room for a desk, file cabinets and printer on this side.

And it has two huge windows on the north and west side.

I’m excited about the possibilities.  To date I have moved in, the shelves are filled, but it’s not exactly right yet. It’s a work in progress. 

Speaking of work, my first journal page in weeks:

Thanks for stopping by, Come back again soon. I hope not to make a stranger of myself for too much longer.

A Christmas Angel

Here’s a piece I started working on a while back.  When I started it she had a different face and it didn’t inspire me to finish it.  So I finally got around to re-working the face and I like her much better now.

 

 

Linking to Paint Party Friday because I haven’t partied in way too long!

PS: This painting is dedicated to my mom, whose birthday would be today. I love you and miss you Mom!

I’ve doodled my way out of hiding

Yeah, I know I’ve been gone for a while.  What can I say? My Muse has been on vacation and while I’ve been trying to entice her to come back she has obstinately refused to do so.  I’ve been able to create a few things but nothing steadily.  I did finish this doodle just this morning and thought maybe if I post, it would shame my muse into coming back to play.  We’ll see if it works. Wish me luck.

What have you been up to?

Liberate Your Art 2012 Blog Hop

I wanted to thank Kat Sloma of Kat Eye Studio for hosting the Liberate Your Art postcard swap and the blog hop. I received 6 gorgeous postcards that I want to share with you.

Under the image you will find the artists name.

 

1. DL Gould Designs (sorry I could not read the blog address.)
2. Jen Riley (no website address listed)
3. Kat Sloma
4. Barbara Evans
5. Elizbeth Gonzales
6. Kate Daniel

I want to thank the above individuals and all the participants for making this such a successful and fun project.

This is the postcard I traded.  I’m sure some of you will recognize it. :)

Thanks again to everyone and be sure to visit the other blog hop participants.

New Traveling Art Journal page

Not having much time for art these last couple weeks. Needed to get this out, I hope Christi likes it. Christi provided some cool paper to journal on. I loved the gridded text and decided to let it show through.

He listens to color

I just saw this video and found it fascinating. I hope you will too.




I wonder what my face sounds like. Pleasant I hope.

St. Clare

We started something new this week, my “husband” bought the dvd’s for the Insanity workout for the both of us. I’ll have you know there is a reason they call it the “Insanity” workout; it’s because you have to be insane to do this workout if:

1. you are over 25 and
2. you are not in shape to begin with.

I’ll bet you can guess that I have hardly been able to move. Notice who I blamed (said “husband”) because I can hardly move my arms to paint….no, it’s not my fault I’m so out of shape. :)

Well after a week I have finally moved out of the “so sore I can hardly move” stage and was able to complete the painting of St Clare. And you’ll notice that I took some liberties with the color. The original painting by Simone Martini (1284-1344) is below my rendition.

The lesson for this weeks Diary of faces class was hands, but I feel that the position of the mouth and nose and the head cloth was more difficult than the hands in this painting. 

Overall I’m happy with how it turned out.

Here is the original:

If you’d like to know more about St. Clare, visit this Link: St Clare 

I’m linking to Paint Party Friday, please the other participants. There always lots of wonderful art to see.

Faces of Angels and Saints

What I have for this week’s Paint Party Friday entry are a couple of works in progress.

The first is an angel using one of my 29 faces sketches from May that I painted as a male last week but a female this week. (What a difference thin eyebrows make.)  It’s still a work in progress as I need to do something to the background and the wings.

This next work in progress is for the Diary of faces class. I chose to work on a rendition of a portion of Simone Martini (1284-1344)- painting of Saint-Clare.  I’ll show the full painting when I complete the painting.   This week the focus was supposed to be hands but I’m having more problems with the shadows on the head cloth than the hands. Hopefully it will look better when it’s painted.

Any constructive criticism on the sketch is welcome. I’ve been looking at it so long I can’t tell if it’s all pointed in the right direction. :)

Thanks for stopping by. Please be sure to visit the other Paint Party Friday participants. 

Diary of Faces wk 2

Here is my rendition of Nicolae Grigorescu’s painting named Gypsy's Head. Nicolae Grigorescu was a Romanian Painter, 1838-1907 and was one of the founders of modern Romanian painting.  You can see more of his art by clicking here.

Here is my initial sketch

This is my painting, and it seems that somewhere in the middle of the painting she decided to look elsewhere than straight ahead. I mean, in my initial sketch and the original painting the eyes are looking straight ahead and now they are looking to the left.   But over all I’m pleased with the results. At least she isn’t googly eyed right?

and below is the original work by the artist:

I’m linking to Paint Party Friday. Please go visit this blog and all the wonderful art by the participants.

 

One last note: And I have to say welcome back to my precious Little G who spent a confusing week away from his mama, papa and nana. My cautionary note for the week: If you’re thinking of taking a child away from his only source of security, please think of the child and not your own petty reasons for taking him. It took him quite a while to feel secure again that we weren’t going to leave him.  I’m sure no one reading this blog would do that to a child but I had to say it.  That’s all.