Gesture Drawing

Gesture Drawing is a quickly made drawing that considers the function, the action or expression by reporting in as quick and fluid of a manner conveying as much general information as possible.

The top two gesture drawings were done by me in my first drawing class. The bottom gesture drawing was done by my drawing professor Bonnie Lally. I was the actual subject which was fun to see a gestured drawing of myself.  I enjoyed how she could get excellent linear perspective in under 3 minutes.

Draw Some Shoes......

Taking a drawing class was so daunting for me, but I cannot get my art degree without it. I can't even take most art classes without it. Sooooooo......I started January 8, and it has been so much fun. This is our first project which is a gesture drawing followed by a contour line, no shading, tonal variation, values etc.
It was a lot of fun to figure out how to make things seem three dimensional by the thickness of your pencil marks.

Leaves 78-82 Recycled Calendar pages

With the intent to recycle more in 2013, I have taken pages from my new calendar and recycled them into leaves. They really make quirky leaves and I am enjoying the change of pace and the fact that this paper is being kept out of the trash!

Leaves 71-78

I have some color fabric books for upholstery fabric. I absolutely love these patterns and think they will make great leaves for the tree.

Delightful Decoupage......

Decoupage is like going back to childhood.  I love to glue paper to just about anything that stands still long enough. I decided to make myself some french accessories. I used old yellowed french books to decoupage a mouchoir (tissue) box and a waste pail. An old piece of jewelry was placed on burgundy velvet ribbon around the top of the pail. A oval belt buckle was decoupaged with the french word Mouchoir.  I love the addition to my apartment!  Another new years resolution is to fill my apartment with my own art...to a year of happy creating.

Marvelous Mittens

Winter is upon us! With many new year's resolutions I am starting this year with optimism and happiness.  I had wanted to do more art, more sewing, and more recycling. A weird combination for sure! I decided I wanted to do more with wool felting. I have a felting machine that I have used a few times. I went to a resale shop and bought some 100% wool sweaters and washed them in hot water, and dried them until they were a thick wool felt. I then cut them to the shape of my palm. I embellished the mitten (top half) with a flower and ribbon for the stem. I used my Sizzix cutting system to make the flower pieces, and I used brightly colored felt pieces. The flowers were machine quilted to the wool mitten. Buttons were added for dimension at the center of the flower. The ribbon was machine quilted in a random pattern.  The cuffs of the mittens were recycled t-shirts in bright colors. I was also able to use my serger to make the cuffs. They are fun to wear and look really neat on. I just couldn't take the picture while my hands were in the mittens!  Let it SNOW!!!!

What a hoot.......

Happy New Year! Hard to believe this will be the start of my third year blogging my artistic progress, or something like that.....I am so looking forward to many new creative endeavors this year. This first one is a representation of my latest creative passion which is thermofax screen printing. This is a ton of fun and really relaxing. I am working in my old note book, so it is a sketch book of short, minus the sketches, plus the trial and error of screens and paint. This one is a combination of three separate thermofax screens. The first layer is acrylic full body paint smeared with a credit card. That process is so imprecise, it is just a serendipitous event waiting to happen. I then  screened the floral motif in a chartreuse, it almost looks like vintage wall paper. A white random line design was then imaged. The final image was a owl done in three color paints, pink, gold, and black. This is not fine art, nor is it sellable, it is pure magic in playing with color and design. So off to a fun year of creative endeavors...May your new year bring you color, line, and space........