2012 - A Year to Create!

I hope I haven't gotten myself in to too many things! However, I like to keep busy.

Signed up for Tam LaPorte's LifeBook class just hours before the year ended. The class started January 1. It's a year long class with 14 different teachers. Mystele from LittleGlimpses studio is one of the teachers and one of my very favorite people.

I've signed on to a new Group on Facebook "Prompts To Get Started" and think that will keep me going when a get into a slump.

I had signed up for Strathmore's 2012 Workshops some time ago and they began January 1 as well. It is for three workshops and the first one is titled "Doodles Unleashed" by Traci Bautista. I never doodled much but plan to now. This is my first piece.

Goodbye to 2011

I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted. I'm not good at this blogging stuff ;)

I finished my Gut Art Class. It was wonderful! I'm getting back into the swing of things and hope to create lots in 2012, yikes, I can't believe another year has flown by.

These two pieces have lots of layers and texture.

I took a class on making stamps and stencils from Moni at Hands and Heart. It's so much fun to make your own stamps. I used one of them for this girl. I also used Pitt Pens for this piece. I'm still learning about them. She's really different, but I like the way she turned out.

Gut Art Class

These were left out of my last post.

This one was inspired by an artist who paints very voluptuous women. I gave it a try, but need to make my girls look a little older *L*.

We went on another Field Trip where the artist uses vibrant colors and does lots of landscapes. I wanted layers of buildings but didn't plan it very well! I used the palette knife except for the houses and the little bushes in front of the houses. Lots of texture in this one.

Gut Art Class

The past two weeks we visited several artists websites. Trying to pick out things I like or dislike about each one. I've also been working on backgrounds and with different mediums and tools, oil pastels, sprays, brush pen, palette knife and water soluble crayons along with acrylics. Enjoying this class so much and all of my classmates.

This piece was done with a palette knife. Now that's fun! Lots of texture but not near as easy to control.

I was working on background and trying to use a piece of lace as a stencil. I decided to sketch in a girl. I just painted her lightly. I think she turned out pretty cool.

Working on background again and pulled this piece from what I could see in the paint. I used tissue paper over the angels dress and was able to keep the light background that way. I was inspired by a video on our field trip about a small village on Djerba Island where Jews and Muslims have lived together side by side very peacefully for hundreds of years. They must be protected by the angels and hopefully the influence from the rest of the world will not ruin this peace.

I work part time for my sister's hospice and last week we were given the opportunity to hear Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen speak at a gathering for the employees. Dr. Remen has trained many thousands of physicians to practice medicine from the heart. She is the author of The New York Times Bestseller "Kitchen Table Wisdom" and "My Grandfather's Blessings", Stories That Heal.  My mother was a great healer, compassionate, nurturing, forgiving wonderful human being. I felt drawn to paint a "Mother with Child". For this piece, I used oil pastels.

This piece was inspired from one of our field trips where the artist combines humans and animals. I didn't care for her art, it was a bit morbid. However it was different and unusual. I created a piece combining some features. It was fun doing this.

Today, I just played with my art supplies and this is what I came up with.

Happy All Souls Day! Dia de los Muertos.

My Cowboy dreams of his Novia!

Gut Art Class, Round 2

I started my second "Gut Art Class" with Myste at Little Glimpses Studio on Monday. I enjoyed her class in January so much and this is her 4th or 5th session. Of course, each one is different. They all involve two Field Trips each week to an artist's website and then we discuss and share our response to the artist's work. I love the students. They are all so friendly and encouraging.

This was my response to Monday's Field Trip. The artist uses a palette knife to paint and her subjects often have wild colored hair.

I just got the new iPhone! I love it! In anticipation of getting the phone, my husband, Jim, recommended getting the app "CP Pro". I used it to take the picture of this art piece and the colors are perfect.  For some reason scanners have a hard time wrapping their lens around the color hot pink.

More Fun With Photoshop and Collage

I have always loved working with graphics on the computer and putting that together with my fairly new hobby, art, is just a perfect pastime for me. There's never enough time to do all that I want, but I'm very grateful to be for the most part, retired.

With mixed media, you are totally unlimited just working with one piece of art that you've already created. This weekend I just messed around some more with Photoshop and then also used the same piece for collage.

Photoshop CS5

Working with Photoshop today. My previous digital art was done with Photoshop Elements 9.

PSE9 has so many fun things to work with but is not as powerful as Photoshop. Going to take getting used to, that's for sure!

This girl was a drawing I did with charcoal in black and shades of gray with just a touch of color on her dress. I made a stencil of her in Photoshop and gave her a bit of color.

A Sad Day

I was so sad to hear the news yesterday.


We've always admired Steve Jobs for his totally awesome creative ideas... from the time he was a kid.

I was selling Apple Computers in El Paso, Texas in 1984 when the first Macintosh was introduced. The commercial, introducing the Mac, played during Super Bowl was like no other and the company has been the Apple of our eyes ever since.

We hope those who take the helm will do so with the same spirit and drive as the man who brought the company to life.

RIP Steve!




This appeared in our newspaper this morning. It's good to think of him running around heaven and updating everything. My sister was listening to the news today and someone was talking about Apple's new iPhone that was introduced on Tuesday. The comment was made that they didn't announce an iPhone5 on Tuesday, because it was the iPhone4S, "The iPhone for Steve". Love it!

Some Halloween Fun

Been working in our journals over at HandsandHeart. Our prompts for this month are Spooky!

October, My Favorite Month

We finally made it past summer! It wasn't really that bad if you stayed indoors after 10am until around 6 or 7pm and didn't have to run errands, wash your car or work out in the yard.

October is such a lovely month - cooler, wind blowing, leaves falling and some nice quiet time before it gets cold and crazy.

We have one sibling born in October, the youngest of 12. He was born the night I arrived back home after spending a year in Chicago for cancer treatment. I'll never forget it. I had written to Mom telling her I hoped she would wait until I got home before she had the baby. She was in labor when my train pulled into the station and I got to be at the hospital when Timmy was born, October 19, 1964.

Something Different for Me

Today I wanted to try something different. I've been checking out the sites for the teachers who will be involved in Willowing's next class "Life Book".  It will be a year long class and there will be 15 different teachers. It's going to be an awesome class that's for sure!

One of the teachers, Juliette Crane, features these darling little owls on her website and I thought I'd give one a try. I think it is good to work on lots of different subjects and I have been wanting to try an animal or a bird.

I had some pages in my journal that had been started with some acrylics and pieces from an old book. So I just added to and created her with more acrylics, my rubber band brayer, a Pitt pen and a 9xxb pencil. I finished her in Photoshop Elements adding eyelashes and a tree.

Has Autumn come to stay?

It has finally cooled down a bit in our part of the world.

Autumn and Spring are my favorite seasons and probably the favorites of many if not most people. It seems like the world slows down a bit. The trees sway gently in the breeze casting shadows on my walls in late afternoon. I just love it and it always seems to turn into winter too soon.

I'm going to enjoy every minute!

Raising Ovarian Cancer Awareness

It has been six years ago this month that our mom passed away from Ovarian Cancer. 

September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Teal is the ovarian cancer color.

My sister gifted her sisters (5 of us), to have a "Teal Pedicure" this month. A certain percentage of the "Teal Pedicures" will go to cancer research for Ovarian Cancer. Talk to your manicurist and see if they will get involved. For details visit www.tealtoes.org. Their mission is to raise awareness of Ovarian Cancer.

September 11, 2001

Memories of that very sad time:  A friend called us early in the morning and told us to turn on the TV. Like everyone else in America we watched in horror. It was such a sad day. My dad passed away in November of that year and the last six weeks before his death, he watched the news all day long. Those terrible moments over and over. So sad...

Let us never forget what this country and our freedom means to us. Never take it for granted.

Yay! I fixed one of my problems!

I got rid of the huge space between my teacher's websites. That was really easy! I just compared the HTML code on two of the buttons and made some changes.

Blogger Frustrations for the Newbie!

I sure wish I knew html code. Maybe that will be a future project =)

I wanted to add links to my teacher's websites on my blog and finally discovered how to do it, but I don't like the way they line up - why there is such a big space in between a couple of them.

I also don't like my profile story taking up so much room, but I don't know how to fix that either!!!

It makes me feel kind of like the girl in this piece that I did for my Digital Dreams class.

Black and White Challenge

Yesterday morning I decided to take Tam's challenge over at Willowing and Friends. It was to do a piece with just the following colors: Black, grey, white, titanium buff (which I forgot!), salmon/skin tone (but not on the face), and a touch of pink. That was it.

I've always wanted to try charcoal and thought this would be the perfect medium and so I created this little girl. Charcoal was really fun. I used my fingers and a blending stump to blend. The pink and salmon colors were Pitt Pastel pencils by Faber-Castell. They work just like the charcoal.

FEARLESS™ Painting Last Class

Working with this piece was not as freeing as working on the cardboard. When I got my supplies together and put that huge 18x24 pad up on my easel, it kind of freaked me out. So much white!

I put on my music and gave it a go. I must admit I got a bit more picky with this one and so it was not as relaxing as the first two BIG paintings. It was a good exercise though. Now I hope to add some background and try to finish her neck. That may be impossible! I should have painted it in before adding all that hair, but I didn't sketch her before I started, just painted her right onto the paper.

Total Alignment, Fearless Painting

So, I have some wonderful art teachers on the internet who share with us info about other artists. This past week, I learned about Connie over at Dirty Footprints Studio. She has a free class called "Total Alignment" the following is taken from her site, "a free online workshop that is designed to align your body-mind-heart with your creative source.  Through FEARLESS™ Painting and basic yoga goodness we mindfully begin to clear our path to creative source and listen to our innate wisdom. This workshop is intended for everyone of all skill levels, abilities, and backgrounds--from the full time professional Artist that is feeling stuck and in need of a boost of inner inspiration to the fresh newbie just starting out on their Artist journey eager to learn--and of course, every blessed soul in between! 


I LOVE this workshop! I think it's just what I needed to get me going again. In the workshop, she encourages us to paint BIG and for me that was a real challenge as most of my pieces are small. The first two pieces I did for the workshop were 9x12. I thought that was pretty good for me, but after class 3, I knew I could get so much more out of it if I would listen up and paint BIG. So I used what I had, a carton from file cabinets I bought at Ikea. She also has us standing up to paint, something I've never done. I had a little tabletop easel and that worked just fine.

The first class was on opening the heart center. For painting, our instructions for this workshop are: 1. scribble, 2. draw lines with direction and intention, 3. draw shapes and 4. Paint like a 5 year old.

This is a mother quail trying to help her baby to learn to open her heart and fly free.

The second class was on Balance. I started off with the scribbles on each side and ended up with trees and a house. This is where I decided that next class I would try and paint bigger, use my easel and stand.

The third class was on Energizing and man, she knows how to get you going. This piece is a bit wild, but I like her and she is now hanging in our bedroom.

This next photo is just to show you a comparison of my usual size of painting.

Today, the class I took was on Total Self Expression. I loved this class!

This week I will finish the last class, but this is a workshop that I will come back to again and again to get unstuck, revitalized,  rejuvenated... Thank you, Connie!