My Helper

As  I mentioned in my last post I have an art room. It's the former nursery--who am I kidding-- it's just a very small bedroom in our house, but it's now my art room, and it's all mine. But it's in desperate need of a makeover. And I've been telling everyone and anyone that will listen to me that  I am renovating it.  If I could rent out a billboard and put it one of the main streets in  my town, I would.  I do this, because this is the only way that I can get things done.  If  I didn't, I would never do it--I'm a great procrastinator.

So a couple of weeks ago, I put a whole day aside to start cleaning it out.  It may be very small, but what's in that room could probably fill a whole house--in other words--it's a mess. I want to sort through everything, and see what I can get rid of, or move, or whatever.  It's a long process, because it's all of my art supplies--whatever they may be.  Well that day I had a helper--

Bob

Bob is a French Bulldog. He's my daughter and son-in-law's.  And if anyone knows anything about French Bulldogs, aside from food, they love, love, love people!   He is one of the friendliest dogs I've ever known. One of his favorite things to do  in the summer is go along with us when we go  to garage sales, because he loves mingling with all of the other garage salers--he's always the center of attention.

So a couple of weeks ago we were watching him on the day that I was going to clean out my room, but the first thing he had to do was go for a walk with  Fred, my husband.  That's a given--he knows that Fred will take him for a walk no matter what it's doing outside.

Not the greatest picture, but you get the point.

After the walk, he always gets a treat. This all tires him out and it'll be time for a nap.

And then he wakes up, and this happens every  time, he gets a bit worried that his Mom and Dad aren't coming back, and then he just wants to go home.

So you're probably wondering if we got any work accomplished in cleaning out my room. Well, I never even went into that room the whole time he was here.  But I am  going to get that room done.  My goal was mid December, now it's  mid  January ( It will get done!) In all actuality, Bob really isn't a dog--he just happens to look like one--he's just part of the family--he's Bob!

Making Time For Play

I really do enjoy preparing for the Christmas season-you know decorating, wrapping presents, baking, and most definitely Christmas shopping. But I still like to make time to go up to my little art room (as I like to call it--I'll go into more detail about this room in my next blog post) and just play.

As I mentioned here I have many treasures  in my house.  I have alot of these cheese boxes--

Does anyone remember these?   I actually don't, and I'm not that young.  Does anyone know when they stopped making these?  I  love using these kind of  items for my art, , but I'm  not very

knowledgeable of their history.  I also have alot of the old bottles--not sure what was in them either--probably medicine, but I'm sure they were used for other purposes?--anyone?

Well I just know that I'm always on the lookout for these two things.  I usually find them at flea markets.  I like to alter the bottles--

And then I altered the box, added the bottle, and I've made a whole new piece of art--it's always good to make time for play!

A Christmas Collection And a Family Tradition

First of all, I'll tell you about my collection-- SLOWLY but surely I'm getting my house ready for Christmas.  And I was thinking of what I wanted to share with everyone on my blog.  So I thought of my collection. I like to collect things, so of course I would also have a Christmas collection, and no it's not snowmen...it's Santas.

I've been collecting them maybe for about 20 years--I'm not really sure. I just started getting them, until they turned into a collection, and now every year, I will get a new one.  Come to think of it, I didn't get one for this year, but I will.  These Santas are just part of what I have. (HEY, what's that snowman doing in there?!)   They're all over the house.  I don't look for anything in particular--just whatever strikes my fancy at the time.  I do have my favorites ,though.

Like Mr. and Mrs. Claus

I got these two from a local very talented paper mache artist.

And which one is my favorite?  Well last year, it would have been him--

I still like him, you know the country primitive Santa, but he's been dethroned.  My style and taste has changed alot this past year. so this year, it's most definitely this fun Santa--

And now I'll tell you about our family tradition.  It's actually a bit of a running joke every year.  Each year I ask my kids--who are in their 20's and 30's if they want me to hang their stockings.  And they look at me in disbelief and say "You BETTER hang them!"  Let me describe these stockings. They are the red felt ones that you find at the dollar store with the white trim, and each one has their name written on them (in glitter of course).  And I can't hang them on the mantel, because I don't have a fireplace, so they end up on the stair bannister. 

Each one of them have told me that the stockings are their favorite part of Christmas. Well, one reason is because Santa (and yes, we all still do believe in Santa) fills these babies to the brim plus.  They're always overflowing.  The contents of these stockings are probably worth more than what's under the Christmas tree.

But I know the other reason is that these stockings  represent  all of their Christmases from childhood till now.  Believe me, we're not the picture-perfect family--we have our disfunctional times like any other family, but every year at Christmas we all get together and have the best time and laugh  about our "episodes" we've had during the year--good or bad.  And look forward to the next year for more "episodes" that we can laugh about next year at Christmas. And if we're stil here in 30 years, God willing, when they're in their 50's and 60's, those stockings will still be hung and still be brimming on Christmas morning.

So Scott, Nick, Lisa, Jennifer, and John, if you're wondering--yes I hung them up : )

My 2 Week Anniversary

I know most bloggers celebrate their 1 year anniversary or their 100th blog post, well I'm celebrating my 2 week aniversary!  I started this blog because I wanted a place to journal all of my art , so I could see how my work evolves--I have trouble keeping a real life journal.  I still want to, though--maybe by having this blog, I will. 

I also wanted to meet and connect with other artists. I love all kinds of art--and I have found some amazing art and artists through this little community called blogland.  I love going to my  blog dashboard everyday and checking out the new blog posts that I follow, and I read every one. And when they come to mine, and leave comments--don't you just love when others leave comments. Through blogging, not only am I finding some great art, I'm also getting to know all of these artists through their blogs.

And of course, as I mentioned on Page One of my blog, there's no way I would have even considering doing this unless I had help, and that was my son Nick.   He has his own blog, and I read all of his posts (of course). This is one of my favorite posts of his:
http://nps109.blogspot.com/2009/10/make-wish.html
EVERYONE should read this post, and when you're over there, make sure you wish him a Happy Birthday--yes today is his birthday, and he's living his dream in New York City! So-Happy Birthday Nick

I KNOW TODAY WILL BE A GOOD DAY!

Same Thing But Different

I never get tired of painting pears, but  I get tired of  doing the same thing over and over again--if that makes sense.  So I thought I would try something a little different this time.  I had this wood frame---

It's a barnwood frame--very nice, but very ordinary.  So I 'fixed' it up a little--

And then I used this metal tooling foil--

And I embossed on it--

And what's my favorite embossing tool you ask--well I've tried many, but I keep going back to my  favorite, and that is a pencil with a very blunt tip.  And.... here is the finished result--

I 've been having so much fun with my new blog--and it's been making me very creative, but I have to start another art project, and that's putting up the Christmas decorations ( and I have ALOT), wrapping presents, baking cookies, buying a REAL Christmas tree and decorating that, still Christmas shopping too,etc.etc.--and I'll be sure to post photos of my progress : )

And Here's My Apple

My Latest Project

So here's what I've been doing for the last couple of days. Mary  (Joyful Ploys)  from Mystele's class posted a link to Suzi Dennis.  She's a collage artist, and I love, love her work.  I love the colors that she uses, and her subject matter, and just everything about her work.  As a matter of  fact, if you know of any other collage artists like her, tell me--they're very inspiring to me. So I decided to use one of my favorite surfaces--a cupboard door.

Fred found this and four others like this along the road in someone's trash!  Can you believe that?! They're in excellent condition too.  We're ordinarily not dumpster divers, but if given the opportunity, we'll take it.  And I decided to collage with only papers that I painted  like Suzi Dennis.  I usually like to use all kinds of papers, but I restricted it only to my hand painted papers.  I painted mostly on cardstock paper that I found at an office supply store, and textured wallpaper (which is great to paint on).

I also painted on crumpled brown paper. This is another great paper to paint on--it almost ends up looking like leather.

And here are all of the finished papers.

And here is the finished piece.

This was so much fun--I think I'll make a matching piece to it.  I have another door the same size.  It's about 13" x 15", which is a nice size.  This time it will be one of my favorite fruits--an apple.