Creative Endeavors in Art

Revealed

Still plugging along with the Layer Love workshop!  I really like this painting because it is definitely a different style for me!  I LOVE the rawness and revealed layers.

Layer Love

I'm taking a GREAT on line workshop called Layer Love.  The instructors are Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen of Land o Lost Luggage.  I have taken courses from them before and have learned a lot from them.  This one focuses on using Golden's newer product "open acrylics".  I LOVE them!!!  What makes them entirely different from regulary acrylics are they stay wet a lot longer.  Not as long as oils, but enough time for me to work with them and LOVE it!  In the past, I have struggled with how fast regular acrylics dry in our Denver climate-especially in the summer.  Now I can easily blend them and finally win the battle!  I would say my Purple Leaf painting took me 1/5 the time it would have with regular acrylics.

Oldie but goodie

I just finished painting two replicas similar to a painting of mine.  Two reasons being: 1.) a good friend commisioned me to paint one just like it and 2.) the original had gotten battered from a nasty fall from the wall.  It has special meaning to me as it was my first attempt at actually painting what I felt was a real painting.  The words insid the dragonfly's wings are of Robert Frost's poem "Road Less Taken".  This one will be back up on my wall, the other one(not pictured) is for Sandy.  :0)

Where Has the Time Gone?

Thinking back since my last blog entry, I'm wondering, "Where did all that time go?!" Well, I definitely enjoyed the summer with my family. Once school started for Gierma, I was in volunteer mode there. Steve and I just had a fundraising party that I was able to pour my creativity into. I did my second encaustic piece titled "Tesfa(hope)" that sold for $150!! I made the children's artwork into notecards. I also discover working with resin to create very cool pendants!!

Notecards with a variety of the ehtiopian children's artwork.

On the backside of the notecards, I printed the artist's picture along with their name and age.

I loved working with wax!  I learned a lot about encaustic painting with this piece, like how to make my own encaustic medium.  I'm looking forward to doing more!  :0)  Along with the other bazillion art projects swirling in my head!  This was the only piece we had at our party that was a silent auction piece.  It made me feel really good that it sold for $150!  

Then, there are the resin pendants I've been making!  I wanted to make jewelry with FOVC logo in it without going into metal work.  This was the best solution and I LOVE the results!  

I will be making more of these to sell on FOVC's website.  :0)  It feels great to combine my creativity with a way to raise money for "Friends of Orphans and Vulnerablel Children."  

 

Welcome to my new blog site!

Why a new blog?  Well, I thought trying my hand at designing my own blog site would be a great project.  So, if you see it change from time to time, its because I'll be tweaking it for a while!  I don't have any new pieces to blog about, I've been busy with design projects.  But I'm getting the itch to create a lot now!  Right now, I'm reading Pam Carriker's "Art at the Speed of Life" that gives great tips on incorporating art in your busy life.

http://pamcarriker.com/my-book/

OK, I lied.  I have been working on a painting, but its taking a loonngg time, ask Steve.  Ones that have very special meaning take me a long time.  There is this unspoken pressure to make it perfect in my eyes.  In this piece, it represents Steve's love for me.  Often and unexpectedly, my husband gets me beautiful roses.  I LOVE each and every one of them.  Also, Steve is an amazing writer, writing me beautiful poems that leave me speechless.  So, this piece adorns his words around the flowers that represent more than just love, it goes deeper.  So, it isn't complete, I keep tweaking it and tweaking it.  But that is O.K.-the process is just as important, if not more so, than the product.  I just have to keep reminding myself this!!

I'm in the process of transferring all my artwork from my old blog to this one, so in the meantime here is the address to the old blog if you're interested in viewing the art work I've done so far...

http://deniselivingston.blogspot.com/