Unsaid

5" x 5" Mixed Media on Paper

"We are masters of the unsaid

words, but slaves of those we 

let slip out."

    -- Winston Churchill

Abstract Panda

12" x 12", Acrylic on wood panel

"The world is quiet here."

-- Lemony Snicket

The Sun

"Have you ever seen

anything

in your life

more wonderful

than the way the sun,

every evening,

relaxed and easy,

floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,

or the rumpled sea,

and is gone --

and how it slides again

out of the blackness,

every morning,

on the other side of the world,

like a red flower

streaming upward on it heavenly oils,

say, on a morning in early summer,

at it perfect imperial distance -- "

from The Sun

by Mary Oliver

It was so sunny and unseasonably warm here today, I was inspired to paint this. Spring is definitely near! I'll take these beautiful days when I can get them. :-) Hope you all are having a great week!

Sleep

"... I think that just being alive is so much work

at something you don't always want to do.

The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep."

-- Andy Warhol

This painting came from a sketch I did one night. It wouldn't leave me alone; I even dreamed about it. So I had to paint it. Poor thing, I know how she feels. Strange how things take hold of you. Maybe it's from lack of sleep.  ;)

This is my entry for Paint Party Friday. I try to make it over there when I can. You should too! Have a great weekend everyone!

Crossroads

"When she was just a girl

She expected the world

But it flew away from her reach

So she ran away in her sleep

And dreamed of para- para- paradise

...Every time she closed her eyes"

from the song Paradise by Coldplay

May all of your dreams come true in 2012! Happy New Year everybody! I love this song. It's been on my mind a lot and was the inspiration for this painting. If you want to listen to it, I've included it below:

Let It Go

"And in a burst of light that blinded every angel

As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars

You felt the gravity of tempered grace

Falling into empty space

With no one there to catch you in their arms."

--from "Iridescent", by Linkin Park

I'm often inspired by music and poetry. This song has been playing on my iPod constantly. There has been a lot of frustration for me lately. Maybe it's because the knee is still not completely healed. Sometimes when I'm hurt or sick, little things will often become magnified. Aarrgghhh! Then I find myself having little pity parties. Well, I have to stop that. I have to keep reminding myself that the little things are not worth it and I do need to just let them go. Otherwise I let them eat at me and take what little energy I do have.  :(

So I went to the canvas and the verse I quoted above really stuck with me. And when I started to paint I just let it ALL go. It felt good! :-) I have these gold mica flakes that I love to use for special effects. They don't show up very well in the photo but on the canvas they really shine, like little stars. This piece makes me happy. That was my goal when I started, so mission accomplished! Here's the song that started it all. I hope you like it as well as I do:

Sister Love

Today is my sister's birthday. Yay! So I painted this for her. I call it Sister Love. Happy Birthday, Paula! She's the baby sister. There are five of us (3 girls, 2 boys) and I'm the oldest. She's had a rough year and I wanted to give her something to hopefully make her smile and to tell her how much I love her. Big Hug to you, sis! This will be on it's way as soon as I get it framed. This is also my entry for Paint Party Friday.

I fell in love with all of the techniques for this painting when I saw them in this book:

I LOVE it. So many ideas for mixed media and this painting was only one of them. I highly recommend it.

And Finally, Shayla From The Inexplicable Rabbit nominated me for this:

Thank you so much, Shayla! That's so sweet of you! Please check out Shayla's blog. Her artwork is incredible. I LOVE it! Now technically I'm supposed to name ten things about myself. I will, but at a later date. And as for nominating other bloggers, there are so many of you out there I couldn't possibly narrow it down. I'll just nominate all of the wonderful blogs of Paint Party Friday. THEY deserve it!

Not Feeling It

It's Paint Party Friday time again! And you would think this girl would be more excited about it. Especially after I went to all the trouble of hand-piecing her dress (all made from tiny bits of CitraSolv papers glued together)! So when I surprised her with the dress, I had her try it on. You see the reaction I got. She had an attitude from the day I sketched her. You just can't please some people!  ;)

Be sure to check out the other PPF entries. You never know what you'll find!

Slant

Slant

Can or can't you feel

a dominant handedness

behind the randomness

of loss? Does a skew

insinuate into the

visual plane; do

the avenues begin to

strain for the diagonal?

Maybe there is always

this lean, this slight

slant. Maybe always

a little pressure

on the same rein,

a bias cut to everything,

a certain cant

it's better not to name.

-- Kay Ryan

Mystery Girl

This is my entry for Paint Party Friday. I missed last week and wanted to try and get back into the groove again. This one started as a sketch on paper and then just went from there. I had these textured papers I made from the 21 Secrets journaling class and decided to work on one of those. It is a recycled magazine page, of all things, with gesso, lots of gel medium, paints, inks and whatever else I could think of added to it.

I call her my Mystery Girl. I'm not sure what to think of her. I can't say I trust her really. Once you start to look at her you get an uneasy vibe. Better trust your first instinct! ;)

Make sure to check out all of the other entries for PPF. You'll find so much talent, inspiration and cool art waiting for you!

I Gotta Be Me

I Gotta Be Me                                                    

             

"Be yourself. The world worships the original" -- Ingrid Bergman

This is my entry for Paint Party Friday. The Muse had some fun this week! We really loosened up and decided to do a painting on old book pages. I was inspired after seeing Rabbit's painting a couple of weeks ago using that technique. I also wanted to use my Inktense pencils along with the acrylics. So this week was all about experimenting. After it was all over, this gal emerged. She had a little attitude and I liked that. She just seemed to be saying, "Here I am. Take it or leave it. But this is me." And that's kind of how I've been feeling lately. So, I left it at that. ;)

Be sure to check out all the other entries for Paint Party Friday at the link. There is a great mix of artists who join in each week. It usually takes me a few days to make my way through the list but it's worth it.

Jagged Bitter Jill

"You live you learn...You scream you learn"

-- Alanis Morissette

This is my painting for this week's Paint Party Friday. I'm often inspired by music and this week I've been listening to a lot of it. Some of my friends and family are going through rough times right now and I don't blame them for being a little bitter. We've been able to laugh and cry together through some of the pain but there's still healing yet to get through. This was my attempt to work it out on the canvas. I will say this: it certainly was therapeutic! ;)

Check out the other entries for this week's paintings by clicking on the button in the sidebar. Last week there was a great turnout and some awesome art! I met a lot of new friends and had a wonderful time looking at every one's art.

Discordant Echoes

Today is the first day for Paint Party Friday. This is a painting I have been working on so I thought I would put it in today's party.  :)  It's 8" x 8" acrylic on canvas. I've been wanting to do another abstract and these colors were calling to me. I love the Cobalt Teal and the Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold...YUMMY!! Those are probably my favorite colors that Golden makes. I think I have a good stash of these two colors for a while. ;)

I like to clip phrases from vintage poetry books and then use them in my art journals. I put them in a little baggie and when I'm searching for inspiration I'll look through the baggie and see what sounds good. They also come in handy as titles for my art. As I was looking through the bag, the phrase "discordant echoes" caught my eye. I just liked the sound of it and thought it sounded like a good theme. So I took it from there and this is what I ended up with.

Check out the link to Paint Party Friday to visit the blogs and see all of the paintings. It should be a good time! I'm excited to see what everyone did this week.

Aftermath

For S.

Alchemy

This is my latest painting from Wyanne's class. It started out to be a Gothic type painting and somehow ended up with this witchy feel. I think it took the witchy turn after I did the background. I'm also taking Michael DeMeng's Color Wash class and the background was one of his recipes. I loved the way it turned out. She just evolved after I started working around the colors. Even little miss witch is scratching her head on that one! ;)

Wyanne has been a big help to me on this one and I want to thank her for her guidance through all the headaches. She has taught me so much in this class. I hate to see it come to an end.  :( I will definitely be looking for any new classes she has to offer in the future.

Inner Storm

This is my first finished painting from Jared Knight's class. It's 11 x 14, Acrylic. This was not the painting that we did along with him in class. I'm still working on those. This one is from inside me. It's funny because I started painting along with him in his class video called Black Ice. For some reason I can't finish the painting like I want. I'm having issues using the palette knife. The best part of that painting is the knife. I have the everything else finished but I don't want to mess it up. So I've been practicing with that knife on everything I can make a mark on. I hope to finish it by tomorrow.

I love this one. I'm hanging it in our living room. Hubby really liked it, too. Of course what else could he say? ;) It's been fun challenging myself to do something I've never done before. What a rush! I had Melissa Etheridge blaring on the stereo today and painted my soul. Lots of paintings in the works so things are moving along. Now it's time for Jared to make a new class video!

Other things I'm working on: I have a bunch of new sketches that I'm playing with. I am in love with one of these. She's so ... not spooky, but I can't find the word. I'm working on giving the portraits more emotion. Looking over the earlier ones they all have the same frozen expression. So, hopefully, you'll notice more emotion in these later ones.

That's it for today. I wanted to post this while I still had the nerve.