A Year of Art - May

My Year of Art adventure continues, welcome to the Ides of May, the middle of the month.  So far, I have been having fun playing with my painting supplies and collage things.  Going through the pictures to put up this month, I noticed that there is only one pair of earrings that were completed.  Hmmm.....no time at the bead desk makes for a very rusty beader.  After I complete this blog post, off I go to pick up my needle, thread and beads.  But in the meantime, this is what I've done to date.

Weekly Collage Card Challenge:

18 - May 3 - A Round

19 - May 10 - Patience

2020 Journal 15

At the first of the month I made about 20 different background papers.  Painted, stamped, stenciled with paint and clear crackle paste.  Then cut them up and made cards out of them.  These are the first batch I made.  If I choose, I can do some collage on the cards.  As is, they look pretty good.  We'll see how motivated I can be about that.

SuperDuo Big Ball Earrings

Floral 1

Floral 2

Floral 3

Month of Moon 1

Month of Moon 2

Month of Moon 3

Pinterest was, again, a source for this journal.  It led me to Roben-Marie Smith and the fun journal she made out of a vintage book and brown shipping tape.  It's a free online class showing how to no-sew your signatures into your journal.  I grabbed an old book, gutted it, tore up some paper bags, copies of some of my work, added some mixed media papers and others.  Below are a few of the pages showing what they look like all taped up.  Give it a try, it was a fun project.

That's the end of this blog post.  I will go make lunch and then hit the bead desk.  I hope to be able to show you "tons" of beady goodness in the next post.  Enjoy your May days!  Art On, Everyone!

A Year of Art - April Part 2

I kinda fell into an arty black hole this past Easter weekend.  On Friday, I decided to watch some free online classes by Jeanne Oliver.  There are quite a few fun ones, but the one that dropped me into a time warp was the Mini Abstracts.  The two videos aren't very long, watching once and then re-watching and working along with her was fun.  While things were drying, I'd watch some more videos.  Time slipped by and I ended up with five different pieces that weren't too bad for a first time at abstract.  These pieces will be cut up and used as cards or other background parts in other collages.  I have great respect for those who can "see" where they are going with their media when doing abstracts.

Here without delay are the five for your perusal:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Here's more from my weekly Collage Challenge:

14 - April 5 - Choose To Shine

15 - April 12 - Sunset

I'm having fun playing with my paints and other media.  This lock down will not get me down, I won't let it, and I will continue to "show up" to my studio.  There is a journal spread to be completed, some ideas for earrings I want to try and a beaded pendant I've been ignoring for the past couple of months I need to finish.

UPDATE: More pics of my Artful April.
I came across a free course called Abstract Collage Creations by Laura Horn on Pinterest and decided to give it a try.  Then I tried another class and had so much fun playing with my supplies.  Here are the first three I did.

April Flowers

April Showers

Patchwork Gardens

Then I decided to try a different tack and found instead of mixing the paint on the palette, I mixed it on the page.  I liked that.

Spring 1

Spring 2

Spring 3

Another little collage cut from a larger piece called Counting.

2020 Journal 14

The last two weekly Collage Cards for April:

16 - April 19 - Subtle Spring

17 - April 26 - Create

I saw this quick and easy tutorial at Potomac Bead for Simple Circular Peyote Earrings.  These are so much fun to make.  The smaller pair to the left are the original pattern and the pair on the right is my version using larger seed beads.

What I really like about this design is the earrings are very light weight, even the larger size.  I'll probably be making a ton of these during the summer with many different color variations.

This is a necklace that started out as something completely different.  The beads I had bought for this particular design fell apart when I had the necklace all put together.  Not A Happy Camper moment.  So, starting again with these three black and gold ceramic pieces turned out even better than the first go around.  It sparkles in the light and that makes me smile.

Happy Summer Necklace.  

Fun and beachy with multi-color acrylic beads and white seed bead spacers.

So, that does it for April 2020.  Now on to May!

A Year of Art - April

April has truly been a month of chaos.  We've had such crazy weather from snow, frost, winds, rain, hail and sun and that was just one day last week!  Now I'm glad to have Spring show her beautiful face and grace us with wonderfully warm and dry weather, for at least a couple of days.

Here are a few things I've done so far this month.

9 Mountain Lake Journal

#13 Collage Card - March 29 - April 4

2020 Journal 13

Felted Brooch

I saw an idea on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a go. 

"Pop Pods" in the Little Brown Journal

With a round background sticker added.

Round Background Stickers 1

When you want to be creative but have no idea what to do.  Just play with your paints!

Round Background Stickers 2

A Year Of Art - March

Onto the third month of arty goodness.  This month was a busy month, not so much for art, but if you have already read, we got ourselves a new family member.  A one year old Aussie by the name of Alex.  He has managed to take up a lot of my time away from the studio.  I'm not complaining, he is the sweetest dog and I'm glad we could give him a great place to live and another Aussie to play with.

Let me show what I did accomplish for March.

3 Mountain Lake Journal

I DO have days like this...occasionally.

4 Mountain Lake Journal

There's that lovely stencil again.  With a spritz of water, a great print background is born.  I added washi tape around the edges to hide the lines from the journal.

5 Mountain Lake Journal

The final ghost print from the stencil.  It turned out great and has more definition than the other prints.  I like this one.

6 Mountain Lake Journal

I like this page, but I think it needs something else.  I'll leave it for now.  The perfect thing will show up when the time is right.  Not all journal pages need to be finished right away.

7 Mountain Lake Journal

Another favorite stencil, Dandelion Pods, from Donna Downey.

8 Mountain Lake Journal

#9 Collage Card - March 1 - March 7

#10 Collage Card - March 8 - March 14

#11 Collage Card - March 15 - March 21

#12 Collage Card - March 22 - March 28

2020 Journal 10

2020 Journal 11

2020 Journal 12

"Pop" in Little Brown Journal

Repaired this lovely coral necklace for Darlene's daughter.

I enjoyed working with the beautiful coral pieces in this piece.

Red and White Enameled Heart Necklace & Earrings

Close up of the heart.  It looks red-orange here, but in person it's much more red and the gold dots are more pronounced. 

Having fun making beaded rings.

Same beads, different color configurations, so cool to see what happens.

Zebra, Zebra Enameled Focal

Close up.  Ain't he cute?

Thanks for stopping by and looking.  I had fun in March.  Now, on to April.