Pages 11/19/08

Here's my table display from the recent pottery sale I was in. It was a lot of fun and I actually SOLD a few things. lol.

Pages 10/24/09

Hi guys! I hope everyone isn't completely sick of me asking to vote for my card! *LOL* (Apologies if I am.) If you have a sec and you think this piece is cool - I sure would appreciate a vote. :-)

Please vote!



Click here to vote for my entry

Follow Up 11/19/09 - Hey! I got 4th place! The contest is over and I won a gift card for $200 and some free cards. Not too bad at all. Thanks everyone for voting. I appreciate it!

Pages 10/10/09

A final batch of Day of the Dead hand painted ceramic skulls. They were ALOT of work, but worth it. It's so cool to see them all together. To the left are a few covered with glaze waiting to be fired. Next week I'll get them into the kiln. My November show and sale is fast approaching and I am beginning to feel the pressure.

Final Skulls

Pages 10/07/09

These are my ceramic pendants finally packaged. I am really pleased with the final overall packaging. I ended up making my own packaging backing and painted them and cut them myself. I think I still might stamp the outside boxes to add even more to the design.

Pages 08/15/09

This is my messy art table out in the living room. My husband suggested I get this table one day when we were at Michael's. He thought it might be a good thing to get all my art stuff off the coffee table. ;-) So, this is what I do in the evenings while we watch TV - I finish off artwork and do whatever needs to be done.

I thought I'd show you some of the projects I am finishing off. I don't like to work on one thing too long, because I bore really easy! I have about 10 things going on at once here. The bisqued moons you see here were painted with outdoor paint. Last night I started adding details to them with a Sharpie oil paint pen. You can see them closer in the photos below. I'll work on these quite a bit more. I will add details to the eyes, lips and cheeks and will most likely go over them with some sort of paint treatment so the pattern isn't so 'in your face'. Once done, I'll seal them with sealer and embellish with beads. I'll show you them as I go.

Also on the table are Day of the Dead magnets which I packaged in small zip bags. All that's left to do is make some sort of tag on my inkjet, so they'll sit there for a few more days while I get around to making the tags.

There's a candlestick I started working on. I have a box of 6 to do, and this is my prototype. I work out the pattern before I do the rest. This shape is very tricky, but I think it's working. I still need to complete the top portion, but got bored and moved on to something else. lol.

To the right are a couple of wine toppers that went through the kiln a second time due to a bad glazing. I finished them up by adding the corks. These are ready to put into inventory. Behind the corks are the tops to two boxes that need another coat of transparent glaze as I did a 'patchy' job last time. The glaze I use is on the table to the far left. There's also an ornament that got stuck to a kiln stilt. Doh! I had to file it down with that long white rectangular tool you see sitting on the desk. The bad spot will need to be reglazed and fired again. Once it fires it will be as good as new.

Lastly, there's a box to the right. These are the boxes I ordered to package my 3" button ornaments out. I was testing the ornament to make sure I ordered the right size! The wire you see near it is what I am going to use to make a hanger from. I take a bit of copper wire and curl it around to make a really neat hanger.

Oh! Nearly forgot! The purple square you see to the right by the moons - this is photo cube I made from leftover clay. They've been high fired and painted with acrylic paint. I poked holes into the top before firing. Last thing I need to do is add multiple wire curlies so you can add photos. I have it on my desk to figure out what size wire gauge to buy. I'll post them as I finish them.

So, that's it. Those are all the small projects I am finishing up. As you can see, there are alot of small finishes that need to be done before a project is considered complete. Another side to the creative process.

Pages 08/08/09

Another kiln firing. Still working on ceramics rihgt now, preparing for the November Pottery Sale I am in. It's ALOT of work. I made 40 bottle toppers and painted about 24 pendants, 8 small skulls among a bunch of other things! The ornaments came out really nice, as well as the pendants and the two little boxes. Still more work to do, almost everthing you see in black and white needs color painted on.

Pages 07/14/09

I didn't paint this painting, but I just won it on eBay and I am thrilled. I've admired this artist for sometime and I finally won a piece. This painting is titled "3 Boats on the Water" by artist, J. Rudy. There is not alot of info for this artist but I found this gallery with examples of their art. Below is a detail of the piece showing some of the cool collage elements that are hidden in the painting. Awesome work. I can't wait to get it.

Pages 07/02/09

Here are a few of the ATCs I made when I had friends over for an ATC night. It's been awhile since I did traditional collage and it was fun to get back into glue and paper. I had to explain how to make ATCs to a group who had never made them before and it was a challenge. Most people had a tough time not 'over thinking' even though I told them to relax and do whatever first comes to mind. After making a few, people finally chilled out and got it.

I never plan my collage. I go ahead and use items that call out to me and I try to get people to do the same. You never get anything done if you stress over the blank page!

We plan on getting together every third Thursday, and next time we've agreed to make Matchbox Shrines.

Pages 06/20/09

A strange digital collage ATC. All put together in Photoshop.

Pages 06/16/09

I spotted an image of mine in the Somerset Studios, Creative Impulse Newsletter. It's one of the twinchies I made for an ArtChix swap which is now in an ArtChix collage sheet. Here's a link to the how to, and the video. Enjoy!

Pages 05/25/09

These are photos of my journal I made at the workshop I took with Teesha and Tracy Moore a A Work of Heart in San Jose. It was a great workshop. Teesha is a great teacher willing to share all her techniques an journaling secrets. She is extremely passionate about journaling. I found myself really overwhelmed with emotion as she spoke abut how important it is to her to teach journaling. She also encouraged students to take what they've learned in her class, and teach it themselves. Pretty cool.
Teesha brought a stack of her journals for us to look through. It was amazing to see them up close and personal. I honestly thought they would be BIGGER. *lol* Sounds goofy, I know. The journals were an 8X10 size. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't disappointed in the least. I just expected the journals to be larger. ;-)

Here are a few of the new techniques and tools I learned about. 1. Sharpie Poster Paint Pens in different sizes in funky fluorescent colors. These pens will write on anything! I wrote over pastels and thick collage. Get them soon, as they are being discontinued! 2. Portfolio Series Pastels. An inexpensive water soluble pastel which is awesome for creating dreamy, smooth backgrounds. I like to use colored pencil for this type of thing, but fell in love with this technique. 3. Copic Markers with airbrush attached. Tracy taught us how to airbrush with these pens with a simple attachment with wonderful results. He provided dozens of stencils to try, and was very generous with letting us play with all the pens.

Overall, this was an awesome experience and I learned a lot. It was great to meet the Moore's.

See all my workshop photos here.

Pages 05/15/09

I am still on a bit of a pottery kick. This is the latest kiln fire from this Wednesday. The trivets, skulls, mugs and ornaments are all on the final glaze fire. Last things to do are add some cork backing to the trivets and do some nice copper wiring on the ornaments. I am really pleased how the hand made skulls came out. I might do some in color next time, but it's alot of work!
The cardboard box of pendants, two boxes and the frames need to be glaze fired now. I am not 100% sure how I will finish the pendants and frames yet.
I'm off this afternoon and tomorrow to take a workshop at A Work of Heart in Willow Glen with Teesha and Tracy Moore. I am really excited to learn some of their techniques. I'm hoping I can take some pictures to share with you.

Pages 04/15/09

I got to open a freshly fired kiln load this morning. It's like Christmas! There is still one shelf load left, but have to leave hubby to upload it because I am far too short to reach the bottom. ;-) This was a mix of glazed pieces and bisque pieces. So if some look shinier than others you can tell which are glazed and which aren't. I was really pleased with pretty much everything. I was even able to recue the ornament I fired upsidedown. Oy. I was amazed it made it! (You can see it in the first photo. It's in the bottom left - the white ornament.)
Tonight I'll start with more glazing and see if I can get another kiln load ready for next week. I'll also be busy adding corks to the wine toppers. I was really pleased at how well the colors came out on the toppers.

Pages 04/11/09

Last night when I got home, I had a nice little surprise waiting for me. Last month some of my art was licenced by a company in Texas to be included in a line of domino jewelry. The company is called Phenomenoes. I was delighted to receive some samples of the jewelry and am very pleased at the clarity of the printing and quality of the product. Overall I am really stoked to be a part of the collection. Check out all the designs I have in the catalog here.

Pages 04/05/09

These are some pages I made for a swap I am in. The theme is 'Odd Girls'. The bases were made in Photoshop and then printed on a laser printer. Then I altered them by painting in the hair, adding collage pieces, stamping and drawing and adding some fibers. I find it's a good way to save alot of time when there are alot of pieces to make. By making the bases in Photoshop, I saved alot of time and I was able to make the 23 pages fairly quickly while still making each page unique with stamping and painting..

Pages 03/30/09

I bought these bisque pendants for another project. My original idea did not work out. I'd planned to collage on the surface and it just was not working. Sooooo, after having them hang around my studio for over 2 years, I decided to paint them with ceramic glaze and make painted pendants. (What they were actually intended to be! lol.) I am on a kick right now to use up and finish projects I started, or bought and never did. This is one of them. These will be fired in the kiln and then color will be added to them, baked again and then a clear glaze added over them. Although, I am kind of liking the stark black and white. Maybe I will leave them with no color. What do you guys think?

Pages 03/13/09

Find more photos like this on creativity unleashed with Traci Bautista

I thought I'd share this slideshow of the work from the other students in Traci's workshops. There has been some really fabulous work made!

Pages 03/07/09

Another of my 'doodles' from the Bautista workshop. I used a variety of pens, Sakura Gel Pens, colored pencils, correction pens, sharpies.

Pages 02/21/09

I got pretty behind with my Traci Bautista workshop this week because of work. Today I buckled down and spent a bit of time going through the exercises. Most of the exercises were about spilling out your random thoughts using a variety of different mediums. I used Sharpie paint pens, gel pens, highlighters, markers, white out pens. I found it really fun to randomly write words and didn't stress out while doing them. I recommend trying something like this. Take out a blank sheet of paper and start randomly scribbling the thoughts in your head. Then mess around with different pans and see what happens. Try using a bunch of pens you'd normally not draw with, like a highlighter. Just when you think you are done, push it again and add more color or line work.

The painting above I started with a really dark blue background and swirled in some lighter blues. The exercise was to write with a white out pen. I also used gel pens and a sharpie pint pen for the blacks. This one is my ode to the blank page. ;-)