Thunderbird part 1

I covered a piece of wood in tissue paper and then lightly washed it with a violet color. Yesterday I went crazy with fingerpainting and smearing paint all over it. My intention was to do some playing around and then see if anything emerged from it. I worked on it again this morning and then I saw a large bird. I kind of outlined it a little and came inside to Google thunderbird because I thought that was what was revealing itself. Indeed it is a thunderbird and so I outlined it in black for now so I have it on there. I am going to change a couple things but thought I would show part 1 for now. I think it looks too much like Jesse Reno style painting which is what I was intending in the technique but not the outcome. I don’t use any text and I am using a defined image of a creature so that is different as well as the spirals, etc. So overall I guess not. I wanted to try more of this type of technique because it’s so cool how things appear before you and then they come into existence.

I will share more about the thunderbird in general tomorrow if I get time. It’s so cool!

Herbal tinctures and such

Hi there,

I have been busy with cleaning up messes then I got sick for two days.

The photos are of a skullcap tincture I started a couple weeks ago. It’s skulcap fresh with leaves, buds, a few flowers and 100 proof vodka. It’s for anxiety and stress (but you take only a tablespoon not a shot of it). The second jar is rue floorwash to use as of course a floorwash. It has vinegar, a premade rue floorwash with coloring, and fresh rue leaves from my plant. Rue is said to purify or to protect against the evil eye. Can’t go wrong with that I think!

Abstract color

I finished the Cernunnos and put him in my Etsy shop.

I also finished the second of three Asian abstract mixed media paintings and put that in my shop too.

The third one is a different size but same style for the most part. I have just enough papers with Asian writing to do the third…hopefully.

I took a few  barn photos on the way home from somewhere last week. I liked using the sepia filter on this one.

Jesse Reno

It was so damn hot today. I really didn’t feel like leaving the house but the Hawthorne Street fair was going on and I could have cared less about that part of it. Jesse Reno was repainting a mural though so I thought I should go watch for a little bit. I really like watching him paint but then this girl kept getting right in his face with a large lense and he finally told her to move out of his way. There’s really no point to getting that close you have to look at things from far away in my opinion. I was having an issue internally when he painted over a portion of the painting. I left and bought a waving Chinese cat and then came back to see that the mural was changed again. The portion on the right remained the same or at least until I left. I never talked to him because he seemed to be in the groove of painting and I didn’t want to be like the annoying camera girl was and getting too close and wrecking the mojo.

P.S. There is an update on what it now looks like on his site. I like it even more now.

Earth paint and Cernnunos

I made some paint last weekend with clay soil from the front yard. I was planting a comfrey plant from a friend and found some soil that was sort of clay-like so I brought it inside, strained the big chuncks through a sifter and then mixed it with acrylic matte medium. I really like the texture and the color. I will blend it better next time with a mortar and pestle I think but this was really cool to make. I used some of the brown on the Cernnunos painting actually. I have gotten this far making him and just have to finish some details tonight if I get a chance.

 

Some art in the heart

I didn’t have expectations for this event that I had my art at. I did think we would sell someone’s art besides something for like $5 that was a poetry zine. Oh and someone’s Grandmother bought something too I believe. There were all of these booths and all different kinds of art like photography, oil paintings, metal, pottery, acrylic, mixed media, prints, originals, etc. No one seemed to sell anything except a notecard. There is the belief from my artist agent (that I don’t pay so my sister says I shouldn’t call him my agent) that people are starting to get more comfortable with the economy but they aren’t at the point where they want to make a bigger purchase. So it seems like that is the consensus and no one sold anything besides notecards and a button from what I could tell. I didn’t have to pay for a booth space so I was happy that I wasn’t out a bunch of money.

I talked to a lot of people that I knew or didn’t know and had a nice time yesterday while I was there. Maybe that was the whole point.

 

Time

I maybe shouldn’t have done that title in the last post. I love my family and all the crazy days but sometimes I wish I could have three hours of time for me to finish things. It won’t be like this forever and I will look back and wonder where the time went.

Recent photos and then an art journalesque page in my Moleskine.

 

 

What I don’t get done and why

I have several paintings half finished or a third finished. I want to finish them by tomorrow night. Of course I probably won’t have a car till Saturday so really I should finish by Friday night I guess. My husband’s car had to be towed to a work friend who fixes cars. So we are a one-car family which is fine usually except for when I actually need to go somewhere. This morning I decided you know going without coffee isn’t a good idea. I could have walked with two kids to get some but part of it would have been a retreat FROM them. My Mom was busy and I didn’t want to bug the neighbors who were home so we did other things. Oh and I had two of the iced coffees from the little packages. These don’t count as coffee though so I am ready for tomorrow morning to use the car!

Anyways I tried to get a newsletter out about the event I am at this weekend and after three hours managed to finally send it. In between that I watched Melody and two of the neighbors kids squirt each other with water, we put up Christmas lights in the garage and then talked about how my art is good according to my 5-year-old neighbor. My daughter, also 5, says she needs to teach me because nothing I make looks real. I am looking forward to the art lessons, thank you. I haven’t taken an art class but I mostly do abstract so how it’s supposed to look real I don’t know.

Willow went upstairs and showed me my deodorant from the loft asking me pretty much what it is. She disappeared again and came downstairs. I then noticed that she had some markings on her but the pens are downstairs and washable. Instead she used my brown waterproof eyeliner for body painting/tagging on the tummy.

My Cernnunos painting is coming along but not done. I should time how long it really takes to finish something without interruptions but that doesn’t happen. 🙂 Idea, paint background, 5 minutes, sketch subject on, 10 minutes, paint in subject layer 1 5 minutes.

And the computer is a huge time suck here of course. I also play Frontierville on facebook in the evenings. I have to make it to the next level or make a cradle so I can have a virtual child. The virtual husband stands behind the barn or hides in the trees and I can never find him to make him do something on the homestead. Very real life. 🙂

Pizza and wine

This past weekend was really nice. My husband and I went out to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary. We had surprisingly good pizza at a place locally we hadn’t been to before. Then we went to a vineyard near our house that we also hadn’t been in before or tasted at. I was full but managed to taste all the red wines that were put in front of me. We bought a couple of bottles and watched the sun go down on the patio.

We are also going to sign up to do the grape stomp in September. They have two-person teams that compete and I can’t wait! We didn’t get a photo of me and my husband together I just realized just me sitting around. :O

 

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