Another lovely collection, this time for Valentines Day. I'm honored to once again be chosen to participate. Beautiful work, high quality and waaaay beyond chocolate. Though we love that too, right!?

I Heart These Valentines Gift Ideas and ...

Curated By: bluemorningex...

ArtFire.com

Handmade Gifts

I would also like to take the time and the opportunity to showcase a triptych I have in my store that is very much meant to be a passionate love affair sort of grouping. Also a good time of year to bring this one out and show it. 

"Passion Series"

Into the Deep
Poetry of True Love
Depth in Pure Passion
 
Each piece is 12x16" Mixed Media Collage on un-stretched Canvas. Arrives ready for your frame - matting will typically be 16x20" for each piece, the entire wall display an estimated 48x20"

Triptych - Passion Series - Click to view in the store with more detail!

I am honored to have been chosen to be a part of this very lovely and interesting collection. 

"Do You Know My Face?"

Do You Know My Face

Curated By: evezbeadz

ArtFire.com

Handmade Gifts

Another painting finally put into my store. A bit about the piece:

"Strata Subconscious" is an abstract expressionist, intuitive view and interpretation of thought through being of the geological process's not only of place, but space and state of mind. In this case, a representation of my wanderings (and yes, wondering as well) along the coastline and bluffs along the Strait of Juan De Fuca, Washington State.
It may even be a discovery by intuition. Part of the reason I roam this place.

Direct link here: http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/product_view/8513351

And thank you so much for dropping in :-)

Strata Subconscious 24x36"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I was on a relative role today, I thought I'd stick to it and share a couple more pieces. These two are closely related in a series I have ongoing, the "Impressions" series, with a subset "Ancients" Most might not care particularly, but some do so I share a bit more of what I'm doing, why I do it and why there might be something that is seemingly silly...a subset in a series?! Yep. That would be me. I suspect I'll be moving in a different direction with a different theme here soon but thought I would share a bit more of this series.

If you choose not to link to the piece direct (you might want to though, detail close-ups reside there!) I'll share a bit more of the meaning and inspiration behind these two: 

I have always been fascinated by texture and contrasts and when I go to the beaches up here in Washington state, these two features abound. Rather than look at the whole, I look for sections of the whole, to see how it is all put together.
 
It might be rocks, rocks on the beach, rivulets that carve into the sand. Ancient pieces that make and remake a scene through time. Some times these look as if a human hand might have carved the "perfect hole" in a rock, only to be even more perfect because nature carved it herself.

There might be times where an old artifact is actually found, even if it's a lovely rusty old piece of farm equipment that a horse pulled, the beauty of nature comes along and sculpts something new until it's gone and then build upon, directly on top of that. These are things I'm thinking when I'm building this series of paintings.

So without further adieu, I bid you to venture into viewing these two new pieces in the store. Let me know what you think, would love to hear from you!

Ancient Invocations 24x24"

Ancient Messages 24x24"

Having gone through and repopulated paintings, revamping and freshening up my store I thought I would share that a bit on this blog. I say that because, well, I almost forgot to do exactly that. Have you ever had that feeling of "I know I'm forgetting something, what the heck was it?" Yep.

I'm rather in and out when it comes to getting back to what I used to do, which was contribute to a constant humming machine I was able to set into place. And keep with it. I'm working on that part. Still. My micro farm rather dictates a bit more of my time and consequently, interruptions abound. So, rather than pull my hair out over it, I have chosen to stay sane and go with the flow. Probably healthier for me that way. Or something like that.

At any rate, here are a couple of pieces I just put in the store. Click on the titles to visit the listing in the store at ArtFire.

I intend with this very lovely weather to get out and get some images put together of a couple more, stay tuned!

Natures Way 24x36" - Custom Framed

Forest Pulse 24x24" - Custom Framed

Wonderful Find!

I was digging around in some of my art stuff. You know, organizing, reorganizing and making determinations as to whether I really need to keep "that particular scrap of paper" or not. I save everything. Seriously, there are times when I really must get a little more particular about what I am saving. There is only so much "but I might USE it for something cool" I can keep around. Might (use) is kind of the operative word here. My stash of saved stuff is huge and might be getting out of hand. I'm still working on that.

Anyway, I did run into a wonderful find! I taught the elementary after school art classes for a couple of years a few years back and typically, inevitably, I would have more to bring home to my stash. Some of it would be my own demonstrations for the class, some of it would be parents not really wanting to keep what their children created. Which is rather awful isn't it? I kept all of my children's art. Maybe that makes me weird, but I say it's important. I can go into more of that later at some point. Some of it was children themselves who didn't want to keep what they created. Which I also find sad. Even more of it was just forgetfulness on their part and I couldn't track them down to give it back, or whatever. The point is I have quite a bit of it and I don't ever want it to go to waste because some young mind took a turn at trying and I'd like to think it helped in some small way to guide them forward in life.

So I saved them. One of the classes we did was to put some color down in interesting ways, try not to make it muddy, keep the color separate and use just three of them to start. We will be jazzing it up later, after we find the neat shapes that might be popping out. In this case we went for a "sea" theme. Fish, shells, beachy stuff. Once our paint dried (tempera dries remarkably fast) let's whip out our oil pastels and sea what sort of "fishing" we can do. (I know, I'm clever that way) You get the drift. It was a fun class and probably one of the better ones. The kids had a blast and all sorts of interesting critters "made themselves known" in the process. 

I thought I would share a few pieces of that class. One is my demonstration, one is a serious helper piece I did for a little girl and her mom (at which they did another one and kept that one, leaving me with the one I essentially did for them) and one a little girl I could not track down left behind. 

It makes me think I would really like to get back into it. It was fun and I know the kids loved it. So did most of the parents, once they themselves actually relaxed. I wonder how many elementary school art teachers flat out ruined it for so many to be able to just sit and play. It's not like it's a masters level class! Sheesh.

So, here are the pieces. I hope you enjoy looking at them and perhaps start thinking about how you might share this with your own kids or start up a class for your school, or homeschooling group.

Here is the demo piece I did to start the class off.

Here is a piece that I helped a family to make some design decisions - since I ended up doing the majority of it they then understood and made a new and spectacular one without my help :-)

This is the lovely piece that one of the kids created. Notice her imagination started going into wonderful places, like the dinosaurs! Great piece! First grade :-)