A Little Collaboration

Make Art That Sells Bootcamp with Lilla Rogers  finished up just over a week ago.  Our last assignment was to stay off of Facebook so we could focus on our own art and style and not be influenced by what everyone else was doing.  I think this was wonderful advice.  I love seeing what everyone is doing, but I also end up comparing myself to it all.  There is so much talent in Bootcamp and it can be very deflating looking at all of the beautiful work that comes out of it.  In the end I think I place way too much judgement on myself and probably do get a bit lost in it all.
For our mini we were to draw our favorite drinks and then for the final, make a piece of art that we would hang on our wall.   I didn't get a lot of time for sketching or for the final piece.  This summer has not been about making art.  It has been about so many other things, being with family, kids activities, sick pets, growing friendships, expanding our hearts and sometimes just being.  At first I was fighting all of this,  but now I've come to accept that it is just not the right time for a lot of art making. 
But sometimes you just have to make art.  A week ago Sunday, I was in a somewhat foul mood and I said to my husband I think I just need to paint and draw today.  So that was pretty much all I did on Sunday.  I think my soul really needed that, it had been way too long and like anything that is out of use, it takes awhile to get it back in shape.   I just wanted to paint and draw so bad, but things weren't flowing and the ideas weren't coming and I couldn't get anything to look like I wanted it to look.  Instead of getting lost in the joy, I found myself drowning in frustration.  Ugh, as Fischer would say! By afternoon I came up with a cute little cat with a tea cup and a honey bee but ended up cutting them out of the painting because I didn't like the direction they were going.  Not sure what to do with them, but knowing I wanted to use them, I went outside to get some fresh air, it was the first fresh air of the day.  I asked my husband if he could write a little poem to go with my cat and honey bee.  I said I wanted it short, and it had to have the words, honey, sweet, bee and tea in it.  He started off in some silly direction, not really serious about it, but then I started writing ideas down too and before we knew it we had a sweet little poem to go with my cat and honey bee.  Amelia and Fischer pitched in a little too!  After we had a poem, the piece came together quickly and easily.

 

My piece didn't make the deadline for the Bootcamp gallery, but in the end I found my joy.   I love this little picture and the sweet little poem our family wrote together, and it will hang on our wall!

If your in the area, come visit me at Powderhorn Art Fair in Minneapolis this weekend! 

More Tea

This is my first attempt at trying to create a mixed media kind of piece in Photoshop.  I did this one while I was  working on my "Tea with Friends".  The background and roses are watercolor, the bird and tea cup are from tea bags and I scanned them in along with my sketches and this is what I came up with!  I had a lot of fun playing around with this and all of the textures.  So much to learn yet though, I know I've only scratched the surface!

Tea with Friends

A few weeks ago I went to my good friend Diane's house for tea and good conversation.  We have so many things in common and I always feel like we could spend the whole day talking and still have plenty more to talk about at the end of the day.  My friend Diane made some wonderful chai tea and served it in the cutest little aqua blue tea cups that rested on a matching plate and sitting on the edge of the plate was the sweetest little yellow bird.  The milk of course was poured from it's own matching container and then stirred with a little rose adorned tea spoon.  We talked for hours as we enjoyed our tea and sat on old wood chairs painted in a perfect lime green.  The time flew by and I was inspired by our morning together.

           "Tea With Friends"

I thought it needed some matching coordinates to go with it.

I kind of like  the teapots on white more, so I thought I would share it too!  I had a lot of fun working on this.

Tea Time

I'm sitting down with a nice cup of hot tea as I write this, one of my favorite moments of my day.  How many times a day do you drink tea? Do you have a ritual or a daily rhythm of tea?  One of my favorite tea moments is when I have a hot cup of tea and I'm heading into my studio to sit down and work on my artwork.  Unfortunately this doesn't happen every day.  My morning tea is more of a welcoming the day tea, warming me up for the start of my day, while my afternoon tea is more about sitting down and having a moment of quiet time(usually in my studio) and my evening tea is a wind down tea from the days events after the kids are tucked into  bed. I used to have a cup of black tea in the morning, green tea in the afternoon and herbal in the evening, but now I only drink herbal tea.  I thought I would miss the caffeine, but I feel the same without it, so why drink it? 

With all this tea drinking it's a good thing that my favorite material to use in my paintings are tea bags. With this painting I wanted a more simple and clean look, so decided I just wanted to do the painting directly on the tea bags.  I had 2 large tea bags that I used for the background and left some nice frayed edges that don't go all the way to the sides of the painting.  I love the old look that the tea bags give to the painting with all its different tones and shades. 

ps. I saw my first robin today!!!!