happy and tired..

open studio was last night and we had a crush of people! I hoped I could sell enough to pay for the wine and goodies and low and behold I did and then some!!!! It was the first time I have ever sold as much as I did and I was thrilled. Besides being invited to submit proposals for 3 different venues, it was just crazy good! But boy my knees about gave out. My son came but saw I was not needing help in the selling business. In fact he stood there shocked as people kept handing over cash, checks and credit cards.
I actually sold large paintings this time. Always good for the bottom line! Here are some I sold..have a great day...I am going back to bed for a while!

Have a great day!

No word verification..

I thought you had all taken a cruise without me..I did not ever plan on having word verification for comments and found out that it had been activated I guess by Google, certainly not me!!!!
So comment away if you like. I changed my settings and hopefully no more word verification!!!!!!

More layers

so yesterday I got out my recently purchased wax batik "pen". It is electric and keeps the wax hot so you can draw with thin or thick lines. Took me a bit of experimenting. It is hard to see the thin lines I added to both of these. Then I added more watercolor wash. The next step will be ironing off the wax I used to hold the tape down along the edges. The blue one has that dark green brushwork along the edges..that is what wax was left in my electric skillet..so I hope most of it comes up with the ironing process. The rest of the wax will stay until I am done pouring and painting with the inks. Then I will remove it with ironing. The reason I am taking off the wax on the edges is because i re thought my idea of leaving a white border with irregular edges. It will still be evident but I will let the inks diffuse and spread where they will.
Then it is a matter of seeing how it all turns out and embellishing with collage, embossing powders, spray fabric paint etc.
I have a vague idea how this is going to look but the fun of processes is what keeps me doing!!!
Sun is out again today and I plan on enjoying that!!!
Also figuring out my new vegie garden. Will be using all the cement block that is around here and make above ground beds with trucked in garden soil. The soil here is very deficient and I want to start out with a good foundation. Now if i can get some help with the hauling of these block!
Have a great day

more stuff

2 40"x48" watercolor and wax resist starts..3 steps down and many more to go involving inks, acrylics etc. 2 more to do after these!

messin' around!

worn out

studio time spent clearing off table surfaces so I could get that huge roll of watercolor paper rolled out and cut. I had bought this roll a while ago..Fabriano not my favorite and so hard to deal with! So I have several sheets of tempered glass that I put on the tables and I cleaned them and the tables and brought out the dreaded roll. It always snaps back and then tears..yikes. But this time I was ready for it. I had several heavy art books, thank you Cezanne, Uffizi, etc.! I rolled it out weighed each corner down then when I got to the other side of the table more books. Measured out 40"x48" cut it out..using 2 more books to keep the corners of newly cut piece from snapping back. I managed to cut 4 pieces, then I sprayed them with water and placed the tempered glass pieces on them to hopefully make the snappy paper lay flat. Now I hope they don't stick together when I go up tomorrow to start painting. I have a frame that has 40x47 inch opening. So I will frame one and the others will get tacked to the wall. I am going to try to recreate the same style of mixed media that I did for the library show and have continued to change up in a smaller scale with collage.
This is a big experiment!!
It was like WORK today! But the weather is fine as frog hair and my mood matched it.
After spending the last few weeks trying to get things organized/cleaned/dunged..I am truly tired tonight!

did some art fun today

these are all mixed media on paper, not big, not done..
Now for a few pics of my messy studio

Saturday

winter is here finally and supposed to be gone by this afternoon..that was quick!!!

made up my own recipe..tangerines, grapefruit, green grapes, carrots, protein powder..all together now...yummy!!!

Spent 2 hours yesterday cleaning out fridge, prepping tons of veggies and fruit for the adventure in juicing...realized this morning..I have done no art this week.

Fixed up wooden shelves Hubby made years ago and now they are in my living room. The big set has all my art books, travel books, garden books, how to books, reference books on animals, and naturalist books..no fiction here...oh and room for all my jigsaw puzzles and some of the lps that didn't fit under the TV.
The smaller set of shelves now hold all the dvds, vhs tapes and the hooka!
Yes I own a hooka..given to me by my son. Haven't used it for a long time.

One more set of large shelves need to be upgraded and they will hold all of my plates, bowls, cookbooks, small kitchen appliances hopefully a new wine rack.

Then when it warms up..all shelves and small dining table and chairs will receive wonderful colors of paint. all different, bright and cheerful.

The insurance company told us we had to paint all of the exposed wood on our back covered deck...well how interesting..all of it is under roof and been there for 17 years with no sign of rot. But I do want to paint..just takes money we really haven't had.
We have made 2800.00 worth of claims in over 30 years of living here.
Not much in the scheme of things..but they saw fit to raise our $500.00 deductible to $1000.00 and now for sure we cannot make claims. I would switch but it takes more energy than I have right now.
Besides we get lots of discounts..but I am going to look for another company.


So today I was going to go north to pick up some artwork..but it is cold and I am feeling ..meh...
besides I want to try out some other juicing recipes.

There is a small bedroom used to be studio that I need to put back together as a guest room/office. But that should not take all day.

There you have heard about my week....I think I have been putting this kind of work on the back burner for too long..but it also feels like I have been using it as an obstacle to getting art done....