Merry Christmas!

I can't believe I haven't posted since Haloween, but life has been very busy. I have been working lots of crazy hours and going through training and I haven't had much time for art or the computer. I have lots of good photos though, that I will start to post as I get the chance. For now, I will just post some of my favs. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year if I don't get the chance to post again....(I'm hoping, but you never know.)

Most of these are Christmas themed. As for the random heron shot, I thought it was an awesome shot...not usually an angle you get to shoot.

Trish

Trish

Haloween Spirit

Just a quick post to let you know we are in full Haloween Spirits over here....there will be more to come as the days go by...
Trish

I'm playing with my photoshop...and in the Haloween spirit, if you can't tell. If you look closely at the skull, there is a picture of a vulture that I took at the zoo embedded in it. You can always click on the picture and it will open in a larger window so you can look closely (just in case you didn't know.) I have a busy weekend ahead with work, training, and the kiddos' activities. Hope you all have a fun and happy weekend too!

Inspire Me Thursday-Nervous Energy from being on the prowl

Inspire Me Thursday Photo Oct 14, 2008

Rumi Poem

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

Inspire Me Thursday October 14, 2008 Rumi Poem

This week's Inspire Me Thursday was a poem by Rumi.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running to my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual?
They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.

In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul
and you are that.

But we have ways within each other
that will never be said by anyone.
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

It's watercolor, matte medium, and pencil. 9 x 12

In keeping with October and scary things....here's a giant hornet I found (dead) at work the other night. It's apparently a European Hornet...but I live in Florida!! I hope there aren't any more of these around, because if I ever saw one flying I would probably never leave the house. Everyone at work thought I was crazy for bringing it home, I guess its the biology student in me. Plus, I thought it might make a good item for a painting, and my kids got a kick out of seeing it. Hope you do too.
Trish

Inspire Me Thursday: Cereal Box Art

This is my post for Inspire Me Thursday (what an awesome blog!). This week's project was to create art out of a cereal box. One of the examples was to do a photo transfer onto a gesso'ed cereal box. I didn't have any way to print photo transfers, and I didn't have any gesso (mostly a watercolor painter.) So, I tried to cover a photo with matte medium (many layers), and peel it off for a transfer. That didn't work. Then I went and made photo transparencies at Office Depot, applied the matte medium, stuck it down on my painted and matte mediumed cereal box, and THAT didn't work. So I painted it.

I used my new Daniel Smith Primatek paints (mostly Blue Apatite and Amethyst, but also some Jadeite and Rhodonite and Sugilite). Plus white acrylic paint and mixed all of it with matte medium so that it is more permanent. It has many layers, and for the negative space I scratched back through the amethyst to the layers beneath, sometimes all the way through to the cereal box. I used a green Apple Jacks box. The painting is about 8 x 12.

Photo of the day :-)

I've been working a ton and haven't had much time to paint all the wonderful things floating around in my head (umm, ok, wouldn't paint ALL of them anyway, but a few good ideas are in there too).

This is a tree frog I found in my backyard. There is a "contest" on Watercolor magazine's site about painting what you find in your own environment, and this might be my submission. http://www.artistsnetwork.com/article/wca_creativity_painting_off_road/

My little frog isn't nearly as cool as that alligator, but as I mentioned above, I'm working ALOT and haven't had much time. I hope to have time to even paint this. Hope all of you are well and happy.

In Time for October....

A cool shot of our resident Black Cat...Maddie.

Inspiration at last!

These photos don't give "her" full justice...but I got these mannequin heads from freecycle last year. At the time, I didn't know what I was going to do with them, just that they lent themselves to some sort of creative objective. This week I got inspired...and painted one with Van Gogh's Starry Night...or my impression of it, anyhow. I love it. Not sure how I'm going to handle the hair yet...I sprayed it with blue hairspray for now...

College Pics

These are all photos of pics I did in college...not all of them of course...but a few. I thought they were at least interesting enough to post here.

These are the current works for this week. Neither is finished. The one of my Dad and Carol is a "study" I'm doing in my sketchbook. I intend to play with the colors, image, and background in a small(er) format before I decide on how I want to do a larger painting. I like this one, but it isn't quite what I had in mind. Kevin Welsh is the photographer. He took the picture in the Bahamas.

The other one is the color sheet of Daniel Smith paints I just got (see earlier post). As you can tell, they are all lifting paints. Instead of just doing a stripe on each color, I decided to use my orchid pattern to see if they lifted. They do.

Primatek Watercolors by Daniel Smith

I got quite a few tubes of Daniel Smith's primatek paints for my Birthday (thanks Dad and Carol!). I painted out some squares and on the sample sheet Daniel Smith sent to get a better idea of my new colors. Overall, I really like them. Some of course, more than others.
Here are the colors on the first picture from top left Purpurite, Amethyst, Sugilite, Sodalite, Blue Apatite, Lapis (I didn't have much of this one, just a little on the card),Sleeping Beauty Turquoise, Accidental Jade and Amazonite mix (pretty though), Jade, Serpentine, Rhodonite,Minnesota Pipestone (very small sample),Tiger's eye genuine,Hematite Burnt Scarlet, Bronzite,Sedona genuine,Amazonite,Blue Apatite charged with Rhodonite, Amethyst charged with Rhodonite, Purpurite charged with Sedona.

Sugilite is not what I expected...way more iridescent (not sure how I will use this in my paintings...might be better for abstract work). The bronzite and amethyst also show some iridescence, but not as much and it almost disappears in washes. The serpentine is much nicer in person than on this photo. It is one of my favorites. I just wanted to show what they looked like so other artists could decide for themselves. I have not checked opacity or staining qualities yet, but it is late tonight and I'm going to bed. Hope this gives you a better idea of the colors.

BtW, the rhodonite on the small sample card got contaminated with some of the sodalite so it isn't a good example.

Trish

Corelle Color Your Home in Corelle Contest

Domino magazine www.dominomag.com ran a contest with Corelle plates...Color your home in Corelle...

I did a lot of research into past Corelle plates, other plates, design themes that are popular right now, and came up with these ideas. The bird of paradise fits two design themes right now, tropical, and the colors blue and orange, which are apparently popular right now. Plus, there aren't many bird of paradise plates, and I liked how it came out. Sort of an abstract version.

The orchid is another popular color scheme in design right now, purple and green, plus its exotic and my version is simple. I know purple is not good "feng shui" for the kitchen, but I have grape plates in almost that exact shade of lavender and I love them.

I had never even imagined trying to design plates before, so I learned alot in my research, and it got me painting again, which I hadn't been in quite some time. I'm not sure what I will do with the images if I don't win but I will probably work on them and work them into some sort of collage.

Wish me luck.

Updating my site, finally!

These are some of the things I have been working on for the last month or so. Pretty diverse. The angle of the rhino was very challenging, but fun. Not sure what I am going to do with the orchid yet, probably work it into another painting. These are all in my "sketch book", about 9 x 12 inches.

Busy Busy Busy

I have been super busy lately and haven't had time to post, but I haven't been without art. I painted this surfer hippie van for a friend's boyfriend's birthday, among many other things, including helping my son paint his room. Hey, its still painting! Plus, I decoupaged some 1 x 2's with skateboarding images and pics and I'm going to use them to hang his skateboards, instead of having them all over the floor. I will upload images when we're done. Hope all is well with all of you.
Trish