A Lot of Catching Up to Do. . . . .

But I will try to get back to being a more regular blogger. I still want to talk about these things:

1. Celebrate Creativity Artist Inspirational Retreat

2. Madera Wine Trail

3. Ramos Torres Winery in Kingsburg

4. Reedley Christmas Art Show

Tomorrow, I'll try to begin at the beginning and start the longish road to catching up! If by some chance I don't get to blog tomorrow, I wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving on Thursday. Keep your sights on the things that you have to be truly thankful for, each and every day. . . . .

A leader or a follower?

I hope that you are both! A leader who will lead others to my blog and a follower who will become a supporter of both this blog and also the Art Stand Gallery blog. I am looking forward to seeing the list of followers grow in number and I will try to be a better blogger to give you some good content to read about and some good photographs to look at.

"Holiday Spirit" Weekend/Madera Wine Trail

Hello to all! What a busy life this is! I want to blog about the Celebrate Creativity weekend and I will write more about it, very soon. But today, I am preparing for the Madera Wine Trail weekend which is tomorrow and Sunday. I will be located at Birdstone Winery which is very near the iintersection of Avenue 9 and Road 36, not far into Madera County.

I will be there both days this weekend, from 10 AM till 5 PM. I will have my large wine paintings, a lot of prints and cards, and a lot of small originals, not necessarily wine-related. I think it will be a lot of fun, but at the moment I'm thinking it's going to be quite cold as it's outside. Brrrrrr! But maybe it will warm up and be a gorgeous fall day. This morning it is foggy because it rained yesterday.

Roy had to go back to work--he thought he was done for the season!--and on his birthday today, too. But off he went. We'll celebrate with dinner out when he gets home this evening.

Pack, pack, pack, cut (mats), cut, cut, load, load, load. . . .

More soon--

"Celebrate Creativity" Weekend--Artist Inspirational Retreat, 2009

Well, my dear friends, the weekend is over and I really hate to see it end. All 3 days were great--good people, good art, good food, good times, good fun. All good, in my estimation. My feet are tired and I am going to sleep in a bit in the morning, and then I'm going to "regroup" a little and get back to my own painting since I have some goals to make some progress on.

I'll post photos and more details of the weekend very soon. Next year, we decided we'll call the weekend "Artaholics Anonymous" and also that we'll try to get together to play long before next November. Maybe once a month, after the holidays--can we do it? We can try!

"Sparkle and Shine!"

The title is a saying of Shiela Boyd's and I hope she doesn't mind my using it as my post title for today. I am SO EXCITED to have fairly successfully updated the look of my blog. I added a new background called "Fairy Dust" and a new header that I did myself using Photoshop Elements more successfully than I am usually able to. Yippee Doo! :)

It feels nice to have a new look, rather like getting a new hair style after looking the same way for a long time. I never had a background other than just the plain black before but I find "Fairy Dust" just glitzy and sparkly enough for my taste. And I loved "Juicy" as my header but it was just stuck there in the middle of the space, rather obtrusively and rather badly. This header uses "And the Ring, Please?" more successfully I think and I plan to change the header photo periodically. Now I just need more followers! I have 16, which is wonderful, but I should have more than that by now. If you are reading this blog and you'd like to receive notification when it's updated and have your photo (Facebook profile photo, blogger photo or ???) shown as a follower, please scroll down the right hand sidebar until you see the Followers area and join me as a follower here on "Mixed Messages." And maybe you know someone else who would like to follow me also. Let me know, if that's the case. And I thank you profusely for doing that! :)

I  have 112 Fan Page fans on my Facebook Fan Page so I think I should be able to do better than 16 followers on my blog. I try not to post the same info both places although my blog posts are linked to Facebook and my posts are linked to Twitter. Everything is becoming nicely interconnected and I am becoming more technologically proficient by the day. Now if I could just master Photoshop Elements and Twitter, I'd be feeling pretty good about it all. On the other hand, I just heard of another social networking application called "Google Wave" that I've never heard of before yesterday. Oh, well. . . . onward and upward. Maybe tomorrow I'll check it out and see what other mischief there is to get into. :)

Busy Day Yesterday. . . at the Art Stand Tent Event

Each fall, we have an event at The Art Stand Gallery called "The Tent Event". The Art Stand Gallery is a cooperative gallery on the Blossom Trail in the fruit and wine country outside the small town in the Central Valley of California where I live. There are 14 artists involved and we do 4 special events each year. Yesterday was our annual "Tent Event" where we set up our tents (to attract attention) outside and had a special sale with refreshments and demonstrations all day.

Yesterday, the day opened with unseasonably early FOG but it soon cleared. The day was gorgeous, bordering on a bit too warm at times in the sun--but a really beautiful day. We set up and started at 11 AM and had quite a busy day, with a lot of visitors and lots of visiting. Our "fans" came to see us and chat, Sally did quick gestural sketches and watercolor portraits, Tiwi threw pots on her wheel all day, Kay G. polished silver and beaded, Deanna and Chieko started watercolor paintings at their tables, and some of us just "smoozed" all day! That would be me, among others! I like to talk to people about my work and answer their questions etc. and get to know them better. I think the personal connection is a really important part of gaining "collectors" of your work and having good sales. I actually had quite a good day, sales-wise, and I certainly had a good day in terms of fun!

I am attaching some photos of my booth and a few others and I will post more information to the Art Stand blog at theartstandgallery.blogspot.com.

A New Project--Part 2

I next made wings by tearing or cutting pieces of paper doilies and placing them under the body shapes. You could also use rice paper or fabric or lace--anything you like that makes you think of wings and that will glue down fairly flat. Once all the paper pieces were glued down, I let everything dry. Next, I used a very thin wash of white gesso and water to "soften" some of the very stark areas--just dilute the gesso and brush over random areas, lightly. I used a bit of red watercolor at this point to enhance a few other areas and add a little color to the white/black/gold pallette used on all 3 hangings.

Let it all dry again and then spatter lightly with thin mixed black watercolor or black gesso and a toothbrush to unify the whole tiny project. Not too much, just a little spatter here and there.

Once dry, I began the fun part of embellishing with line work done in gold gel pen. Just some random scribbles, outlining some of the checks in gold and so on. And I signed each piece with a fine line black pen in an inobtrusive place.

Dry again! And then coat each piece with a protective finish of some sort, such as mat or gel medium, spray varnish, or some top coat. I wanted to try out some new finishes so I did one in clear gesso, one in matt varnish (brush on), and one with a self-leveling gel top coat. Each turned out different--the self-leveling gel was shiny, but not a very smooth hard finish as I had expected. Maybe it needs more coats. The mat varnish is a nice, dull finish and the clear gesso is just a clear, non-shiny effect. I think I like the mat varnish best, but it is also the one that smeared the red areas the most and that's both good and bad.

When they are all done and dry,  photograph each one; scan each one and save on the computer so you can make cards etc. of them, if desired; and make a label for the back of each one with your contact information etc. Mine will be labelled "Checked Chicks 1, 2, and 3" so I have a record of them as I create them.

I'm not sure what I'll charge for each one, but I'm thinking in the $20-25 range. Would you pay that much for one? They are now officially for sale, I guess, but I do want to keep them until after December 12th.

Their good points? Small, portable, don't take up much wall or surface space--and their legs, feet, hands etc. are quite humorous! Check out the tennis shoes and gym socks on the
one to the right!

A New Project--Part 1

At Sierra Art Trails, Julie Mitchell and I talked more about a little workshop/demo session that we are going to do at Willowbridge Bookstore in Oakhurst in December. We did one there before and decided we want to make the next one much better. The first time, I planned to do a little collage demo and Julie planned to do a little make-it/take-it of paper clay faces. Well, of course, people wanted to do the make-it/take it, me included! So, next time we are going to do an interactive session together,  with each of us doing a part of the presentation/demonstration.

Julie will do the faces, hands, and feet and I will do the bodies and backgrounds. Our participants will  make a card or a little wall hanging.  I have been experimenting with some ideas for the bookstore session and here is what I have come up with so far. I'm sure Julie is doing the same in her studio in Coarsegold and once we both have some samples made, we'll coordinate our efforts in the final planning for the December afternoon.

First, I cut some old mat board scraps into 5 X 7 inch rectangles. The board was gold on one side (the front) and white on the other side (the back). I decided to work on 3 at once so I cut them, colored the edges with a black Sharpie pen, put a black ribbon loop on the back with double-sided tape, and then covered the back with a piece of scrapbook paper, applied with a glue stick. I had to do a little touch-up of the edge with the Sharpie when I was done.

 After the boards were prepared, I started looking through magazines ("Oprah!" is one of my favorites) for pieces to use for heads/faces and for bodies. Here are photos of the 3 faces that I clipped out.

This photo shows the prepared boards with the cut-outs selected for the bodies--which are clock or watch faces--and the 3 heads.

                                                                

In this photo, I laid down a body and a face on background and I also added some checks with a stamp pad and permanent ink, plus a piece of drywall tape to the lower left corner of the piece with the black and white stylized head. They will be glued down with a glue stick, once I have added some wings behind each figure--so they can be angels, though that isn't a necessity.

I decided that all of these little hangings will have a woman, some words, and some checks in them so that I can call them "Checked Chicks" or "Chick Checks" or some such. Working in a series appeals to me, and doing 3 at once means that I can think in similar terms for a period of time and be looking for similar things to cut out etc. I can also use the same materials for a little while and experiment with the same pallette, same supplies and same techniques on all 3 pieces. If I am trying out a new medium or a new technique, I have more than 1 opportunity to get it right, before it's all over for the day, so to speak!

That concludes Part 1 of the small project--Part 2 will soon follow!