Mixed Media Attempt

Here's one of my more recent attempts at mixed media. I just went with it and basically experimented more with layering and stamping. It turned out okay. I give myself an A for effort.

For the Love of ART and Creating!

My wonderful friend Cindi gets together with her good friend Leslie just about weekly to go wild and create art. Talk about an amazing art studio- Leslie's got it! They both graciously allowed me to tag along one Saturday afternoon and make a mess with them. Part of the wonderful experience was touring Leslie's home where every room is an opportunity to behold one of Leslie's amazing pieces of art. She takes random found objects and combines them with other materials to create eye catching masterpieces. Talk about jealous- she has more creativity in one hand than I have in my entire body. I could simply watch her create all day long. She has an innate style through experimentation and technique that leaves you wondering; "how the heck did she do that?". Her model is similar to Cindi's and mine; "there are no rules to using art materials- just use them". However; she has one additional model that I aspire to work towards; "keep going and no fear".

Anyway, here's the crazy part- she doesn't think people would purchase her artwork! She has loads of her work at her home but has never ventured out to sell any of it. She creates mixed media pieces, creative yarn dolls, yarn tapestries, felting images, most everything and anything. She is not a one dimensional artist that's for sure. So...I'm on a mission to get her to start selling her work so others can enjoy it! What do you think? Like her work? WOULD you buy it for yourself or someone you know?

She was featured in the Nov/Dec issue of Clothe, Paper, Scissor magazine. She was in the paper house/mixed media article!

Take a look at Leslie Werlin's mini art gallery below:

This is made from a piece of wood found laying around. Can you see it?

Watercolor Reflections

I recently completed facilitating an Open Studio Art Therapy group. In the final group I asked members to reflect on their group experience and what it was like for them. I created along with the group and this was my piece I shared with them.

As my group members pointed out...there was a lot of "perfect accidents" that occurred through the haphazard mixing of watercolor, markers and stamping with watercolor. What a metaphor for life! Another perfect accident was the creation of a flower smiley face that I didn't see but a group member pointed out. Do you see it?

Right up here ^

Turning Art Into Gifts!

I'm running an Open Studio Art Therapy group at work this semester and it's going really well. Here's one of my own pieces I worked on during the semester. It's on a canvas board and started with old music sheets, watered down acrylic paints and some left over transfer images, stamps and the inside of a bag of tea.

I think it turned out pretty well and quite a few of the students in my group said that I should frame it and give it away for a holiday gift so I took their advice and found this frame at Hobby Lobby; http://www.hobbylobby.com/ for 50% off which met I created this entire project/gift for $15. Not bad!