Some More Art Inspiration!

Here's a few more pics from my travel art journal curtesy of my craptastic phone. Someday I'll upgrade...

Also it is that time of year again. ROCO held their 6x6 exhibit and I purchased my 8th piece of artwork. If you aren't familiar with this fundraiser/art exhibit check out the following site; http://www.roco6x6.org/6x6x2015_intro.php .  I've created artwork for the exhibit and they've sold each year since it's inception 8 years ago and I've purchased a piece each year.  I purchased another piece from a Rochestarian out of over 5,000 pieces.  Below is a pic of my purchase. In addition, I received notification that so far one out of 2 of my pieces have sold.  Check out the exhibit and purchase some great artwork inexpensively and it supports a great cause. You can purchase from this years artwork or search through previous years artwork and purchase from those.

Finally Some Art Work

It's definitely been difficult this fall to find time to create art. Between work, grad classes, running in races and having fun there has been a limited time to create.  I've spent most of my creative energy on art therapy groups and workshops at the college.  I've been to Stampin Up a couple of times and because I'm missing creating art I decided to splurge and signed up for an art class at the Creative Workshop through the Memorial Art Gallery.  It's once a week for three weeks in November and it is a Mixed Media Fibers: Fundamentally Felting class. I know how to basic felt and how to incorporate some other materials in but I think this class will teach me some other techniques in felting so I'm pretty excited about it.  Perhaps I'll make some Christmas gifts!

Anyway, below are a couple of pictures I've recently made. I still maintain that I need to take a writing styles class if I ever find one!

Life is a Balancing Act

I created this simple image today as I facilitated an art therapy group. The directive was to share something about yourself. I created these birds on a line and wrote "Life is about finding balance and trying to maintain it." I'm sure I've seen similar quotes before but this was my own version.  I've also created similar birds in other projects before.  I shared with the group that although I put 5 birds on the line (which isn't an even number) that it still means you can find balance. That often times life isn't perfectly balanced and we have some sort of stressors but that we can work on balancing life the best we can at any given moment. It's hard to tell but the white edges of the paper were colored black with a permanent marker.

Feel free to share your favorite quotes here...

DIY Creative Coat Rack

The first image below is of a coat rack I made for my work office. There's an older post about it somewhere on my blog.  I was going for a raw screen printed kind of look.  I liked it for a brief moment in time but after three years of planning I now have a brand new office space in a new building.  I'm working on redecorating my office using some of my old art pieces and bringing in some new things like plants and a revamped coat rack.

I've been creating a bunch of arts and crafty projects lately which of course is thrilling, productive, creative and therapeutic in their own right but this is the first mixed media piece I've done all summer. Here's how I did it.

I started with the blank piece of wood from the old piece, painted with reds and yellows, used a crackle medium followed by yellow paint, modge podged some sewing pattern paper I got for .25 cents at Craft Bits & Pieces, tried some other collage pieces... didn't like the outcome so I tore most everything off and started all over. I found an image about REST that I liked in a magazine and cut it out, painted the background with blue, violet and white, added more modge podge with the sewing patterned paper, modge podged the cut out image on, smeared paint around the edges, epoxied buttons and an old key lock I found around my house. I used stamp letters and black paint to add the quote, "PS Enjoy Your Life" to the image.  I found old large headed nails in my basement and hammered them in the corners of the wood. I then used modge podge and an acrylic spray sealer over the entire piece then drilled and reattached the coat hooks. I put holes in the back for hanging.

 Viola!!! I love this piece. Way better then my last attempt! And the total cost was only $5 for the coat the coat hooks from HD. Wood was a left over piece from house projects.

First Coat Rack made a year ago.

Newest mixed media coat rack.

Mixed Media Paintings: Birds, birds and more birds

Last week I felt like putting all other duties aside and painting. There was nothing in particular I needed as far as creating for a space. I went to Michaels with a 40% of coupon and ended up finding a package of four 6x6 canvas's and decided to purchase them. By the time I got home I decided the paintings I would create would have a theme to them and I would use them for the faculty/staff art exhibit (of course this isn't until Feb. 2012) but it gave me some purpose and vision moving forward. It also worked out that the sizes are 6x6 so that I will be able to donate the artwork to the 6x6x2012 fundraising exhibit at ROCO.

I've been on a bird kick lately and enjoy quotes, so this became my theme I used. Also, for the past year and a half I've been into using mixed media when I paint. I tried out a couple of techniques on these paintings and like most things in life...it took a couple of tries before I found an outcome I liked. I used a lot of layers, beginning with music sheets or decorative collage paper, then tended to rip some of it off and put a watered down acrylic wash over everything (sometimes so much so that you can't even see what kind of paper was used), then painted the birds on with acrylic paints, and used cut up words to create a quote which I then scotch taped on the canvas, and finally finished with a couple coats of decoupage or varnish.

What do you think?