January 06th, 2014

...I made a lil' art!

This will be my attempt to catch up on some things here in the blog that I didn't get a chance to write about.

Let's travel back in time, shall we?  Waaaay back in December, before the break, I spent an afternoon with my fav art friend Jessie Prugh.  I filled up my car with twenty paintings in various stages of being finished and drove down to Lake Worth for some QT with one of my own personal muses.  Jess worked on the computer and I took over her entire kitchen and bar area with twenty canvases.  

So I finished them that day.  Then I packed up the car again and took them down to Hollywood, FL.

---

...hip, hip HOORAY! My new paintings have a home! Go visit them...buy them...tell yer friends!

My destination?  SMASH Beauty Lounge.  Sally has re-opened in a new fabulous space and I took her up on her offer to show and sell my work.  I was especially excited about the eye paintings (so was Sally!) since she does a ton with eyebrows and such.  The most exciting part?  My work was up in time for the December ArtWalk.

...and I guess it didn't occur to me until after I had delivered the work and saw it actually hanging up in her venue...this was my first solo show.  To be honest, I got a little emotional,  My friend Jess said I didn't make a big enough deal about it, and I guess she is right...but it just didn't occur to me.

But yeah, my first show!  John and I walked down to see my work hanging the night of the Art Walk and it was exciting to see my work up on the walls and around the store and gallery space.  The work will be up for the next Downtown Hollywood ArtWalk, the third Saturday in January 2014.  I am excited, hopefully some of my friends can make it down to help me celebrate...and I am already planning some additional paintings to add before that Saturday!

...pics from the December 2013 Art Walk...guess that makes me an 'Art Walk Artist' now! Wow!

Next up...remember that collage piece I made for Jessie over the weekend?  Well, I dropped it off at Bear and Bird Gallery in the upstairs of Tate's Comics on Sunday for the Square Show.  I participated in this group show last year and I was excited about having a piece in the show again.  Artists could do basically whatever they wanted...just had to stick to the square format and I believe some dimension restrictions.  Looking forward to the opening for this one is Friday, January 17th from 6-10pm in Lauderhill, FL.

Next show...the 'Square Show' and Bear and Bird...come visit one of my latest piece, 'the Queen Bee'!

And finally...the last area to 'catch up' on...my new theme for January 2014.

I signed up to participate in the Creative Every Day challenge again for this year, making this my third year in a row. After a very productive year and pretty close to 1,000 works of art (seriously, I haven't finished....ummm...okay so I haven't STARTED...my inventory of the pieces from 2013 but it is on up there.)  I am ready to jump whole heartedly into another year of daily art making.  

The suggested theme for January 2014 is 'Past, present and Future'.  I have not yet decided if my current pieces fit this theme or if I am totally off on some tangent...that remains to be seen. All I know is I bought Jennifer, Amy's mom, some scrapbooking items for Christmas and one of the items was this cool book. When you open it there are twelve little boxes inside, and you can take them out and rearrange the boxes different ways.  I bought one of these for Jennifer...but I was already thinking that I might want to make one myself.  So I went back and bought one (actually used the gift card that John and Jennifer gave me for Michael's to purchase it!) and I just put it aside.

Until January 1st, that is.  On the first day of the new year, I started work on my first shadow box.  Now, I should mention...there IS an element of past in the work, at least so far.  A while back...like, maybe close to two years (?), I had bought a book on mail art, and I sat down and started drawing on some blank envelopes.  What did I draw?  My ladies, of course!  I guess I worked on about 10 drawings...then abandoned them for some sparkly thang or art adventure.  Typical.

So...long story short...right now I am working with those images until they run out and I have to make some new ones.  Each day so far for the new year I have sat and worked on one of the small shadow boxes, my intention is to work on one each day, then take them all out and work on the inside and outside surfaces of the larger 'book'...and depending on how many days are left in the month make another one...or maybe even a total of three...not sure yet.


I haven't taken final pics of the completed pieces so far...might not do that til this weekend, but for informal 'final' pics (and in-progress pics!) are up on my FB page and Instagram.

...closed book...view of the inside with the first two shadow boxes...box of supplies (thanks for the leopard print box, ma! I put it to good use!)...close up of the first shadow box...