Miss Em and the naked model

I am practicing by copying life drawings - got a magazine and went at it...but couldn't resist a Miss Em image in the drawing. Ain't she surprised!!!

A Collection of Bowls - and a few other things.

Catching up with showing some of the things that I have been working on over the past month as promised. So here are the Paper Mache bowls that I have been working on.

I like working in a series because everytime you do something new, you learn. I learned alot from making all these bowls - each one is an experiment in materials, and size and feel and finish. Each time they got better...or worse as I branched out into new experimentation.

I learn to do something by doing it as badly as I can - does that make any sense? I have to break things down before I can build them up again. It works for me - who knows why.

Anyway....

My idea was to collect all the PM bowls that I have worked on over the past month and do a photo shoot of them, so I collected them all, and put them on the workbench...and then decided that it was too difficult to photograph them all together. They just weren't acting like live models and moving themselves around to show their best side, and in general were uncooperative.

But here is the test shot that I did, so that you can get the full effect of my obsession.


Most of these I have posted before, so won't bore you again but here are some newer ones The red one sort of have a valentine theme, but not really. I've been completely into gold insides, so these are gold painted inside.

These green ones are sort of strange, I'm not in love with the way the green color turned out. Gold inside again.....

Now this one turned out to be my favorite, because of a few things. I like the shape, I like the bowl I used as a mold, it has a satisfying feel. I also love the color and the gold thingies on the side are from watercolor pens - you have to remove these little white rings before you use the watercolor so I had saved them. Painted them gold and here they are.

with of course, gold inside. (wonder when I'll get over this obsession?)
A purple bowl that is OK, I like the color inside and out but the shape just didn't do it for me.


This one is one paper inside and out and it's a gorgeous paper on it's own. Layered like this it looses its transparency and becomes a bit pasty I think. But I had fun with the shape and the letters and I have a fondness for this bowl. Those little squares are newspaper squares.



So that's the bowl saga. Yesterday I went to a local art store and found a few beautiful pieces of decorative paper, brought some home and might just make some more of these. It's fun, messy, goopy, and different.

I played yesterday with making hearts from canvas and other bits and pieces - maybe for valentines cards. If so, I guess I'd better get busy eh? (gosh - gold again, what's with me? Do I really want to have gold plated items in my house? Should I give into this gold obsession and go for the gold plated toilet?)

While I was downstairs taking pictures I found this box that I had made for Tony a few years ago and thought I'd post it. I started into this whole art challenge by playing with decoupage, and I loved it. But one runs out of places to keep large boxes so I turned to drawing and here I am today. I still love boxes and as you can tell...love containers of all kinds.
So that's the update. I could show you other stuff that I've been working on but you don't want to see pictures of all of the clothes out of my closet being sorted and organized. I don't even want to see it - let alone take pictures and share.

So have a lovely day all...

Six Word Saturday

Well, guess what...I had fun!

I have never taken a life drawing class before, but the instructor was very welcoming (and adorable looking) and helpful and great. So, all in all, I had a fun evening. I am showing you two of the more Human looking paintings (every week it is different, one week paint and one week pencils etc). The others looked like flat bodied martians, perched in strange odd poses.


I was also glad to see that the Iraqie girl from my first painting class was there, happily painting away. I'm not sure if the jock strap that this guy wore was in deference to her, or not, but it was sure odd.

Great way to end a busy week.

Friday night excitement (NOT)

Because my Friday night painting class was cancelled, I'm going to try a figure drawing class instead. I don't really want to do this - NOT interested in doing 3 minute drawing poses - that kind of pressure in not good for me, I'll be drawing stick figures. But if I don't like it I can get my money back.

So here we go again.....

Birthday Thursday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOSS!!!!!

Animal Wednesday - ducks!!

I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted, this is a long dry stretch for me. Traveling for work and visiting my brother for a weekend takes it's toll on blogging. And I'm still catching up! Laundry to do, large bulky envelopes to unwrap, things to catch up on.

I came home to three (3!!) ArtySoulSister books - one of them is MINE, finished. I'll post pictures of it this weekend. I also got Katies ArtShine book to start, so I have 3 waiting for me to get creative.

I have pictures to post from sunny CA, want to share my paper mache bowl series, show you all a painting that I have started, (hey if I can't take a class, I'll teach myself) but it will all have to wait until this weekend when I come up for air.

Until then, Happy Animal Wednesday

Animal Wednesday - there must be some down there!

OMG - I think I got the Mr. Linky thing to post see below!!

I am in San Diego, still on East coast time so it is early for me and for here and for everyone. I have no animals today because my lovely duck scan is at home on my home computer and I am traveling with my work computer. But I took these pictures and - there must be animals down there somewhere, just imagine them.

We were flying accross the country yesterday and I looked out the window and saw this very strange moonscape. I don't know if you can enlarge it and see how this is land cut up into geometric shapes, with only a few houses. The white is snow I think and the brown is where the snow is not. Looking at it quickly, it looks like a city...but it isn't.


Then we reached the mountains and I had to take a few pictures, isn't it beautiful?

A shot of Los Angelas Freeway for those who have never seen it. Looks rather daunting from up high and is even more daunting when you are driving on it.

When I landed I had a message from the Art School where my painting class is, saying that so many people had dropped out of the class that they were cancelling the class. So that's that. Oh well.....