Is my head on straight??

I have a fascination with "Dios de los Muertos". I absolutely love the art, the patterns on the art, the funky colors in the art, and just overall, the art. I know about the celebration, and some of the ways it is expressed, and I would love to see one of the festivals in Oaxaca, Mexico one day. I love the sugar skulls. I love the idea of taking something scary, and decorating it with flowers and colors and vines and patterns. To me it refreshes the past, it lends a new coat to something dark, and face it, a cool looking skull, goes with anything!

Billy and my Sister!!

So I am posting a shot of the most recent charcoal I finished today of Billy Idol. I don't think it is my favorite, but if I don't stop, I will rework it to death. So if you are looking at the title and wondering what does Billy have to do with my sister? Well, nothing..it's just something cool to look at. Because the huge, amazing news is .......I HAVE A LITTLE SISTER!!! Does it sound like a strange rant coming from a 40-something? I mean, I am not a toddler who just found out she is going to be a big sister, but this is just as exciting I'm sure.
I was on Facebook the other day, minding my own business, wasting company time, you know.....the usual, when I got this message in my inbox that said, in a nutshell, "Who's your Daddy?" Ok, not really, she didn't say that!! (That would have been funny though!!) But anyway, to make a long story short, I have a sister, and I am simply in awe.
So my sister's name is Shannon, we will meet soon, for the first step in a relationship that excites me to no end. I thank the Lord, who brings things together for His glory, in His time! Yay God
Now this is not a complete surprise, we knew she was out there somewhere, just never knew where to look. So I gotta give a great big awesome shout out to Facebook, because really, they seem to connect long lost.....everythings!!!

So if you are my friend on Facebook, look for Shannon, and give her a big virtual hug, she's family!!

Last Summer Weekend

SO we packed the car up Thursday afternoon and headed to Lake Havasu for our last summer break. My youngest stepson was here for a visit, so we took off for some fun. They boys went quad riding and had a blast. My youngest is just getting started riding and did great~~. The boat is our happy place, and we love to just hang out and lounge around. I love the weekends here, and the down time I get to just sit and read or journal is well needed. I brought a cool picture of Madonna that I wanted to try to do in charcoal, and I thought it came out pretty good. Utopia Salon ,in Upland, will be having a fashion/hair show during the Upland Music and Art Festival in November, and the theme is music icons from the 80's. This is my first one that they will have displayed in the shop during the show. I am looking to do some cool 80's hair folks, but without all the crazy "Flock of Seagulls "80's stuff. I will do a Billy Idol I think and maybe a big hair band guy, or something. Any suggestions??

Music and Art Series

Ok, so my 60's female icon series, has turned into "Art and Music Icons", due to the fact, that I am getting them ready for the Upland Music and Arts Festival in November, and it is, after all, a music and art festival. I have been having so much fun with these. Fun, frustration, amazement, frustration, excitement....and did I mention frustration. I say this because I had forgotten how it can be. When I visualize something in my mind, but have a hard time relating it to the page, I get frustrated. When I have to confidence to try, but then lose it when things don't go right, there's the "f" word again. It reminds me of a song from Howard Jones "No One is to Blame". One line is "aspirations in the clouds, but your hopes go down the drain". Now I don't have this outlook in my everyday life. I have Jesus, my hopes are never down the drain. But every once in awhile, creativity can do that to me. So I keep plugging along, I have to. Because sometimes it turns out just like I hoped it would. Here are two that I finished in the last week. Warhol is 12" x 18" charcoal on fabriano hot press, and Mick is 12" x 16" of fabriano hot press

Female 60's Icon Series

My husband insisted we have a yardsale. I didn't want to have a yardsale, it's alot of work and you gotta get up early and folks never want to pay the same amount as the little stickers you spent hours tacking on every single piece of craptastic treasure you managed to dig out, dust off and display. So now for the bright side: We found a great box of family photos nobody had seen for years, and I found my old sketchbooks from college. I had forgotten how much I love to draw. I am not so much with the still life fruits or scenic stuff, but give me a photo big enough that I can get the proper proportions, and I love to detail with charcoal.

I found some old magazine photos that I had used previously for a couple of drawings, and drew them again on watercolor paper. They came out so good, that I decided to do an entire series of Female icons from the 60's. Here are the first 4: Twiggy, Barbara, Marilyn and Lucy. Depending on how many I get finished, I should have a good sized collection to sell at the Upland Music and Arts Festival in November.

12" x 18" charcoal on Fabriano hot press

My Studio 13: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made-ArtNowFor Autism

This piece is being donated to the Art Now for Autism auction. Check out the details here.

Please check out their website and all of the amazing artists that are participating in this cause!!

(you can see more pic details below last post)

So Un-inspired

What the.......??? It seems like forever since I have found the inspiration, the muse, the desire to create!! Why does that happen to me? I can spend hours cruising through blogs and magazines and see some amazing eye candy, and yet, nothing seems to give my soul the push it needs to get going. I haven't journaled (anything worthwhile) in a month! Argghhhh!!

So what do I do, when I can't think of anything to do?? I follow direction. Tutorials, magazine techniques, DIY network, whatever....I fele half alive when I am not creating, so I got to go make SOMETHING!!

So for now, I am off to try DJ Pettit's "Let's Face it" in the latest Somerset Studio magazine. Here is a little something I did, oh I can't even remember when. Titled "Saint Hearted"

12" x 21" mixed media on watercolor paper

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Psalm 139: Such an amazing song of praise. I love how it talks about being knit together in the womb, and being fearfully and wonderfully made. This piece speaks of that. The background being rough and messy, with lumps and spills and things that don't match. Random textures and an image that might even be just a little bit scary. But this is how WE see ourselves. We see the mismatched, we see the awkward, we see things that our Father does not. Because, as the Universe's ultimate artist, We have got to know that He sees us just as he made us. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

Cosmic Crosses

This is a series of (3) "cosmic gelly" pieces that I have finished over the last week. Two of them are on 11"x14" plywood and one is on a 10"x10" gallery wrapped canvas. I finished the first 2 big ones, and hated how they came out. I thought they were too dark and random, and didn't have the same interesting shapes as ones I had done in the past. I don't know if I didn't use enough different colors, or what but I was not happy. Then I decided to start the process all over again with the cross. I taped off the cross shape, and kept the gel gloss inside, put some texture on it and let it dry. I then followed with the charcoal and acrylic paints.
I started the smaller canvas knowing it would be part of this cross series, so I had alot more detail. This one turned out to be sort of a calvary scene, with the crosses on either side and some random textures that looked like they could be people at the foot. I also had a hard time getting good pictures of these. Using the high gloss gel medium, every phot I took, inside or out, had alot of glare. These were the best images from 3 days of trying.

Be The Match! Save a life!

So between Blogger and Facebook and MySpace and Twitter, ( and many more I am sure) there has never been an easier way to get info out to people all over the world, with the click of a mouse.

I am going to use my blogger powers for good, and hope that this post can inspire some prayers, and maybe save a life.

My cousin and her family have been going through medical issues for awhile. Her husband has cancer and they tell him that he has exhausted his treatment efforts. So his choices are, let the cancer run it's course or have a bone marrow transplant. He will be meeting with doctors in a couple of weeks to go through the info on that option.

So I would ask that all of you out there in blogger/facebook/twitter/myspace ...blah blah blah, send your prayers to Rick!! Pray for healing, for the family, for the doctors and for a bone marrow match.

And if you are not a registered bone marrow donor, there are people all over the world waiting to be matched. Check out the link below, and give it some serious consideration. All it takes is a cheek swap to be registered!

Thanks all, and feel free to repost or retweet, or whatever sounds your networking program makes!!

National Marrow Donor Program - Be The Match Marrow Registry

Shared via AddThis