Art Swap Smile

I am smiling, as I was fortunate to be able to swap creations with Micki Wilde.
Here is the lovely creation I received from Micki. She offered up a trade to any blogger that wanted to swap art, and I jumped at the opportunity. I am happy to own a piece of her work.

I haven't found a permanant home for her yet, as I keep moving her around the house so she is in whatever room I am in. She makes me smile.

I made Micki this little item. This is the front cover.

and this is the back.

When you open it up, this is what you find. Not quite a book, as it has no pages.

Across the ocean our creations travelled. How fun!

More Play Time

When I looked back at the faces I had created, I decided they were missing something, so added some more marks with stamps and other bits of markings. Now I think she is finished.

And although I thought I wasa finished with making these faces, I wasn't and I continued on painting with my pan pastels.

I had a lot of fun with these, and found myself wanting to start a new one as soon as I finished one.

And then I got an itching to make a little accordian boook with them. So I made copies of the paintings.....

and added more pastels, some pen, stamps and paint to each of the miniature pieces, and put them together into an accordian book.

Now I wonder what I will work on next???

P.S. Oh yeah I decided to put the little book and some of the pastel paintings in my Etsy Shop.

Play Time

I received some Pan pastels for Christmas, and hadn't yet played with them. I wasn't sure how to use them, but decided just to open them up and have some fun.

I started by drawing a scribbly unrealistic face, and then added some colour to it. I soon learned that the colours are pretty intense, and a little goes a long way.

I kept playing, and tried to use less colour ..... it didn't always work, but I did have fun.
I like the fact that you couldn't be too accurate with where the colour went.

At first I played on watercolour paper

but then inspired by Lynne Hoppe's work on old book pages I decided to give that a try.

I enjoyed how these looked, but continued to work at not laying down too much colour.

I think this was my favourite one.

and when I needed a break from drawing scribble faces, I drew a plant.

I enjoyed this creative time.

Although I am still not sure how you are supposed to use Pan Pastels..... but I guess that doesn't really matter.

Struggling with Plaster

I have been looking forward to having time to play and paint on plaster. I have time right now, but the pieces I have been working on have not been so much fun as I had anticipated. Rather they were a struggle.
Here is the final piece. It is quite small, measuring about 6 inches square.

I love how the pieces are on cradle boards (shallow wooden box), as they add dimension to a wall, and don't need framing.

My goal for now is to enjoy what I am working on. Rather then telling myself what to work on, I will listen to what I want to work on. I do have one more plaster piece in process, but I may leave it for now, and spend some time playing on something else... I will see where the creating muse takes me....

Playing with Paint and Plaster

"Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

Henry David Thoreau

I have been playing - painting on plaster this week, and the above quote has been circling through my head. Winter trees have also been on my mind, so that is perhaps where these bare trees with so many seeds circling came from. Sometimes I find there are so many seeds running through my mind, that I am not sure which ones I should plant and nurture. Some are easy to plant, and do not require much effort to grow, while others take great courage to plant, and may need more nurturing.


Some seeds take a long time to grow, while others ones sprout quickly. I am working at planting some of those seeds that take some time to grow, but in the long run will hopefully be well worth it. Sometimes seeds don't grow, or grow differently then you expected. But that is okay, I will continue to work at planting some seeds.

I enjoyed my play time with plaster, and am working on another piece.... with a few more in mind that I would like to try.

Silent Beauty

Yes it is another little accordian book...
This one shows the drawing of a flower I did some time ago. I love how it looks tied up waiting to be discovered.


It sits nicely on a ledge or a shelf both closed or wide open.



Here is the back side when it is sitting open.

I also like it sitting in a zigzagging manner. So many options.

And here is some close ups of the inside pages...

These accordian books seem to be all I want to work on lately!

(Even though what was really supposed to happen was the cleaning/organizing of the studio!)

This one is available for purchase at my Etsy store

Winter Beauty

Winter where I live is long and usually cold with many hours of darkness. At the same time it is very beautiful. I have taken numerous pictures of the white mountains against the blue sky, but I have been itching to get out on a snowy day when the mountains can't be seen because of the low cloud, and I can explore the subtle colours.

I finally got our with my camera a few days ago. The temperature was warm (-8 celsius, +17 farenheit), and I spent a few hours taking pictures.

There was so much beauty everywhere I looked.

Even a branch with some fall leaves that never left the tree.

A bit of light came through the clouds in some areas.

and I loved the reddish browns of the willow bushes against the blues of the mountainside trees

the naked branches of winter trees always appeals to me

The clouds lifted a bit to show the small rounded mountains

and they were beautiful

no matter the angle that I looked at them.

I am glad I got out to explore the other day, as today I am staying warm indoors, as it is -40 degrees outside (-40 celsius is also -40 farenheit - the meeting point of the two scales)