Mermaid Crazy Quilt

I've wanted to do a crazy quilt for a long time. They're just so colorful and fun. I've decided to make a crazy quilt with a mermaid theme (to match the theme of Kate's nursery) and have painted a few mermaids already. I have three all together that I will make into blocks. This is the biggest one. They're all still works in progress. I always enjoy seeing other artists works in progress and thought it would be fun to show the quilt in parts as I work on it. Kate is due the beginning of March... will I have it done by then? I still have that baby bumper to make at this point as well. Better get busy.

Not having much luck with my scanner give true colors, I used a camera this time. I find though that this paint has a bit of a shimmer that doesn't photo terribly great. So my shading turns into hot spots instead and the face is flattened in the photo. One of these days I'm going to learn how to take good pictures of my art.

I Love Fall

My favorite season. Fall in NC is so beautiful.

Its finished!!

I've worked on this quilt off and on for several months now. I've made small art quilts in the past just figuring out what to do as I went along. A very good friend of mine moved away last spring and I worked on this with another friend as a going away gift. I thought I would have completed it a lot sooner, but it became obvious that I didn't really know what the heck I was doing when it came to making a big quilt. I enjoyed working on it and did learn a lot in the process. I definitely learned not the use the quilt batting that's 2 inches thick. It drew the quilt right up. Eek! The quilt started out huge, going off the edges of my dining room table. Once completed, it was about a third of the size. The handprints are all the right size as I sewed around them.

This quilt is hand sewed and has handprints of all the kiddos in our playgroup.

May the Force Be with You

I haven't updated in a while and thought it would be fun to share some of my latest projects.

My son turned 5 this past October and wanted a Star Wars themed birthday. I made him this Yoda tshirt to wear to his party. I have lots of fat quarters and was wanting to use some of my fabric stash. I thought it turned out pretty cute and I received a thumbs up for my effort.

Practice Makes Perfect

or at least keeps an artist from completely regressing back to stick figures.

I've done a lot of ATCs and jointed paper dolls this year. I've been working on some other projects for a change of pace. A friend asked me to do some drawings of her sons and I agreed realizing that I needed the practice. While I was working on them I realized I DESPERATELY needed the practice. I have certainly lost some of my skill and eye for drawing. I need to be drawing everyday! My new goal is a portrait a week. I'm pretty busy these days and still feeling really tired from the pregnancy so 1 a week may be all I'm up to finishing these days. Plus I have a couple other projects going on.

Here are the drawings I've done lately. Hopefully, I'll be posting more and will see some improvement as I get more and more practice.

And here is the littlest guy. I've never been very good with baby portraits so the practice was good. The scan leaves out most of the shading. I had more shading in the baby's portrait than the other two, but you wouldn't know to see it here.

So Sweet!

This is what a found on my pillow when I went to bed last night. How adorable. My little guy wanted to surprise me. I'd been sick all day and this made me feel better.

Delightful Surprises

This is a paper doll I did several months ago just for the fun of it. I thought it went well with the theme of this post.

After posting earlier about adjusting to my turning 40 in May and dealing with the fact that we would never make an adoption match at our agency and the ship on our having our own baby had long ago sailed, turns out I'm pregnant. Needless to say Jeff and I were completely shocked. I don't think either one of us really believed it until we saw our little one on ultrasound at my first OB appointment and heard the heartbeat. I found out via HPT at 5 weeks. I'm 11 weeks now and there are still moments when I have a hard time believing we're going to have another baby. The odds were next to none that would ever happen and it would seem they got even slimmer with my age. And yet I am.

We told our son first. I made him a big brother tshirt and we had him read it. He was so excited. He has been wanting a sibling for a while now and thought he just wasn't going to get one. He put the shirt on and we went to my parents to let them know as well. Neither one of them read the shirt. LOL. Ben kept following them around saying "I'm going to have a baby. I'm a big brother." and it wouldn't sink in with them. I finally had to say "Would you read the shirt already?" And then it took lots of talking to get them to understand that we weren't adopting and that I was actually pregnant. This has been the response with about everyone we've told. Everyone is shocked.

I've felt pretty horrible, as I did with my first pregnancy, and I'm having a hard time getting art completed for art swaps and mailed out. Not complaining at all, as I appreciate our miracle and I know I would worry if I didn't have plenty of pregnancy symptoms. Still, with wanting to go to bed about the same time as my 4 year old, I just don't have the energy or time to work on art swaps like I used to. I joined a moleskine trading group (where everyone passes their art book around to have all members draw/paint in) earlier and I have a feeling that will be challenging enough to keep up with. I also have a quilt that I've been working on forever that I must get finished soon and mailed to a very good friend of mine. Thank goodness Ben goes back to preschool in a couple of weeks. I'll have some daytime hours to work on projects when I still have a little energy.

Summer PAT ATCs

Here are my four cards for the Summer Pat Swap

Jack Sparrow - Pirates of the Caribbean
Virgin Mary
Dolores Umbridge - Harry Potter
MY Fair Lady - Awesome scenes from musicals



and a mermaid paper doll with octopus for the hostess gift.

Art Dolls: Everybody Loves a Parade take 3

Another paper doll for the Everybody Loves A Parade swap at ATCsforAll.com.
These are a couple of spectators. Chip loves having fans and he's not afraid to show it!

Art Dolls: Everybody Loves a Parade part 2

So I've finished this doll for the parade swap and I think its weirdly cute. The folks who joined the swap are having a good time making dolls that creatively fit into the theme. Apparently, there are all kinds of crazy parades happening out in the real world. Being fanciful, I thought a zoo parade might be fun.

Here is Molly Ann riding Snapper! Molly Ann is the daughter of the Jack DoLittle, the zoo's lead herpetologist's. And no, that is not a specialist of herpes! ;) Molly Ann was thrilled to be included in the Zoo's first ever parade!

I always get a kick out of making dolls that require lots of brads.

The Zunicorn

I found this today. One of my early attempts at a zunicorn card for the CAT swap. I didn't like it all all when I painted it in. The little monkey at the bottom bothered me too. I haven't seen it in a while and looking at it now I think I actually like it a little bit. It lacks some of the shading, but its OK.

I've been going through this depression about not being able to have another child (on our own or through adoption) which has only gotten worse since turning 40. I've noticed a lot of my artist trading cards, regardless of the topic, have people/animals being all snuggly and I know its related to my mood. I kind of feel like I can't actually have another baby, but I can dream about it through my art. I'm very drawn to artwork with Mommies and babies or small children. Or just happy people who are snuggly.

Art Dolls: Everybody Loves a Parade!

Another art doll swap has opened up at ATCs for All. I just got back from a week at the beach, but while I was there I got a little bit of work done on my first parade doll.

I plan to make all of the dolls for this swap go with this same theme. I got about this much done and thought it would be fun to show a paper doll in progress.

Finished the Unicorn Set

Here is the last unicorn card for the CAT swap. Feels good to get them all done. I think the last one is my favorite.

Bill the Butcher

This card was for a character PIB swap. The first person to post on the swap lists 3 or more characters (from books, tv, movies) that she would like someone to make her. The next person to post agrees to do one of the listed choices and creates a list of characters of her own for the next person to chose and draw for her.

This is Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York.
I drew his bar in the background. Though the bottles are modelled after actual bottles from the late 1800s I came up with the names of each liquor myself. The names are slang expressions you might have heard in America at the time. I've been doing a lot of watercolor lately, but this ATC is colored pencil.

Hostess Gift

I made this doll for the hostess of the steampunk paper doll swap I joined a while back. Has nothing to do with the steampunk, but I did try to match it to some of her themes she mentioned collecting in her profile.

black and white birds, nests, bird masks

The little mask fits over her face.

Feminine Menagerie Swap

Another swap at IllustratedATCs.com.
This was the swap I joined and completed while going through artist block with my unicorn swap. I absolutely loved the theme for this swap and enjoyed myself very much while making my ATCs. These were the first images I submitted as a new member to the group and the other artists were very kind with their words and support.

Here are my cards. Again, more crappy scans.

This is my favorite. I so love mermaids and I was very pleased with the flow of this ATC.

This was the second ATC completed. This really happened to me when I was around 5 years old. Just the nest. No baby birds. I'm one of those people that bizarre things happen to now and then. LOL.

The third one was fun with the red hair.

And the fourth one. This woman actually has olive skin, but you would never know it to look at this scan. I love the little frogs and the quetzel.

New Challenges

I recently joined a new ATC trading site, IllustratedACTs.com. It's juried site so being accepted was an exciting thing for me. I still love my first trading site, ATCsforAll.com and plan to continue trading there, but look forward to having to push myself a little more with my new group where people don't know me as well and I have to prove myself all over again.

Upon being accepted, I immediately joined a swap. A CAT (choose a theme). I picked a fantasy themed group within the swap and decided on unicorns as my personal theme. Honestly, I don't know why I picked unicorns. They make me think of the 80s, bad fashion/bad hair, and and my goofy teen years. Once I started drawing them, I also realized that (1) horses are a pain to fit into an ATC and (2) getting the horn to show at different angles is challenging. And I wasn't really feeling inspired to do unicorns. They really aren't my thing. What was I thinking? I've started several unicorns that I just wasn't feeling and never finished. I also realized that another artist in the other fantasy group on the swap had also picked unicorns for her theme. While I was trying to come up with my first card, she completed her whole set as well as another set for her second group. And they were fabulous. I got so sucked up into trying to make my unicorns new and original and wouldn't even think about putting cliche rainbows in my cards while the other artist used rainbows in every one and made them anything but cliche. At that point, I joined a second swap and completed all the cards for that one as the CAT was starting to kill my artistic selfesteem. I was getting some serious artist block.

I'm so used to seeing unicorns depicted as white, flowing, skinny legged creatures and wanted something different. I was on a 'zunicorn' (zebra + unicorn) kick last year and still thought it was a cool idea. Zebras are stocky, have short spiked manes and of course sport the awesome striped pattern. But after looking through lots of horse pictures for inspiration, I came across these knabstruppers and was hooked on them. I love love love their spotted coats.
At this point, I have three cards done. I may need to tweek them a bit. But this is what I have so far. My new scanner is awful. The colors are off, the shading doesn't show up, and there are blotches. Sigh.

After years of painting pictures of my nieces, I find they still pop up in my artwork now and then. This girl looks like my niece Rachel. I love her freckles and thought they would be fun with my spotted horse.

Here is the second one I finished. It looks completely washed out. Sorry about that.

And my third one. Do you see a pattern here? Lots of hugging and lovey dovey going on. My art is certainly influenced by my mood of which will be another post at some point.

I have one more unicorn card to go.
For my hostess gift, I made this paperdoll. The hostess is collecting Queen Elizabeth 1 ATCs. Hopefully she wont mind a paperdoll instead of an ATC. I love making them and Queen Elizabeth 1 was so much fun with that awesome dress. The little puppy on her shoulder has a movable head.

More Not Rectangle Shaped Art. Yay!

I joined another paper doll swap. This one is Steampunk themed. We each are to make a character, some type of flying machine, and have the option of doing a steampunk accessory. I've got the doll done and have almost all of the flying ship drawn. I haven't named her yet, but do have a bit of background thought out for her.

Here is my March journal page as well.

Journaling Hands

I was impressed with artwork I saw being made for a mail art swap on atcsforall.com of hand shaped images. I was immediately drawn to the idea of having art that isn't the basic rectangle or square shape most paintings seem to be. Also, hands are so expressive. This leads well into artists expressing themselves. I was too late to join the swap, but decided I should still use the idea as inspiration for a personal project. Last year, I took on the challenge of scrapping every day of the year with a photo. This year I thought a hand shaped page every month for a journal reflecting on my year would be a neat new angle. I'm still working on March, but here are January and February. I included the back of February to show where all my journaling goes. I love the idea of the pages being so personal as to have the shape of the hands that make them. And I'm making myself handwrite all the journaling instead of typing. Again more personal, even if my handwriting is nothing to brag about.

January

February

February back

ATC Saturday: Facial Emotion Swap

Another swap.

Disgust

Clueless

Joy

Fear

Art Doll Swap

I was so excited to see a swap for art dolls on ATCs For All. I love making jointed paper dolls. As much as I enjoy making them, trading art dolls with other artists sounds like even more fun. Here are my 4 dolls for...

Nanner's Oddball Art Doll Army

Let me introduce you to Rococo. Rococo is a gargoyle who comes to life at night. One evening he rescued a bag of drowning kittens who have since become his little buddies. The arrangement is perfect as Rococo turns to stone once the sun comes out and cats like to sleep all day. My inspiration for Rococo came from a gorilla named Koko who speaks sign language and loves kittens.

The next oddball is a firefly fairy. She glows in the dark.

And finally I have a steampunk pair who mostly just look like cowboys. I have this whole story worked out in my head for these guys involving racing around the galaxy with their bootleg hootch but this is what you see.

Molly Moonshine is the brains behind the operation and captain of the ship. (Use you imagination on the ship. ;) ) Molly has a fazer riffle.

Bart is the muscle behind the operation. He has an obsession for gambling and Molly. Bart has a hat he can wear when he chooses and a fazer pistol. And a really cool handlebar mustache.