Launch Your Creativity Sneak Peek

The picture below is a sneak peek 

at "goodies"

 I've been creating for 

Launch Your Creativity

 

Sharon Hughes of Pansy Cottage, posted the following:

What is it? Who could this be for? 

I know I'm teasing you.......
this is something special for each of the ladies that attend

Launch Your Creativity.

It is handmade by artist and special guest speaker 
Jenelle Van de Mortel! 
Do you want to know what it is? I can't tell you yet!

Join us!

My Life at Pansy Cottage & Garden: Just a Peek!

pansycottagegarden.blogspot.com

Getting Ready for Spring

My studio mannequin--Edith Head
dons her March outfit 

Spring cleaning studio. Baseboards, books and bottles - everything cleaned and reorganized. Putting away the last leftover boxes from the Knotts Berry Farm gig, class project palettes, paints. How does all this stuff accumulate so quickly?

Had a great conversation with Diane at Whimzy about "letting go". It is difficult to say goodbye to a stack of charger plates, paper mache boxes, wooden garden shapes --all initially sparked creative ideas that simply haven't come to fruition. At a certain point, keeping all these "idea" items (some for years) seems selfish and counterproductive. My storage space needs to be relatively clutterfree - climbing over "schtuff" or moving boxes to get to the "schtuff" beneath is time consuming and frustrating. So I cleared out the excess.

Took left over items to class and offered them as a "Thank You for Painting with Me" to my students. They were thrilled. It was extremely rewarding to watch my old, unused items find new homes. Ideas flew around the room. My students came up with great project ideas and immediately scheduled class time to launch their creativity into reality.

Returned to my studio inspired. Ready to create. Ready for Spring.

CHA

I never tire of beautiful objects. At CHA, I tarried over picture perfect displays swirling with bouquets of velvet roses delicately sprinkled with crystalina. There were birdcages and vintage dress forms adorned with paper ruffles, baby chicks and feathers along with ice resined journals in magenta, lime green and azure blue palettes...the day was a moveable feast of delicious eye candy.

Saturday evening, the Water Grill provided the perfect ambience to reunite with dear friends Sue Scheewe, Stan Brown, Camille and Kimberly.  We lingered over delectable food and delightful conversation - Stan and Mike told stories that left everyone's cheeks aching from laughter. Alas, the night was over too soon. Synchronicities were in play - Sunday morning I turned on PBS to find Sue painting away on her watercolor show. What an icon!

I toured Plaid's booth with engaging designer Angela Anderson. New products and fresh ideas abounded. I met Angela in 2005, when I first picked up a paintbrush. She's been a source of inspiration as I've watched her talent and career blossom.

Cupcakes, steampunkery and glitter were the order of the day. Picked up Lisa Kettell's amazing Altered Art Circus, the latest by Creative Tonic's Christi Friesen and Cyththia Thornton's Enchanted Adornments. Favorite artists Pam Carriker, Rita Rae, Traci Bautista were also in attendance.

I left the show inspired and seeped in artistic possibilities. I hope the pics below capture some of that for you.

Plaid's Angela Anderson 

  

The Love Tree

Frozen Charlotte Valentine Ornie

Can it really be the middle of January? Has it reallybeen over a month since I've blogged? Feeling a little like Rip Van Winkle... (yeah, another Dutchman!!) I blogged about how much I enjoyed the "magic" of having the white (7 ') Christmas tree on my studio table. Well, I've decided to keep the tree up year round! No longer the Christmas tree...it is now adorned with Valentine ornies that I either made or shopped diligently (!) for at Whimzy. I thought I'd share a few of them with you :) 

Made these Love Birds with the fabulous
Jenn Hernandez at Whimzy

Yet another wonderful Whimzy ornie!

Booth 39 at Knott's Berry Farm

Yep, we're finally here!

The crew at work. (Front Row) Elissa Wildermuth (left) Raylene Hile (rt) and me in the back row.

Glitter, Glitter Everywhere!

Latest bulb installments. Opening booth at KBF next week. Glitter everywhere (despite daily vacuuming!) In my studio, clothes, on the cats. Hubby left for work with glitter on his face! I not only seem to have glitter on my face constantly (despite daily showering!!), apparently I went to bed with that blue artist tape stuck in my hair...ah, production mode...

A Word about Production Mode

I'm in the thick of it. Production mode. Hand duplicating hundreds of bulbs. And may I say that it has been an enlightening, frustrating, boring and exhilarating experience thus far? I love Christmas, so painting all these Yuletide designs is a joyful process--until something goes wrong. I've painted these glass orbs for the past 5 years, and never had a glitch...but as the numbers increase, so it seems, does the opportunity for Murphy's Law. For example, having numerous bulbs done and hanging on the tree,  after a week or so, the paint began to slough off the inside of the bulb! I was about to do a complete redesign, when my BH (Brilliant Husband!) figured out the problem (saved me once again!) and rigged up a little machine in the garage that solved the problem. Whew!

On to the next design! Exciting! The prototypes came out beautiful. Then the task of cutting out one of the elements by hand. Discovered that if I cut 1/16 in either direction the element was ruined and I had to start over. Grrrrrrrrrrr. Things got very slow and labor-intensive. Opps, messed up another one, sigh, okay - I admit it ---tears. This is NOT working. I'll redesign...and of course, y'all know what happened next! Yep, hubby figured out a process to mass produce these elements! They were done --hundreds of them - in a couple of hours. I think he hides a bunch of production elves in his workshop!

Currently back in fun mode. Painting in my studio. Beautiful weather. Windows open--listening to birdsong. And crunching. Crunching? On the wall, under our pink bougainvilla is a squirrel eating a walnut. Hey that reminds me - I set down a bag of walnuts yesterday when I brought in the groceries...
that has got to be one happy squirrel! I laugh. Pick up my paintbrush. Productions problems and all--life is very, very good. Crunch.