Bugweiser

What a fabulous weekend spent in class with Michael DeMeng in his Demented Toys class. It was a workshop put on by Ginny Carter Smallenburg. She is hosting workshops all through the summer. If you're in the area or want to take a trip to Cleveland, be sure to check out her website for the workshops. You will surely have a great time. Later this summer I will be taking workshops with Teesha Moore, Ingrid Dijkers and Lynne Perrella. I may even sign up for some with Keith Lobue too. I can't wait.

This little bug guy doesn't want to photograph well at all. It's one of four projects I made in class. I'm still painting and finishing up the others, so I'll post pictures when I'm finished. The bug looks like he's made of pewter in real life. I think I'm going to write "Bugweiser" on his bottle cap hat. Ever since I came home I've been looking at everything I see in a whole new light and imaging ways I can make it into a toy.

Nature Girl

I'm still taking the Painting Layers class with Misty Mawn and this week we did collage. I took a background from Week 1 and collaged a bunch of magazine images on it, painted over some and just let it take me where it wanted until I finally felt it was done. I'm very happy with this and thoroughly enjoyed the process of having no expectations of where it was going.

Skull Background

Here is another background I did during my class with Misty Mawn. I really like the darkness of it and the color combination. I've been having so much fun just letting myself go and not caring at all how it turns out and several times I've been really pleasantly surprised.

Running Scared

I am taking a class with Misty Mawn although we just had one lesson, I am thoroughly enjoying just playing with layers and layers of paint. The above piece is my favorite so far and it started out as a piece I was going to toss in the garbage. Sometimes that's when your best art comes forth because you really allow yourself to be free and try anything.

New Journal Pages

Finally I had some time to work in my journal. These are my latest two journal pages. On the first one I hand colored all the little squares in the hair. It took a really long time, but there is something relaxing about doing it. On the page with the girl with her hair up, I absolutely hated this page, but I stuck with it until I was at least satisfied with it. I tend to want to paint over everything or rip it up if I don't like it and I'm trying to teach myself to work through the problems.

Finally a New Painting.

Finally I've had some time to work on a new painting. I was goofing around with some Golden Glass Bead Gel in the hair and I used Golden Molding Paste in the background to create the animal skin texture. This painting has lots of glitter, which doesn't really show up here and lots of rhinestones on the skirt. Sometimes things just need to be glitzy.

Frida Journal Page

This was my first attempt at drawing an actual person, not just something I made up in my head. Although it's not exact, I feel I at least captured the likeness. I love Frida and her story. If you haven't seen the movie made about her life, I highly recommend it. Salma Hayek played Frida and she was wonderful. I am also working on adding multiple transparent layers in the background. Here I have about four or five different layers.