Dollies on a journey part deux

This is my doll for the Eager Eagles TDP team. I had so much fun last year, that I entered two teams this year. I have to say the hardest part is the journal!! I am not into book making or anything, and most people send beautiful journals along with their doll. Sorry guys, mine is not a pretty book LoL
 OK, this is Violetta's story:

From the time she was a piece of cloth on the craft table, Violetta dreamed with art. She “grew up” between paint tubes, fabric swatches and art books.  She is quite an art lover!
Her favorite book is one of all the famous Madonna paintings from great classic artists and she loves all those mantles, soft fabric, angels and long hair.

For now she is a complete blank canvas, ready to be transformed and see if her dreams come true in the hands of her traveling doll project team:
From Ayala Art to The Land of HonahLee and jdconwell.

Her story is also very much blank, so it can go in any direction…
Violetta's favorite colors are of course violet, but also cobalt blue, sea green, jewel tones, all earth tones as well.

Her first trip will be from California to Ohio, then she will go to Texas and after that she will come back home… transformed.

She would love to look like a Renaissance Madonna

My dolls for the BBQs team is HERE

Dollies on a journey

Since I got carried away painting my doll for the TDP I decided that it was just fair to send two. And although they look nothing alike, they were to be twins. (Reminds me a bit of the mommy dearest story! LoL)

So well, those 2 will go for my big team the BeeBeeQs, for my 5 other team mates to play with.
 They are made of cloth and clay so far... This is their story:

Zeb and Calee

Zebulon and Caledonia are boy and girl twins. Since early in their lives people kept asking them if they were identical twins but they would explain that they were not, simply because one of them was a boy and the other a girl. But still every once in a while, somebody will ask if they were identical. Now they just make a funny face and say nothing.

They both love the Circus. Zebulon’s dream was to be a Star in a circus. But he’s a terrible juggler and he’s afraid of clowns. Caledonia just likes the fancy outfits and the pop corn. They wanted to work in the Circus so badly that they decided to be Panda Bear Trainers, but they could never find a Panda bear, and renting one was too expensive! Not to mention, bamboo is quite expensive these days.


So they changed their act into Cat Trainers. At first Zebulon wanted to juggle cats, but it was too painful and noisy.

Finally, they made an appointment to talk to the Circus Director. The day of the interview they brought their cat Tobias to show how good they could train a cat…. Unfortunately, Tobias took off running to catch a mouse, who turned out to be a very special Talking Mouse, star of the Talking Mouse Show… Thank goodness the little rodent only ended up with a big shock and a scuffed tail. Zebulon, Caledonia and cat were kicked out of the office especially after remarking how the mouse never even squeaked despite his talkative attributes. After that, no one would give them a job. They had to leave California with a tattered reputation. So they came up with a plan…

Zebulon and Caledonia would disguise themselves and start traveling through out the whole country. The plan was fantastic; they would change their looks a little bit at every town.
They could bring nothing since they were in a hurry, but Caledonia said she could not live without her green feather boa so she brought it along. (I think she just likes it because it makes Zebulon sneeze).

After shortening their names to Zeb and Calee, they just needed to mark some important destination points in a map. First stop: Texas!

I have my other doll for my Eager Eagles Team in a separate post HERE

Reconsidering

How long do you wait for a painting you made to feel that it is done? How long do you wait after you are done, and the painting doesn't sell, doesn't get any feedback... for you to feel that it is not as cute/good/finished... as you thought? Do you blame the economy, the lack of enough networking? or is there a point where you think the poor thing is simply bad? (I could go even deeper, thinking simply that one's art stinks... but I won't go there)
Do you despair? Do you repaint? Do you leave it in the corner of a closet to be forgotten? :o)

This is one of my Fridas. At the time I though she was so cute and funny... I was making funny looking people and all of them sold but her.  It's been ages and all she gets is a quick pass through. So I decided she needed a fresh start!

What do you think? Darker background, face lift, darker hair and jewelry. She is ready for a Fiesta :oD

Sold

Well... enjoy the rest of your day!
linking to Paper Saturdays

Blog tip: labels

A friend was asking me about labels in a blog, and I am posting here a little explanation for those people that are new to blogging, or not so new but never thought about it:
Labels are what the search engine finds, and publishes when someone uses the same words. It will make your post come into the search results, like words on ebay, or tags in Etsy. And also, they will make your readers find an easy list of same related information within your blog by clicking on the "label widget" that you can add on the side bar in your blog.
Where are they typed? Here's a little screen shot to locate them better visually.

Older style layout

You have to add the label widget (from your "Design" link, top right), and drag it to the position you want in th side bar, preview, see if you like it, then click save.
 I added my clod of labels before blogger added the widget so I had to to it the hard way. The only thing I noticed different as that I could select the color I wanted, and the widget has only one default. (I have not checked if in the blog-colors area there's an option to change them though)
UPDATE 2013  click to see larger image

What labels can you use? Basically, anything, as long as you wish, divided by a comma. So your label can be one word, or several. It doesn't matter as long as you keep using them AND they apply to your posting. In my case I use the subject of a painting like "calla lilli" or the stuff I'm talking about, like "dog", ACEO" "29 faces" ...you get the idea.
I hope this helps, and like always, if you have any questions, just let me know :oD

Twitter-Art-Exhibit (140 Charachters) in Moss, Norway

I had posted about the twitter exhibit before, but I just got an email from David Sandum about the Twitter-Art-Exhibit (140 Characters) in Moss, Norway with more pictures. I participated with 2 Frida Kahlo inspired paintings, and was so exited to hear one sold right away and the other one a few days later. This was for the benefit of their local children's Library and was a total success, having people from many countries sending art to help with funds. Here are some pictures:

 

 

 It was a total success... Congrats David!

Mailing and posting

Today I took a bunch of packages to the post office. All my OWOH giveaway prices from 3 blogs are shipped and some Etsy items, plus the first painting from the Round Robin. Oh, and I got some Chinese food on the way back.... my day is perfect so far!

This is the first painting of the Mixed Media Round Robin I love it! It also has a nice lace framing it, but didn't fin in my scanner.

by Dianna Reiter

And this is how it looks after I worked on it and mailed it to the next stop:

Eve

I will post the second painting soon, before I mail it to FL

Memories

One of the best memories in my childhood was the bell of my grandmother's old wall clock. It was actually her father's, so it was quite old maybe from the 20's, 30's or so... and worked perfect. It would  play the bells marking the 15 minutes, 30, 45 and then the hour. Of course my favorite time was noon when the whole thing would play.
Then for the past ton of years I never heard it, and last night by accident, I bumped into a similar sound in a youtube video, had nothing to do with clocks or anything,  but a thousand images fell on my head and left me speechless. I imediately went to look for a full sound of that clock and found something very close to it.

I hear her in my heart every day. When I was older I would stop to visit her in my way to my evening classes in college, and later on, I would swing by from work if I had an errand close to her house, which was at least couple of times a week. And the clock would mark the time, you didn't even think of it.

I felt so blessed that my children got to meet her. :o)





This clock in the video doesn't look like the one she had, but the bells are very close. And I can tell you that after listening to a whole bunch of videos! :oP.

Do you have any memories triggered by sound? smell? even taste!

Drum roll please!

Well, I decided to not use the random number website, so I made my little papers and with the help of my kid we had the 3 prices selected, only that I can't find the silly disc thingy of the camera... so well, no picture for this :o(  gggrrrr! (I'll worry about that later) For now I am pleased to post the names of the 3 winners! Plus other 2 extra winners for nice postings!
(Happy loud music in the background)

Mermaid doll:  BrendaLea, the Prpldy of http://prpldy15.blogspot.com US

Hands: leikkaan of http://leikkaan.blogspot.com Finland

Mermaid ACEO: marit  of  http://www.maritspaperworld.com/blog Netherlands

And the extra winners:

Scruffy ACEO: Sean, for daughter who had a fire in her house... Hope she likes this art card, who is from a little fighter who won our hearts.


Kitty ACEO: to cal_rubies, because she said something so nice that made my heart happy. Everybody's posts were nice, but some touched me more.... you know what I mean.

I will contact each person to get their address.

A big THANK YOU so much to all that participated! (tossing confetti in the air here, while happy music fades out) Last one leaving gets to clean the mess... bye!

P.S. read THIS!!!  It was not "goof bye" it is a "see you next time" ...don't miss it next year yaay!

New art

One of the things I always like the best in art is texture. Most of the time I had been giving it a "look" of texture with the brush, and some other times I make impasto strokes to have a bit bumpy areas, which is better or easier done with acrylics, there for I go back from oils (water mix) to acrylics. It is hard for me to just stay with one, both having their own qualities and "bad sides" as in too long to dry, or too fast to dry. So, mediums are the solution, and under a workshop you get to play with new  stuff you usually don't even think of using.

The one thing I had not experimenting  quite far was the use of mediums to make many kinds of other textures and including collage. I really don't  want to get into heavy duty mixed media (just a toe in the pool, so to speak) nor journaling... although I can see the beauty and the coolness of it.

I have followed bunch of tutorials, local workshops and online classes from many wonderful people, and try to use what makes me happy. Let me tell you one thing: abstract art is more complicated that what the eye meets! LoL  Anyone can make crazy scribbles, but an abstracted painting that tells you something...? not easy to accomplish!

All of this blabbering is just to say, I have been painting in a bigger size, and I have been using different methods. In a way I am trying to go back to what I was doing years ago, more rough and a bit folk.
Let's go to the pictures!

 

First coat of random colors, gesso and pencil.

 Several washes of more color and medium. I was so tempted to leave it bald.

 Added skin tones with medium to slow dry time, and gesso for the hair

Several layers later, I think I'm done. I don't want to make this post too heavy with pictures so I will add  more at a different time.
Any input? :o)

Panzon Cupid

Well, I thought I had posted this earlier, but I didnt', gosh! Hope you all had a wonderful day.
Here's Panzon in his cupid art.... hehehe

Smells like Spring

Look guys! I have some flowers already! I'm posting these to cheer up the people in the north that still have snow. I'm always amazed that my poor little plants are not dead with this weather. First the extreme heat then the frozen nights. Well here's a beautiful pair of roses, and the camellia that finally decided to have a bloom.
Now, don't feel jealous, ever, because the summers here bake you up with so many days of over 100 F weather. But having an early Spring is nice.

 

 

I will post some art tomorrow. I actually chained the muse this time around muaHaHaHaHa

Before the day is gone!

I better post before another day is gone. This past weekend went to fast! We didn't seem to do much, but were too busy. By the time I turned around it was time to go to bed again.

I have been painting  and painting every time I have a chance. Isn't it funny how sometimes you never know when a painting is done, and some other times you know exactly the moment that it is finished?
Usually I have an idea of what I want for my paintings, but now that I am starting without a sketch, things are wild! I am obsessed with detail and tiny brushes, but I wanted to get my brush strokes more loose, so no pencil sketch for me and only large brushes. I have to say.... it is scary! :o)

Between other projects, I am participating in a collaborative painting group. I am shipping mine today to FL and I will post when I get one and what I do to it. SO exciting!

I know, it looks crazy! This is only the base colors to build from there... who knows how it is going to look at the end! I added some more mix media work to my flickr. I would LOVE to hear some opinions, so feel free to post there, or here :o)

Just say no...

I decided after thinking about it for a while, that I wanted to get rid of the password code for people that want to come and comment. In all these past 5 years I have only had 3 spam comments, so I would say it is pretty safe to say, I won't be attacked and bombarded by spammers. Even if that was so, I still have the option moderated so I can simply delete, right?
So, that's one more step to skip when visiting me :o)

 

The one thing that drives me crazy is when the verification code is in a separate area, so you post, click, and then it comes with the code... by then usually I am closing my window and there goes my text! agh!

For those that want to keep the code, make sure your option for having the window and the code together are there. Easier for impulsive clickers like me :o)

Don't forget to join my OWOH blog event giveaway <--- if you haven't done so!

HapPy cHiNesE nEw yEaR!

Groundhog day!

Hello there! Well, happy groundhog day! Will he see his shadow?? Will the Spring come early?? Seems to me, groundhog or not, that with so much snow in many places, the Spring will not be early, definitely.

If you want to see the video for this year click HERE which is supposed to be a live feed, but I am not sure if they will save the video. I will check later.
I will celebrate by watching the movie "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell.
So based on that, I made a painting with lots of cold blues, and a promise of warmth.
No it is not a fat rodent :oP

Here is another of my new paintings that is being offered in the OWOH blog event:

I have been having so much FUN visiting blogs from all over the world! This is so amazing, and I have met new blogs to follow, and I have my fingers crossed to win one of the ton of cool offerings. So sad it is the last year....
Click HERE to see my OWOH giveaway open till February 17th AND  it's not too late to fly in for a landing in the very last one and join the fun. If you are participating late, let me know, I will go visit your blog!