Painting awesomeness

 I like all kinds of painting styles. Maybe the two I like less is the extremes, like photo-realism, or complete abstract with just one spot in the canvas. Although I can see the beauty on them (some anyway) I am not attracted to paint that way personally.
But no matter what style or technique, it always has to start from nothing and be built from layers and at one point it looks weird and scary... and in my case I always like to "know" what the end result will be, so it can be a really scary step LOL
And here's a nice advise and comforting words from Mystele (always a lot of fun to watch painting):

Image taken with her permission, thanks Mystele!

So when you find yourself in an ugly, scary, weird part of the process in your painting, just keep going, and finish your story!

For a while dolls have been on my table and my mind but in the past couple of months I painted on canvas a little bigger than my scanner, so I had to take pictures and I'm not quite happy with the lighting. I need to take better pics so I can upload. Or edit a bit with he photo program until  I am happy with the results.

I am slowly but surely moving all my doll related things to the new Doll Blog (in caps, so it looks all important) So you all are invited to visit HERE.

I hope everyone is having a nice Memorial day (US).

New look.. Or a big mess?

I have been playing -again- with the blog internal options and mysteries behind the scenes. I was so afraid of moving to the new templates, and sure enough half my widgets do not work, and the follower box is empty.
So, please be patient, let me do the screaming myself ho ho ho

I basically made the switch (saving first my old html!) so I could add the new cool fonts in a "easier" way, which by the way seems easier, but they blink and switch into the selected style a few seconds later....? What's up whit that??  *sight* and here I thought I had a fast connection...

Expect more changes within the next seconds, days and maybe even weeks. Do not be too surprised if I go back to my old template. I guess this is like when you get a dramatic hair cut. Takes time to get used to it.
But the weird part is that it looks one way in my screen, it looks different in the portable (with Opera browser) and yet a different way in the office screen. Huh...?

I am going to change it back to 3  columns again. Please tell me if you can see the follower box and the random post box!

After this, I will need a serious dose of chocolate therapy :o)

Maker Faire

This past weekend we went to the Maker Faire in Northern California. It was huge, with tons of things to see and do... and lots of walking. At the end of the day I was collapsing, but it was a riot. Same on Sunday, where we had the chance to see Adam Savage who is not only funny, but very inspiring. I felt moved. Really.  I was way over in a corner but got a little video of the end of his show, and he shared the books that inspired him, and some quotes that made him go in the direction he is now: "Follow your passion". At the end he went into the Tesla coils, in the Arc Attack thing, it was so funny!


My video was not as good, so I'm linking to this one.
I collected a bunch of websites to check out later on, visited great booths and did a little shopping. They had a whole area for the Steam Punk stuff and my daughter didn't want to move from there LoL.
It was a blast, but I'm glad it's only once a year, because it took me a while to recup ;o)

There are no borders

Dear friends... I want to share this with everyone that has ever felt  blocked, out of ideas or simply down. If you understand Noruegan you can navigate in the site. If not, just click to come back here:

JellyVampire 

It will make you happy, and hopefully will make you go create something today if you were feeling a bit blocked.

I always go from painting, to drawing to sculpting. I can't help it.... I love those 3 things just the same, although I play favorites all through the year. I might take more time for months sculpting, then I go back to painting for  a while, then to drawing. Neither of those 3 forms have the same style, regrettably LoL
Sometimes I wish there was more uniformity in my creations, but alas, my muses are not only dyslexic but also obsessive and very capricious.

Commercially, they say it's wrong for a business. And I guess they are probably right, since my listings go slow, and I probably confuse any  potential buyers... but if I don't do what I love, and do it with joy.... then I don't see the sense on doing it.

Spread your wings and let your imagination fly today :o)

She is here!

I am so thrilled at the moment! My finished doll Violetta arrived finally yesterday! She had been lost in the mail, took forever to get here from TX, but she arrived in perfect condition and she looks so pretty! Thanks Jenna and Jan for your beautiful work! I am very, very happy to have her, and this team was fun! But  it went just too fast!

Photo by Jan Conwell

And here with Tshilaba, before she went back home to Ohio:

As for other projects, for the past few days I have been too busy with some "easy" reorganizing of my kid's room. What was a half a day project ended up in a full week expedition to the past, along with a new piece of furniture and digging in the closet and a serious Spring cleaning. I got rid of tons of stuff, some was plain trash (how kids manage to keep wrappers for one solid year after they "vacuum" is a mystery to me) And tons of donation items (She grew up like a foot in the past months and nothing fits her anymore. Literally!) And I had been using one of the drawers in her dresser for all my babies' memorabilia. Well, no more. A teen's gotta have her space, so I had to go to memory lane, edit my baby mementos to a very basic little box, and re pack in my own closet LOL

I also went to open a new blog, just for paintings. Dolls are taking over everything :oD And by that I mean, virtually (in the blog) and locally as in kitchen, craft room, desk.... my goodness do they reproduce fast! :oP
So you are welcome to go visit, even if it is still an empty house. Soon it will have images and all the nice things that make a blog fun... like readers! :oD

I think I will start it with a bang: A giveaway! I will post details soon.

Doll News and Traveling Updates

I have so many news on the traveling dolls! Some are stressing though... but I will start with the good stuff:

My twin dolls Zeb and Calee are having so much fun! They went to Texas running away from a bad experience, remember? Zeb acquired a mustache and a fancy jacket there. Well, this is their latest trip to Florida where Calee changed her looks, you have to see her eyes and tutu!

As for the WIP pictures of the crow doll Tshilaba, she is all done and ready to go:

Crow mask

Do you see a bird around here?

Without mask, visiting Wren and baby

As for the stressing news: We were just waiting for Violetta (my doll) to come back from TX, but she seems to be lost in the mail :o(  Same thing happened to Luna last year, remember the Iceland volcano with the unpronounceable name? She got stuck in the mail for almost a month! Please keep your fingers crossed and hopefully she will make it home safe.

And last but not least, a baby frog! Made by Carolyn, from the Touring Baby team... As soon as I opened that package she jumped out and told me "I'm the queen of the box!!!! (Titanic movie style).

~ So I guess I will make her a crown, what do you think?

P.S. I just noticed that a bunch of your comments in older posts are gone! What happened to blogger?

The finished painting

Here is my whimsical and magical team painting. It started looking like THIS just randome splashes of painting on a paper... and now that is finished it looks all different:

Click to see it bigger

 This mixed media piece includes acrylic paints, fabric, collage, stamps, fabric, medium and a metal charm. I am very happy to have it and will treasure it! It was so much fun to see every painting evolve in such unexpected directions :o)

It's Friday...Friday... gotta get down on Friday

Gotta get down on Friday...

Here is the silliest video I have seen in a long time:

I finished the crow mask doll, but I have not taken the pictures yet, but I have a little picture of the new clay baby I'm making, hope you like it!

Have a wonderful weekend! Don't forget to give your mom a hug, even if only in your heart :o)

Working on a mask and twitter

This is what's on my table right now:

Clay drying. Sorry the pic is blurry

It is a crow mask for my Eagles team in the traveling dolls. She arrived here pretty much all done, and I had no idea what to do to for her so... a mask was a nice element. Being she a magical shape-shifter and all :o)

Painted and added some glaze to eyes

More pictues will be posted as I have them ready, then she will go back home.

I hardly watch TV channels anymore. Mostly just sit to watch a movie. But today by chance I heard this thing about twitter, and how so many people just type any kind of stuff without "filtering" it first. So they guy was saying there should be a kind of step where you can actually stop and think if you should twit that. Something like "Is this what you really want to twitt?"  LoL it makes so much sense to me, but I wonder if it would make the site popular?? It for sure would help some posters keep their job!

I love twitter and like the short postings, I enjoy the links people post and see what people are up to in there. The only thing I do not like is when someone goes bananas and post 28 twitts in a row.... or when they say  "I'm taking a shower" or "I ate 10 burritos in a row" oh my gosh LoL .. those twitts, I can live without!

I love my blog too, in fact I love it best but it takes a bit longer to compose a post here and add pictures etc...
And by the way, did you guys noticed they changed the blog again? I just noticed it has a new button on the bottom right to add a location. I don't think I will ever use it.

I will be listing more tiny dolls on ebay. But first I have to fix the keyboard. The letter i and letter e are not cooperating with me... crazy! :o]