Meet The Funky Florals

I've been busy putting together card sets for my upcoming appearance at Sterling May Fest. (More info on that soon.) Meet the Funky Floral Collection. I've taken 6 of my square formatted floral themed works and printed them on matte paper. Several of these have never been available as cards.

I'm working on one more set of floral cards, but need to come up with a catchy name for this bunch. I love the alliteration of "Funky Floral" and "Comfy Chair Collection." Can you help me come up with another fun collection name?

The Funky Floral Collection is available in my Etsy shop.

The Comfy Chair Collection

I'm excited about my newest incarnation of the Comfy Chair Collection. Now that I have my new IMac and have the Adobe Creative Suite at home, I was able to streamline and sharpen up my cardmaking process.
Each 4.25" x 5.5" card was printed on my Epson R2880 archival ink printer and was hand cut and folded by me. Gone are the days that I printed card images separately, then cut and adhered them to pre-made card blanks. It was so time consuming to make cards that way!

Now I can even print a little copyright and some contact info on the back of each card.

This set features 6 of my new chair pieces and comes with matching white envelopes. The inside of the cards are left blank for your own personal message. The set would make a great housewarming gift!

The Comfy Chair Collection is available for sale in the Paper Goods section of my Etsy shop.

Love at first sight.

My new IMac arrived this weekend! It is a thing of beauty and wonder. There are so many things I can do with it that I couldn't do with that old PC of mine!

What's missing from this picture? No wires! I got the wireless mouse and keyboard. It makes my whole desk look so much better. My only complaint about this set up is that the new tiny keyboard does not have the number pad on the right and I do miss this feature.

Since my desk looked so fresh and clean, I decided that the whole studio needed to be cleaned up.

Even the pile of stuff that usually collects on the bed was put away. I don't know how long this room will last in its present state. Creativity is messy! (At least it is for me.)

Have a good week friends.

ACEO Spree

First off, thanks to all who took the time to critique my work last week. I absolutely agree that its elements are not working together compositionally. I've decided to put it aside for a bit and come back to it. That seems to help sometimes. I'll be sure to share it when its been reworked.

In the meantime, I have been on an ACEO spree! I've whipped out 5 of these tiny 2.5" x 3.5" pieces in the last few days. It was liberating to work this small and fast after working larger for a time.

To celebrate my spree, I'm going to offer my newest bunch of ACEO's for just $10.00 each! (Standard price is $15.00). This price is only good until midnight Tuesday, April 14th....So hurry! Click your way over to my Etsy shop pronto.

Ciao!

Class Critique

I've never been to Abilene

8" x 10" on canvas.

One of the things I miss about being in school is the community of artists I was a part of. If you had a question about your work or were looking for feedback, there was always someone in the studio to consult and bounce ideas off of.

Flickr, Twitter, and Etsy have become my new art community. I'm grateful to have found a group of creative people to learn and grow from in the cyber word.

So I'm reaching out to you about "I've never been to Abilene". I don't know how I feel about this one. I can't put my finger on it, but it needs something, or needs to be edited.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Don't worry, I have a thick skin. Say what you feel.

Ciao!

Renewed and Relaxed

This week, I am thankful to be a teacher. Though my job is a struggle and a stress, I am afforded time off to renew, recharge and relax.

Spring Break couldn't have come at a better time this year. One of my teaching partners had to have emergency surgery and was out most of the last month. I had to take over one of her classes, which meant that I lost my plan time. It was definitely wearing on me.

I'm only a few days into my spring break, but decompression is already happening. My art "mojo" has returned. (I was having a hard time making anything for a while.) My head is clear and I'm motivated!

I just finished "My Dear Acquaintance" yesterday and have started two more pieces this morning. I used more of my vintage stamps in this piece. Frank Lloyd Wright, Grace Kelly, George Washington and Paul Dudley White MD all make an appearance in this piece.

I'm going to be cranking out this floral/tree themed pieces for a while as I will be peddling my wares at a spring flower themed show on May 8th in Sterling, Illinois. There isn't a web page for this event, but I did manage to find a Facebook event page. I also found out that I got accepted to the Art on the Lawn show at Rockford College on June 13th. I'll be busy, but motivated to make some money for my upcoming trip to Italia!

"My Dear Acquaintance" is available for sale on Etsy.

Have a great week. Hopefully I will have more work to show off later this week.