Wordless Wednesday

reclaimed lumber

This week's art prompt is to visit design websites and take some inspiration.

 

"White Cottage"

8"x8"

encaustic wax 

 

This little encaustic piece I did was inspired by the look of reclaimed lumber. Reclaimed pallet wood is everywhere right now in design. From walls and flooring to furniture and headboards.

 

 

Fox Interior Design

 

My encaustic piece was created by aggressively scraping back layers of wax and distressing the surface by incising; not unlike the aggressive ravages of time and the elements on a piece of wood.

 

I love leafing through design magazines or pages on Pinterest.com to get inspiration ideas. Design, trendy colors or green movements such as reclaiming lumber can be a great jumping off point for your next piece of art.

 

Urban Textures

This week's art prompt is to create some rubbings from surfaces in your house.

"Urban Textures"

8"x8"

$50

Start this project by creating a few pages of rubbings. My favorite was the lego!

Then create a template and cut out 1 inch squares from the rubbings. Place a plastic page protector over the template. Using the template as your guide, add the squares between the two sheets of plastic.

Use a sewing machine to stitch around the squares. Remove the template backing.

Create a textured board to mount your rubbings on. I used hard molding paste and layers of black glaze.

Tack, nail or screw your plastic pockets of rubbings on to the textured background.

Meh

Even if your studio is named after a dog, a good studio should always have a studio cat. Why? Because yesterday my Brown Dog Studio cat jumped on the desk, put muddy paw prints all over art cards and knocked over a vase of flowers. That's why! Because who would want to miss out on that? And he did it all with an air of indifference that could only be embodied by the statement "Meh". Thank you Tuxedo, thank you very much.

"Meh"

8" x 8" mixed media on wood

$150

Today's painting was inspired by the art prompt: use two complimentary colors to create a piece of art. Hence the green cat. Tuxedo is not green. Tuxie watched ardently as I created his portrait from Japanese papers, paper mache, rusted wires, thread and found glass item.

p.s I really am crazy about my studio cat, and so are my patrons. If you don't have one, get one.

Maintenance

Outside my front picture window is my favorite plant. A large, old, deer nibbled blue hydrangea. And if I sit just right, the blooms fill up my entire view. Every once in a while I get one of those rare days where the teenagers are out for the day, the house is clean and I have nothing to do with myself. Today is that day. I will sit, eat chocolate covered almonds and read Steinbeck. I will gaze out the window at my hydrangea. I will  happily foster my unhealthy attachment to my beloved dog. We'll go for a long hike. The day is ours.

 "Maintenance"

I painted this self portrait a couple of years ago and it reminds me of today's art prompt: look out a window and paint the view you see. Here is where I do maintenance on my soul.

Wordless Wednesday

Time Management

Setting a timer and sitting down to see what you can get accomplished in a set amount of time isn't just a fun exercise or art prompt. It can also be a valuable tool. Like myself, most artists juggle multiple lives. I am a busy homeschooling mom to two teenage boys and it takes up an extraordinary amount of my time and creative energy. So knowing how to manage my time is crucial. I need to know what I can get accomplished in the 20 minutes before I make dinner. I need to know how long it takes to get from point A to point B on a painting.

Point B: almost finished.

"Unwind" #3

Point A: just starting.

I paint in layers of acrylic glaze. I know for instance that it takes about 20 minutes to apply each layer of glaze to a figure, and that it needs to cure for about 4 hours in between layers.

I also know that I can watch 4 episodes of Mad Men on Netflix while I paint the curtains in the background; so about 4 hours. A larger painting like this can take upwards of 30 hours to complete with a lot of drying time in between. Knowing this helps me manage my time and helps me price my paintings.

But hey, setting the timer and challenging yourself to create something in a set amount of time can also just be for fun. What can you do in 20 minutes?