Thursday, November 13, 2008

Give Thanks Card AEDM 2008


Even though I've been doing many artistic things, I haven't managed to post for several days. The weekend was very busy. One thing I spent time on was putting together kits to make greeting cards with women from my church on Monday night. In my last post I showed one of the cards I designed. This is the second card. It is embellished with punched leaves and flowers. Thankfully, dear Hubby offered to help punch the flowers. My hands and arms had had enough after doing all the leaves for both cards. Have you ever used one of those hand-held punches? They aren't so bad with text weight paper, but card stock is a real bear to punch. Before I was done making kits, I was ruing my decision to have so many elements on my cards.

BUT - it turned out to be worth all the effort. We had lots of fun Monday night. We started assembling the card shown here. It was fun to see that most of the women expressed their creativity by assembling them differently from my example. I showed them how to make a simple stitched binding that held a single insert in the cards.

On Sunday, Hubby took me to the Two Rivers Art Expo in Des Moines. My dear friend Brandie Isley had a booth & Hubby bought me one of her prints, "Arm in Arm We Face the Day". He also treated me to a print by Bekah Ash, whose work I have admired for a long time. I placed the prints so I can glance at them from my desk. Once I frame them, they'll have new homes, but I want to keep them where I can be inspired.

Earlier today I sketched an idea for a fun painting featuring a snowman, but once I laid in the background of the painting, I changed my mind about the subject. Instead it became a winter landscape inspired by my memories of our trip through Colorado on Amtrak last winter. I'm not sure if it's done yet, but I'll be sure to post it soon.

But snowmen were not forsaken, because I made several pair of snowman earrings tonight before I started painting. I'll be taking some to Swinging Bridge Studio in Story City on Friday, and hope to get some in my Etsy shop, too. Two pair of snowman earrings I posted earlier have been spoken for. Already in my Etsy shop are Swarovski crystal trees. They are emerald green, but I also have clear crystal trees available, too.

Last night I worked on building more layers of texture and color on a canvas I started a few months ago. I had a concept in mind while I painted last night, but when I looked at the canvas this morning, I realized the color was different from what I had in my head. I often forget the slight shift of color as acrylic dries. I'd been working with watercolor lately. It's the opposite of acrylic, drying lighter than it appears wet. Anyway, when I looked at the canvas tonight, I think I'll be going in a different direction with it. I may need to make some skins. I flipped through some of my clip art books for inspiration.

I promise to take some pictures of what I've been working on, but I just wanted to get a new post up. Now it's time to get some sleep.

2 comments:

Julie Bagamary said...

Beautiful card. Is the verse stamped with ink?

Anonymous said...

what a beautiful landscape!

Thank you so much for coming to see me last weekend! It was so great to see you.

hugs,
Brandie