My Art Muse

If there is such a thing as an art muse, for me it would probably be my Aunt Marguerite. When I was a child, my favorite place was my aunt's attic bedroom. She had it stocked with everything a child would need to be creative; colored paper, scissors, glue, fabric, a doll house. Any art materials that my sister and brother and I got at home that Mom probably considered too messy, wound up there also. I have saved some of the things that I created and scanned them all, along with some other items from her room. I think that she is probably the reason I chose to be an artist. She was never married or had any children, but lived with my grandparents to take care of them. I think all of us nieces and nephews were like her children. She would always take time to take us on walks to the creek or the barn and teach us things.
Tomorrow she will turn 84. I made her a card using a picture of her taken when she was around 20 that she gave me a couple of weeks ago when I went to visit. I hope she likes her wings. Happy Birthday Marguerite!

Sunrise

I just checked my camera to see the photos that I took over the weekend and I thought that this one turned out pretty interesting. When I woke up Friday morning the sky was a beautiful pink and it made my whole kitchen glow pink also. I knew that my flash would reflect so I tried to cover it with my finger. Not only were the sky and kitchen a beautiful pink but so were my cats' eyes as they were waiting for me to serve them breakfast. Kind of spooky.

ATC's

Here are 4 ATC's that I made for an exchange in my Altered Art Obsession Yahoo group. We make 4 of them and send them to the person hosting, who keeps one and sends back 3 different ones to the sender. This is my first exchange, so I am a little nervous. Is my work up to par for this group? The theme is "Femme Fatale" and hopefully my cards keep to the idea. Can't wait to see what I get in return. The deadline is Jan. 15, so I will have to wait a while.

Dog Tired

Here are two paintings that I just did today. Each is very different from the other. The first painting is a yellow lab that I did for my son's friend, who did some roofing work for us at a discount. I copied a painting called "Dog Tired" that was done in watercolors, but this one is in acrylics, and I changed some of the colors. The other painting was done to use up the paints that I had left over. The palette reminded me of the southwest, so I added a couple of more colors to spice it up and painted three small paintings on MDF scraps left over from our building project. I then painted a larger piece and mounted them on it. It feels nice to get back into painting. I've been doing a lot of other types of art lately, but I think I like painting the best.

New Painting

Every year, as a present, I paint a couple of new pictures for my husband's office. Several of them are scenes from our farm, because I know that he enjoys being at home, out in the country. This way, even though he is at work, he can still look at the scenery. This painting is of one of the benches on our patio, in the summer, with the flowers around it and the pond in the background. He hasn't seen it yet, so shhhh, keep it a secret. The photo was taken on the bench that is in the painting, bare of flowers because of winter. Oh, how I love summer.

New Collage

I did a little collage work today as I was relaxing on a chilly Saturday. This a a collage of my mother when she was about 2 years old. The background script is a letter that my great-grandfather wrote to his wife when he was a soldier in the Civil War. All of the center portion was combined on Photoshop, including the blue cut-out words. That was then glued to decorative papers and highlighted with oil pastels, stamps, hand drawn letters, and vintage buttons. The word "dream" is hand drawn. The yellow heart is a piece of broken tail light that I found in my driveway.
My next task is to curl up on the couch in front of the woodstove with a cup of hot tea and my new Quilting Arts magazine.

Home Construction

Here is what I have been doing for the past 3 or 4 weeks. Not much art work, but a lot of tile work. I put my skills that I have learned doing mosaics to practical use tiling the bathrooms and kitchen of a house that we are building in Murfreesboro. As you can see, there is still a lot to do. The outside photo was taken right after our stone work was completed. The roof is now cleaned up and we are getting ready to do the landscaping after all of the underground utilities are done. The photo of the kitchen shows the tile counters and backsplash that I just finished. We still have to do the trim work on the cabinets. My son Zach is the contractor and his website is www.avantgardehomesllc.com if you would like to check it out. Tiling was fun, but I'm glad to be back home into my regular routine. I'm trying to get back in the creative mode at home. I have at least 2 paintings and a mosaic game table planned to start on if I can drag myself away from the computer.