some artwork

leaving tommorrow morning for san diego so i took a couple hours art time before i start packing - nothing like waiting till the last minute:-)

i finished this piece, a 6" x 6" gallery wrapped canvas, made for a trade (taken!)
The face is enlarged from a Middle Ages painting, I painted over it in areas; the background is my usual telephone book page that's been inked and painted up with acrylic. The edges are painted black with white painted letters and red accents that says: "may all beings everywhere be filled with joy and peace"

Dreams of Wanderlust

Here are 'my girls' - trying to catch a glimse of any trepassers that may be about, like a coyote, neighborhood dog, or most exciting, a C-A-T !!!!

A Couple Little Hams...

The little one on the left is baby Marin - my grandbaby's friend - and the smiley baby on the right is my granddaughter Violet Summer. I'm leaving for San Diego in the morning to visit her, her brother Ethan, and her mom and dad...I'll be there with them for a week, celebrating a late Thanksgiving and an early Christmas as we aren't spending it with them on the actual day this year :-(

I will be rolling balls, kissing toes, making favorite foods and doing the usual grandmotherly things. I am excited and extremely thankful.

I'll be back on the 15th and do an update shortly thereafter.

Summer Songs

We got our first snow in the northwest here yesterday...big wet flakes that didn't stick but where oh so lovely to watch as I sat in the studio and created this piece, a gift for a friend. The words near the bottom say "sing your summer songs"; the hair is made from sewn dried rose petals from last years garden.

They've Come Back

i just took a walk under the clear blue sky
bright sun
poplar leaves crunching underfoot on the path as i walk and dogs run
we planted the trees 20 years ago
the girls were wee ones
we planted young whips
that line our road, face our house
four total
two poplars, the fullest figure one named katie
the lean one, walter
a beautiful full pine in its prime, heather
an elegant whispful fir, darling marissa

i've watched them grow each year
as i've watched us all grow
older, wiser
the life span of the pine and fir
will outlive the poplars
the poplars are showing their age
and they whisper their melodic
secrets to me
in the wind

as i walk under the blue sky
crunching leaves
i hear the familiar call
of my friend
the traveler
the one who sends chills
up and over my skin
when he speaks, calls to me

i look up
circling high in the clear blue
my friend is back
a lone eagle circling
in the sky
again and again
calling as he soars
i'm here
watching
for salmon

i feel blessed
i feel thankful for my life

Happy Thanksgiving to all my online friends - i feel thankful for you ALL!

xoxo
katie

The Final Destination

Sublime

Somewhere

The Gift of Foresight

An Angel's Tear

Secret Garden

I Wonder

Musings of a Robin

Virgin of Grace

Watching

A Myth

Look to the Light

The Stars Will Light Your Path

The Visitor

I'm spending the next several days making artwork to take to the Christmas show Megan Noel has organized in Seattle, as well as sending off 8 pieces to a gallery gift shop so they'll be there for Christmas. I'm having so much fun altering my own photographs...it's so satisfying. I LOVE my new camera, it's a Canon PowerShot S2.

Breathe in the Fragrance

another 4" x 4" altered mixed media photo on canvas board - the photo was a combination of two pictures I took in Mexico.

You are my Hiding-place

is a 4" x 4" mixed media canvas board - an altered photo of a picture I took while in Mexico.

This is the other atc I made entitled 'The Adventure'; the essence of it describes my recent adventure in Mexico.

Priming the Art Pump

I hadn't done any art for a week and I was starting to go a bit crazy because of it. It's sometimes hard for me to break out of the pattern of not doing art thought and I find a disciplined approach is the only thing that works for me. I set myself down last night to do 20 minutes of art play - I assured myself that if after 20 minutes I wasn't having any fun, I could quit. Well, as it always happens the more I played, the more fun I began to have and before you know it I completed two artist trading cards.

This one is called 'Looking Back' and is a combination of multiple layering and painting with golden acrylics and gesso, a vintage photo transfer onto sandwich paper (ala DJ Petitt) with an ArtChix collage image of the little gypsy girl.

Another Assemblage

This is the other assemblage I did while in Mexico; these items i found along the Pozos countryside: the baby shoe, the spoon, the tinfoil/flower, and the plant material, the rest of the elements I brought with me from home.

Back from Mexico

I got back a week ago but picked up a bug so haven't had the energy to blog until now. I'm feeling good again and oh so thankful for health, art, family, friends, and my life.

The workshop in Pozos with Michael DeMeng was fantastic - he is a great teacher!! He mentioned the possiblity of teaching a workshop in Oxaca in 2007 - now that would be an adventure I wouldn't want to pass up! All the students in the class were friendly as well as very talented - i couldn't have asked for a better bunch fellow artistas.

I took almost 500 photos; mostly in Pozos and San Miguel but also a few small side trips. The hotel I stayed at in Pozos (Posada de las Minas) was fantastic.

This is one of the pieces I completed in the workshop.

My First Assemblage in Awhile

Confession: I haven't been doing what's on my 'to do' list today. Instead I felt the urgent desire to finish up this assemblage I started on Saturday. I don't quite understand why I feel so compelled to do personal artwork when I have deadlines in other areas of my life. A thought I may ponder on my flight to Mexico on Friday.

I named this piece 'carnival' because Walter thought my altered doll looked a little scary...maybe so. The doll was inspired by the work of Patricia Anders who uses porcelin doll torsoes in her fantastic ornies. The rest of the assemblage is a combination of thrift store, discards, and found objects. This piece was lots of fun - whetted my appetite for more assemblage.

Consistency

Consistency in my journaling is not one of my greatest strengths but it's one I keep striving for. I just did a massive purge from this blog - I removed ALL the entries and photos and I'm starting from scratch. From now on, when I post photos, they won't be as big as they were in the past as that was a problem with my previous uploads.

I'm going to be adding links to my favorite blogs, picture trails, and websites as I have time, and I hope you'll check them out.

If you see a piece of my artwork you're interested in, it's possible that it is for sale so feel free to inquire.

Please remember and respect that all of my artwork shown here is original and undercopyright which means no copying or downloading any of my images without my written permission.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll come back again!