om: dying eggs

Tonight we boiled up some eggs and dyed them for Easter. Nothing too fancy. We used a simple egg dye kit. The boys added some lines and scribbles with a white crayon to get some of the eggs to resist the dye. The also ombre colored a couple. They are excited to hunt for eggs this weekend. Many wishes for a Happy Easter!

One Moment [OM] is a weekly meet up that promotes living in the moment.  Whether funny, sad, ridiculous, or banal, looking for these moments can promote balance in our lives. Anyone can join – read about it here.

art masterpiece: rauschenberg

Art Masterpiece is an art appreciation program offered to elementary children by parent volunteer guides. The goal is to help students look, think and talk about great masterpieces of art. I'm a volunteer guide and I am sharing my art discussions with you in this weekly post. Hope you enjoy it!

Summer Rental No. 2 by Robert Rauschenberg 1960

I have found that kids really enjoy abstract pieces. Especially in Kindergarten. They are used to seeing and thinking about art being pictures of real objects. An abstract painting challenges those thoughts and most of them enjoy seeing this "new" idea of art.

About the Artist: Robert Rauschenberg was born in 1925 and lived to be 82 years old. He is known as an American Pop Artist. Robert became famous for works of art that are collages of every day objects. He searched for a new way of painting, not so serious and more fun.

What do we call art that doesn’t look like real life? Abstract. 

What objects do you see? How do you think he stuck objects on the painting? He called his 3D artwork "combines" because he combined paint with objects such as scraps of clothes, tires and cardboard. This painter liked to pick up junk he found on the street, attach them to canvas and smear with paint. He had fun finding strange ways of putting it all together. One time he put paint on car tire and drove it over paper. 

What types of items would you like to put in a collage?

Let’s talk about the “elements of design” in this painting.

Line Look at the brush strokes where he painted. Do you think he painted fast or slow?

Shape What shapes do you see?

Color Which colors to you see?

Why do you think the artist painted it?  He was trying to get people to see art in everyday things ... If Robert can change the way somebody sees something, then they might see the world differently, so for that person Art has changed the world. And that is what Robert Rauschenberg believed. That's why he spent 61 years being and artist! 

How does it make you feel?

Does this picture make you think about art differently?

Art can be whatever you create. Have fun with it! 

I don't collage much but, I think greeting cards, ribbon, paper, magazine cut outs and paint is what I would likely reach for when I collage. Do you have favorite items to create collages with? 

To see all Art Masterpieces posts, click here.

april goals

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.” – Freya Stark

March started out with a bang with my RAW Artist Showcase. I was floating on a cloud for a couple of weeks and so full of gratitude for an amazing event. The rest of the month was a steady wave of activity. I posted lots of new work in my Soiety6 and Fine Art America shops. We had a breather in the middle of the month for the kids Spring Break. Although we stayed home and I worked daily, we kept our afternoons open with kid-centric activities and had a great week together. I wrapped up a custom wedding invitation suite and am sending it off today. The design turned out great and reflects the bride and groom and the location of the event wonderfully. I received my first Yoga Journal magazine this month (woo hoo!) and I finally purchased I'd Rather Be in the Studio by Alyson B. Stanfield (double woo hoo!). I am really excited to dig into that book and check out my free trail for a month of the Artist Conspiracy. 

March Goals 

Business - Profile cleanup. With so many shops and social media outlets I want to spend some time on consistency this month. I need to add my new bio and artist statement to my online profiles and update my profile picture and make sure all available items are posted for sale. Connect online with all the wonderful artists I met at the RAW art show and preschool craft fair. I did a profile overhaul and made them all cohesive with the same picture, bio and artist statement. I have yet to connect with the other artists I met and need to say hello.

Art - finish ladybug painting and begin custom butterfly painting. Ladybug painting is completed and the butterfly painting is in the beginning stages.

Design - complete wedding invitation design, continue work with logo design clients. Wedding invitations completed and shipping out today. I was buried in envelope liners yesterday evening but, I made it through and they turned out great!

Shop - add new jewelry, canvas earrings, note cards, prints to Etsy and also make sure Society6, FAA and Facebook page are all up to date. This is partially updated. I added original artwork, 2 new bracelets and gave my canvas earrings a makeover. 

Read - The Dragonfly Effect. I just finished and it was a great read. Refreshing to read about about marketing for social change. The authors, Aaker and Smith, break down popular campaigns that used social media well and explain the hows and whys.  The book is very easy to read. The premise is that there are 4 facets of a successful campaign or promotion: Focus, Grab Attention, Engage, Take Action. They liken this to the four wings of a dragonfly that, when using all four of its wings, can fly in any direction, not just forward. The authors present many case studies on how social media can trigger change. Though it's directed at nonprofit organizations, anyone interested in social media would benefit from this book.

Family - Spring Break! See friends, hike, roller skate, watch The Lorax and enjoy a St Patty's Day parade and farmer's market. Had a wonderful Spring Break. Kids declared it the best week ever! So, you can't beat that.

Health - work on not eating after 7:30 pm. I did okay on this. It did stop me from snacking "some" nights. I am going to continue to work on this. I really want to kick my late night snacking habit. I am weak when I am tired! 

Soul - continue meditating in the evening, find a video on you tube to help guide me, journal every day. This declined this month immensely. I need to bring my nighttime meditating back. It was really good for me. Journal writing isn't my thing so, if I could journal once a week I would be happy.

Creative Every Day *mixed media* - Suggestions: Create art in a mixed-media style, Film yourself at work and share it, Put on music and draw the way the music makes you feel, Create a collage of found items (junk mail, screws, keys, bits of yarn.), Express yourself in an art journal. I created this mixed media piece, showed my work in progress in this mixed media piece and updated my vision board.

April Goals 

Business - Check out www.score.org. They have great resources on their website, and offer free mentoring sessions with a seasoned professional. I need to get my business setup properly for growth. Connect with artist's I met last month.

Art - Begin custom butterfly painting and continue to work on mermaid painting.

Blog - Create a Wedding page. Think about blog series and schedules.

Design - Begin on new wedding invitation design client, continue work with logo design clients.

Shop - Add art necklace, note cards and 8x10 prints to Etsy. Add "Willow Tree" and "Ladybug Flowers" to Etsy, Society6, FAA and Facebook.

Read - Wheat Belly and I'd Rather Be in The Studio.

Family - Celebrate Ethan's 8th Birthday, Easter and Earth Day!

Health - No snacking after 7:30 pm. Start my day with hot water and lemon (somewhere I stopped this). Check out the yoga class at my local recreation center.

Soul - Meditate every evening, journal (written or art) weekly.

Creative Every Day *language* - Suggestions: Let the origins of a word inspire you. Use pages of a book in a mixed media piece. Try expressing yourself through the language of movement. Express yourself in an art journal.

 If you would like to join in The Meetup biz goals fun, head on over to Athena Dreams.

om: art masterpiece

Tabac Royal, Henri Matisse

Wow, I can't believe I have lead 6 Art Masterpiece discussions for my son's Kindergarten class and have yet to share any of them with you! That just shows how fast this year has been. Things have been moving along at lightening speed. Let me take a moment to slow down and tell you a little bit about Art Masterpiece.

Art Masterpiece is an art appreciation program offered to elementary children by parent volunteer guides. Essentially, art history for kids. The goal is to help students look, think and talk about great masterpieces of art. I'm a trained Art Masterpiece Guide for the Mesa Public Schools (MPS) Art Masterpiece Program. I started back in 2010 when my oldest was in Kindergarten. As a guide, I lead 30 minute discussions about famous paintings (chosen by MPS) every other week from January - May. 

This has been a great way for me to be in my son's classroom, volunteering with something that means a lot to me and watching the kids minds and imagination at work. Much of the art I am learning about for the first time which is amazing. When I discuss an artist or artwork I have seen before, I love that I gain more intimate in the knowledge of the person and their work. The things I love most are the smiles on my kids faces when they see me arrive to talk with their class, watching the kids soak up the images and discuss the details of great works of art and noticing the different characteristics of each artwork and how a work of art may relate to them in some way. Such bliss!

Stay tuned as I round up my discussions and share them here on my blog. To see the posts from 2010 and 2011 discussions, click here.

One Moment [OM] is a weekly meet up that promotes living in the moment.  Whether funny, sad, ridiculous, or banal, looking for these moments can promote balance in our lives. Anyone can join – read about it here.

creative goddess e-course starts this sunday

Do you know who Goddess Leonie is? She is a bright spirit full of magic and generosity. I have been following her on social media for a little while and she never fails to make me smile and inspire me. Remember the World's Biggest Summit I wrote about a few months go? She is the one who pulled that glorious event off with many wonderful and inspiring teachers, all for free! I so enjoyed that! Today, I wanted to share with you some information on her very popular Creative Goddess e-Course.

The Creative Goddess e-Course is a powerful, spirited way for you to experience creativity in a whole new way. The e-course is six weeks to discover the Creative Goddess in you.

• Every week you will be assigned Creative Goddess projects to do for the week in a range of creative mediums ~ you will be exploring new ways of creating and connecting with the gorgeous soul, wisdom & beauty inside you.
   
• Six hand-drawn, illustrated and painted ebooks and three sets of worksheets guiding you on creating art as a sacred practice, how to find healing on your journey, walking through your stucknesses, how to create sacred space and discovering the Goddess in you.
   
• Six videos each week from me and Charlie the Happy Healer Dog guiding you on the next part of your Creative Goddess journey.
   
• Six guided 30 minute MP3 goddess meditations by me to work with for each part of the course. These are incredibly powerful resources, and are worth the price of the course alone.

The next Creative Goddess e-course begins this SUNDAY APRIL 1st. Enroll NOW to be a part of it! Click here for all the juicy details.

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate for Goddess Leonie. 

upcycled hand cut canvas earrings get a makeover!

Upcycled Hand Cut Canvas Earrings

All my canvas earrings had a photo makeover and look truer in color then before!

Wearable art! Fun, funky and super lightweight hand painted canvas earrings. These earrings are hand cut from my abstract acrylic paintings. Newest designs are layered with a hand cut geometric design done in a faux leather or faux suede material upcycled from an two old purses. Earrings are double sided with a solid color lightly painted on the back and sealed with acrylic varnish for added shine and protection. See all 10 available canvas earrings in my Etsy shop.

mixed media painting: sanctuary

The creative every day theme for March is mixed media, today I am sharing a mixed media painting I finished last month. This one is mostly acrylic paint with some charcoal to darken the words and oil pastel for some added pop and texture to the Queen Anne's Lace flowers. I had a Queen Anne's Lace (aka Wild Carrot) sketch in my sketchbook which was the jumping off point for this painting.

After starting the picture I knew I needed some words. I did a little digging online about the meaning of Queen Anne's Lace and the word "sanctuary" appeared. I worked on this right before my RAW showcase and the words poured out of me. It says "Be still and listen to your magic, the truth is you are enough, love yourself and awaken your secret sanctuary with your soul, trust in your magic".

I think I needed the words of encouragement before my first art show to remind myself that I can do this, I am meant to do this, I just need to trust in my abilities and try not compare my work with others. I am call it my "cheerleader piece".

I love the addition of words on artwork but, they can be tricky to get right. I went over and over the words many times until I was finally happy with them. I didn't intend for the text baseline to be in the final work but, I wasn't able to remove them easily. So, I went with it and made the lines part of the design and I think they worked into the painting nicely, a happy accident.  

Have you created art with words, do you have any tips to help the words look/read well or do you just wing it?

om: best week ever

Last week my kids had off school for Spring Break, I had to work during the week but was able to change my schedule a bit so that we could plan afternoon outing with the boys. This gave them something to look forward to each day and after going to the movies (The Lorax was great!), the park, the pool, rollerskating (love!), going to a restaurant dinner (rare that we do this), art making and attending a st patty's day parade and farmer's market they declared it their BEST WEEK EVER! Not bad considering they were requesting trips to Disneyland and Legoland at the start of the week. These little joys in life make happiness go round.

One Moment [OM] is a weekly meet up that promotes living in the moment.  Whether funny, sad, ridiculous, or banal, looking for these moments can promote balance in our lives. Anyone can join – read about it here.

zen feather art prints now available

 Zen Feather Art Print

Zen Feather is the last of my feather inspired paintings to share with you. You can read about how I ended up naming this piece here if you'd like. With this painting I focused on creating an abstract piece. I like exploring abstract from time to time. I love the final color scheme, it reminds me of the colors of the desert. The colors changed more then I can count but, in the end I think that added to the richness of the colors. I used oil pastels on top of the acrylic paint for added pop and texture; the feather was painted with watercolor on paper and decoupages to the canvas. I intended to post the original for sale today also but, it just so happen that it was sold on Monday. Although the original has sold, art prints of Zen Feather unframed, framed or on canvas are available in my Society6 shop.

mixed media: wherever your smiles have been

 The creative every day theme for March is mixed media. It's funny I call myself a mixed media artist but, I don't create a lot of mixed media art. Say what? Well, I like to create in mixed medias (digital, jewelry, paint, pastel, charcoal, ceramics, and more) but, I don't usually use mix media in one piece of art. So with the CED theme this month I wanted to challenge myself with to create a mixed media piece of art. This wood block painting has a watercolor feather that I painted, cut and decoupaged along with scrapbook paper, a butterfly and some words cut from a 3 year old birthday card. I loved the words so much I held onto the from of the card all these years. "Some people radiate love and leave happiness wherever their smiles have been." Sweet, right? I have to say this isn't my favorite work. I'm not even sure if I like it. I was a little frustrated creating it. But, that's okay. The point was to stretch outside my comfort zone and just see what happens.

Have you stretched outside your comfort zone recently? Did you like what transpired as a result?