The month of November is a wonderful time to look back over the year and feel grateful for all the wonderful things happening! My Blessed Beyond Measure project is completed. I had the opportunity to hand out 50 pieces of encaustic art to family and friends!
They got to keep one and they get to give one away to someone who has blessed them! I’ve already had one comment from a grateful recipient and it feels wonderful to pass the blessings around!
While everything isn’t always perfect, I hope you all can take some time over this weekend to be grateful for all the blessings in your life, big and small!
Thanks for going with me on this journey! Happy Thanksgiving!
It is week 3 and time for another encaustic technique video! This one will explore using pan pastels and mica powders to add color to the encaustic layer. The pan pastels that I used are tints which means that they are all pastels. Pan pastels also come in full saturated colors and metallics.
The mica powders are from USArtquest. They are a small business located in Michigan and online. The mica powders come in a wide variety of colors and have many uses.
Do you ever have something happen in your life that just affects you so deeply that it takes your breath away? Well, that just happened to me!
I became a Grandma! Congratulations to my son and daughter-in-law on the birth of their baby boy, Wyatt! You two will make the best parents and I can’t wait to watch Wyatt grow into his own personality.
Baby Wyatt
When I first saw my son holding his son, it was so emotional! I had tons of other grandparents telling me that you won’t believe how it feels. Now I know!
I feel re-energized because this new life is going to be a part of my life, so I better get organized! I’m going to need to have an art area that is baby safe! That’s going to be my motivation to create a schedule and stick to it! (You notice that this post isn’t on a Tuesday either) Hee Hee!
I hope you have something happen in your life that takes your breath away!!
How long has it been since my last post? Too long! I am guilty of procrastinating everything that has to do with technology! My personal goal is to complete something artistic every day. Easy peasy! My Technology goal is to publish a post every other week preferably on Tuesdays. Guess what — it’s Thursday and it’s been forever since my last post!! Why do I procrastinate so much in this area?
My answer is because writing is not second nature for me. Does it come naturally for you? Life gets in the way so easily and quickly that the days just fly by! School has started and my youngest is now a Junior in high school! I can’t believe it! And for my next post I will have a big life update to share with you!
Fall Exhibit of Work from Local Artists
In the meantime, we have an Exhibit up at the Elk Grove Village Public Library in the Large Meeting Room. If you are local, please stop in when the room is not being used and take a look at all the beautiful art that is for sale from local artists. There is so much talent out there! If you are looking for a piece of art for your home, see if you can find something that speaks to you at the library. The exhibit will be up until the middle of September.
Small Steps
Whatever is on your to-do list that you keep putting off, stop procrastinating! Try to do something small, like this small blog post! It is a step in the right direction! Let me know what you keep procrastinating with (so I don’t feel so alone with this problem)! I have a lot of new art that is being finished for a Juried Art Show. I will share with you each of those pieces very soon!
Lately I have been working in a series without realizing it. I have been loving working in encaustics and alcohol inks to create these floral pieces. I was showing my son and daughter-in-law my latest piece, and they immediately said it looks like a glass of wine sloshing about.
Tranquility
What do you think? Does it remind you of a glass of wine? We were drinking wine at the time, so I’m not sure if that helps persuade you or not! Now that I think of it, all of my floral pieces look like a glass of delicious wine! I am going to name this series FloraVine. I didn’t want it to be too obvious by calling it wine flowers, but I wanted it to have the same feeling that I get when I make one of these pieces.
My husband and I go to Christkindlemarkt every year and they have an abundance of Gluhwein (pronounced glu – vine) which brought me to my series name “FloraVine”. Maybe this will only make sense to me!!
This piece called Tranquility is going to be submitted to a juried show called One Inspired Evening in Chicago. A non-profit organization called Inspiration Corporation is having a Gala to raise money for people who are affected by homelessness and poverty to improve their lives through employment training and placement, social services, and housing. 100% of the proceeds will go to this organization!
I hope this piece gets accepted and will find a new home while giving back to a worthwhile charity that is really making a difference in the Chicagoland area. Stay tuned for more pieces in the FloraVine series!
Are you a resolutions kind of person? Do you make them? Then break them? Then feel bad about breaking them? Me too! But no more! I am now choosing a Word of the Year and it is so much better.
Towards the end of December, I start consciously thinking about what I would like to see happening in my life for the next year. When I’m least expecting it, a word just won’t leave me alone. At first I say it a couple of times and think, I wonder if that will be my word. If I never think of it again, then it’s not my word. BUT if it just keeps coming up in different ways in daily life, I know that will need to be my word. Last year my word was Evolve. Sometimes I think, I don’t know if I did it justice. Then when I look back over the year, I think, yes, my artwork has evolved, my friend circle has evolved, my gluten-free cooking has evolved and the list goes on!
This year as I’m sitting in church at St. Peter, there is a sermon on light. I think about how I would like to be a light in this dark world. Then the word just keeps coming up in conversation. I see layers of light in my art. I need to eat lighter food. It’s amazing how the word doesn’t let go! So my word this year is LIGHT! It seems to touch on so many different areas of my life and it has so many different meanings. I’m excited to explore the light!
In order to keep my word front and center all year, I make a piece of art to hang somewhere that I’ll see it on a daily basis. What I like about this part is that I give myself restrictions. I have to use materials found in my studio (aka, the basement). I cannot go out and buy anything for this! Lucky for me I have a lot to choose from! Here are a couple of photos of my piece in progress.
Starting with stencils and modeling paste.
Light
In progress…
This is a quick, fun way to explore your word. It’s not perfect and it’s not meant to be. It’s Wabi Sabi! I can’t wait to hear your Word of the Year!
Here’s to a healthy, happy, and light-filled 2019!
It’s almost the end of 2018 and I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas celebrating with family and friends! One more night of celebrating, and then it will be time to tackle our goals! I am going to pick out a word of the year and I would love to hear if that is something you do also? In the past I feel like I forced my word and it didn’t really suit me well. This year I am going to try to be more organic and less demanding in how I choose my word. I have tried to get the family to also choose a word, but they just laughed!
Enjoy this time of winding down! I’m sure everyone could use a little less stress in their life!
