If you're in the Murfreesboro area...

i will be teaching an encaustic painting workshop at Moxie Art Supply & Studio School on January 29th from 10am-2pm. Most supplies will be provided, and the workshop will cost $25. i would love to see some of my old friends there, and maybe some of you that i have not met in person yet!

($25) Saturday January 29^th, 10:00am-2:00pm

Encaustic painting uses various types of wax, paint and ephemera to create multi-layered works. This class is for anyone interested in learning the various techniques of encaustic painting. You will be given most of the materials you will need and can take away as many pieces as you can finish! Topics covered will include:

History
Image transfer
Collage
Mixed Media
Heating techniques
Alternative (cheaper) Materials

Art students, enthusiasts and community members of any age are welcome! Come learn an exciting and different technique and build your portfolio and experience!

Materials Required

· At least one large Natural fiber brush, not synthetic! These will not withstand the heat!

· Any collage materials; black and white photos, clip art, scrapbook paper, newspaper, etc.

· Any kind of stylus (wooden spoons work fine! Any kind of blunt handheld wooden tool!)

· Fine Grit Sandpaper (recommended)

· Sponge

· Any kind of incising tool (toothpicks, clay tools, pizza cutters, etc. ) be creative! Everything works differently!

Encaustic painting gives the artist the opportunity to work on many different visual levels while maintaining a 2-dimensional work. It is highly versatile and can incorporate endless materials. Please join us to see your imagination will interpret all of the various possibilities!

MOXIE ART SUPPLY AND ART STUDIO

316 N. Maple Street, Murfreesboro, TN 37130 615.849.1131

Home Insecurity

finally finished this piece! it's been in the working for about...4 months? hard to make art when school is in, too much other art to be made for grades. but here it is: Home
Insecurity.





This piece started with a tiny little grandfather clock from a thrift shop. it was the first piece to make its home here. i knew that i wanted to use two other items for this; a small Harbor Breeze bauble, i think it's from a fan, and the rusted key hole from the rusted door i used in my Phrenology piece.


the next things to come in were a broken fork and a weird shaped cork. i wrapped some extra fluffy yarn around the fork like spaghetti, and i kind of liked it, but i wasn't sure where i was going with that. i decided to place it behind a tiny piece of glass that i got from a friend who used to work at Lowe's and would give me glass shards etc. i placed a fortune cookie behind the glass with the form that says "you are talented in many ways". i do love using fortune cookies.



the next box i worked on included the puppy and button. this section was supposed to include a few more comforting items, but still ones that were broken or tethered.
next i filled the bottom center box with broken mirrors, tacks, a key, some wire, and a card stock "h".


the last section i completed is my favorite: the center. i found a mutilated doll at Goodwill and used its torso. this section had been half finished forever and i was very surprised when that doll bit was exactly what i needed. last i added a wonderful cog that i salvaged from an old clock. i love this section because it has a very mechanical feel to it with the rusted key hole, gear, and the ball chain of the bauble.


this piece was made to portray the stress and tension in a broken home, which is a subject that interests me. i used all household items (basically anything, not like fairy tales or space). it was difficult to make this piece unified because of all the different colors of my items, but i feel that it was successful in the end.

Sandpainting

time to share a project from my Secondary Education project. for this, we had to use paint and sand on burlap to show a theme from nature. i used the theme of the life cycle. i wanted to paint a new tree growing from a rotten log, but i couldn't get the log right. :/
so i made an ambiguous tree, which could be just newly growing or dying. i also used the colors in the back to be ambiguous, either dawn or dusk.
the back ground is metallic paint mixed with sand and glitter. the tree and background silhouettes are sewn on with yarn and thread. then i added the quote, "to the artist, nothing is ever ugly in nature".
finally i added some leaf beads. i am happy with the result and i'm glad to have a school project that reflects my style.

Hollow Books

For me, the biggest compliment i could receive is someone saying that i have inspired them. so when a long time family friend of my fiance's, who is a very great and successful artist, messaged me and said that she was inspired by my work to finish a project that was years in the making, i was so excited! so i thought i would take a moment to share the work of Lindsey Heath.

She created 2 assemblages in hollow books using 2D and 3D elements. i love her use of thread and buttons in these pieces. i also love the she incorporated some of her own drawn artwork into the piece. she is very successful in minimalistic compositions, which is a weak area for me. i always seem to think my work is too bare or too plain, but she has a nice balance of positive and negative space here. gorgeous work!

Turkey turkey turkey

made some time for turkey making with Nelson this week! we cut out our hands from construction paper and glued poms and pipe cleaners and google eyes to make super cute turkeys! but they wouldn't stand by themselves, so we made bases for them. here are our turkeys!
of course the kitty had to make it difficult by attacking all of the materials while we were making them, but that's what kitties are for. so i made him a cute kitty scarf (pics to come).

and here is my boy with his turkey, so proud!

art paying off

happy news! yesterday i was informed that i had won the art education scholarship at mtsu! for this, you need to turn in an application, an essay, a lesson plan and 2 original artworks. i chose to turn in Assemblage 64 and Series 1/4: Projection.

this was just the push i needed to remind me of what i'm doing in college and that i can be successful. and now i think i can manage the strength to finish all this schoolwork!

making assemblages for class??? ok!

finally! people who get me are making lessons for my classes! in our secondary education class, the students make their own lesson plans and those are the studio projects we do that semester. my friend kelly made a lesson based on Joseph Cornell and used idea of secrets as a theme. so we were to make assemblages from cardboard boxes we made ourselves to convey a secret of ours. my secret was that i loved fashion. i've always been kind of an anti-girl kind of girl and pretend to not care about clothes....but secretly i love love fashion. so that was my box theme! i made some tiny bunting to go across the top and used a gold painted barbie doll as my mannequin. about a week earlier, i pick up a fabric sample book from a consignment shop (only $4!) and used many of those for my background. the mesh was added to break up the space and the zipper was put on for interest, and it did become one of my favorite parts of the piece!

Alter-It Monthly: Dominoes

i was super excited about this month's theme! and i took it as an opportunity to finish a piece i started about a year ago. i also finally used some of the itty bitty clock pieces i found in an old watch. i started by going over the piece with a semi-transparent gold. then i used an amazing $1 stamp from Michael's for the clock on the front. i inserted some tiny screws into the button holes and added the little clock gears. finally, i sprinkled some gold glitter (nothing's complete without glitter) and wrapped the cover with copper wire.
i stamped the inside pages with some more $1 stamps to finish. i am very happy with it and glad that it is finally finished. :)

amazing stamp find/start of school

so yesterday i went to Michael's to get some new tim holtz sprockets, but they were doing inventory and were completely out of them! arg! however, inventory also means discount bins! so i got these amazing stamps for only $1 each! yayy! so i'm going to make an atc featuring each stamp. i also got some cute new bottles and metallic glitter. can't wait to get started on these new projects, but school is starting next week, so my crafting time will soon plummet to nearly none. so just in case i don't get on here for another month or so, thanks everyone for all of your wonderful comments and advice and giving me an amazing summer project. ♥

what i love this week....

art journals! the one above can be found at izabella's tattered letters. i've designed a few journal covers and finished one complete altered journal. i guess what i love most about these projects are the layers. there is no limit on how much or how little you can add to these things, and they still look amazing.
i think this is my most "professional" looking journal cover. the girl is a collaged piece onto a painted diamond background. then i used a gold crayon for some swirls, and that's it!
this piece was another of my first ones, and for some reason i thought that it was an excellent idea to take a picture before the glue dried, so ignore the glue spots. it is a painted background, no stamps. the i collaged on some clock parts and circuit board along with a gold part of a clock face with the word "art" inside connected to a gold chain. the i added an old belt that no longer fits to bind it all together.
this is the cover to my completed journal. it is collaged wallpaper with an octopus drawn on, ha. it also has some painted speckled on there. it is bound with a super cute sparkly pink belt that i loved. the spine is decorated with yarn, ribbon and beads and feathers, that's my favorite part.
this one was my first altered journal. it is green with collaged chinese newspaper and some drawings on the side. then i embellished it with some buttons, mirrors, letters, wire and beads.



i love how puffy these books get when they are filled with writings, souvenirs, and all sorts of collage elements. i also love the decorated spines.

altered journals are one of my favorite projects and is definitely a project i want to incorporate into my classroom. it's a project that can easily be very beautiful and personal. for some of the most amazing journals i have seen, because of subject matter, craftsmanship and originality, you should visit Luthien's Pimp & Paint.