We Have a Winner!!!

HUGE congratulations and confetti-flinging goes out to Kate K who won a free spot on Soul Food thanks to the Gods of Randomosity at random.org!  A tweet took it!

Thank you to everyone who participated and commented and filled my inbox with joy and loveliness this week!  You all rock my stripey socks off.

NOW.  Back to Super Secret Projects and Thera-Flu.  Happy Holidays, sweet things!

If I sent Christmas cards, this is the picture I would use.  My husband the psychopath. <3

Soul Food Giveaway!

I am honored and amazed to be part of the awesomeness that is Soul Food 2015, and it's my turn for an interview and giveaway!  YAY!!  *cue music and flailing*

If you're not savvy to the Soul Food, it's an awesome three-month-long course that starts in February!  Here are the pertinents:

• 3 Head Chefs: Mystele Kirkeeng, Heather Santos and Jeanette House
• 17 Sous-Chefs
• 2 video instruction mixed media lessons per week for 3 months
• Each artist’s favourite comfort food cooking recipe
• All downloadable videos
• Classroom access through Dec 31, 2015
• Registration will open on January 1, 2015

You can register at Community Thrive (it's free!) where there are a ton of freebies, challenges, and paid workshops to tide you over until February by clicking here!

Here's my awkward interview video (ah, vimeo, could you have picked a more attractive facial expression to use as the thumbnail?  I think not!):




SO now the fun part! The contest! You have four ways to enter, so get to clickin'!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wearing Out my Gelli Plate

Okay, I'm not really wearing it out, but it would be smoking if it could!

Since Roni died, I've found myself lacking in the artistic mojo department - I'd like nothing better than to sit and art journal or something, but it's just not happening.  I've crocheted a bit and have updated my Etsy (with only about a quarter of my stuff, but, hey, progress), but, every time I've tried to do something creative, I've floundered.  Big time.

This seemed like the perfect time to do some Gelli prints!

I'm doing this out of order, but that's okay. ;)  I dug through my pile of cast-off prints and found these three:

They are not pretty prints.  They're mostly ghost prints and cleaning of the brayer or the stencils, but I figured it would be a good challenge to make them into something that I might actually use.

Several pulls, adjustments, and layers later, I have these:

Holy cow so much better!!  I absolutely love the one in the middle with the leaves, although I generally like the whole "cover most of it with paint" thing, so that's not much of a surprise.

After two days of pulling print after print after print, I feel a little more like my mojo is starting to come back, which is a relief.  I'm feeling a little artistically constipated.

Have some Gelli Print eye candy!

With every print I pulled, I cleaned off my brayer on a page in my art journal, and I am absolutely IN LOVE with how it looked by the end of it.

SO MUCH YUM.

Now I need to decide what to do with this enormous stack of prints..

Adventures and Sorrow

Hello!

October is historically my favorite month, but this year I swear it tried to kill me.  It started out so innocently and fun with a trip to Stamford, Connecticut for vending at Art-is-You.  It was awesome to reconnect with some of my favorite people and make dollies do drunken things.

Ah poor drunken dollies.

I came home from Stamford and then immediately loaded the kids and the dog into The Manflesh's truck, and we drove to North Dakota, a 1600-mile drive.  Along the way I officiated over my brother's wedding, which was awesome.  I make goofy faces even in an official capacity.

I spent two days with my favorite cousin, which was amazing, and picked up a Harley.  I also made some skulls for her kitchen since I can't seem to leave anyone's house without leaving art behind.

On the way home, I entertained myself by listening to Welcome to Nightvale, too much Sirius Octane radio (developing an unhealthy obsession with the song Moth by Hellyeah in the process), and a twerking T-rex..

Three days and many miles later, we finally crawled our way back into the homestead, unloaded the Harley, returned the trailer, and passed out.  

My 17-year-old and his Harley.  Yikes. 

The next morning, we got a surprise houseguest, my adopted daughter Jenny.  Even the dog was happy to see her, and he hadn't even met her yet. 

This was two weeks of utter bananas crazy business followed by the gut-punch from the Universe, the shocking passing of my very best friend and soul-sister, Roni.  I've eulogized her, mourned her, consumed too much wine, rum, vodka, and Kahlua in honor of her, and I can't even begin to explain the mad ache in my heart without her.

I'd say rest in peace, but neither of us wants that.  Tear shit up, you crazy bitch.  <3 <3 <3

Artistcellar Stencil WINNER! Plus zombies.

Greetings, lovelies!!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

From the loving hands of random.org to the loving hands of our winner...

NANNER!!  WOO!! *confetti* 

Congratulations, dollface!  I'll ship your info to the Lovely Lisa of Artistcellar, and you'll be making skeletons do lewd things with Mr. T in no time flat!!

In other news, welcome to October!!  It's my favorite month of the year.  There is nothing quite like sitting on my porch at 2 in the morning with a cup of something hot (tea? coffee? coffee spiked with Pumpkin Spice Liqueur?  maybe all of the above) in the quiet and the fog with the leaves falling loudly enough to make my pulse pound.  I think there's a possum living under my porch which makes it even creepier. ;)  This was the view yesterday behind my house... picturesque as hell, right?

In honor of October, I'm going to be doing spooky/creepy-themed paintings for my 50 Canvases videos all month.  WOO.  The first challenge is to paint a zombie...

I'm doing a series of Sideshow Zombies for a gallery show I'm participating in this month.  I'm super excited about the show (it's my first!) and nervous.. and stressing out.

LOOK MY NAME IS ON THERE OMG

Since I'm going to be participating in the Art Trunk at Art is You in Stamford, CT, I won't be able to go to the opening, which is a super bummer.  BUT I'LL SURVIVE.  Maybe. ;)

Okay these sculptures won't sculpt themselves.  Onward!

Weirdos Abound

Greetings, Glow Clouds!

I received a fabulous comment on Artistcellar the other day from Amber K... HI AMBER!  Here's what she said:

I’ve already been following (stalking really) your blog and Wonderstrange and I just adore you guys! I’m always excited to see when you have a new canvas video up!! I would love love love to see a post that just shows your studio table/art area and how you “organize” your stuff. In all your pics/videos you look like you work in a narrow space b/c you have so much other wonderfullness on your table, I and a lot of others out there end up working the same way. I’m always scanning the outside edges of your pictures to see what kind of supply I might find laying around. How about a tour! And not a fake, my studio is clean and pristine and never gets used tour. The real, bare all tour.

Ask and ye shall receive!  I say "crap" a lot.  I'm also a little scatterbrained.  WHATEVER.

In other news, I just designed this pattern which is my new favorite thing.  I swear I would be happy just designing patterns and stitching all day, but that's not so financially lucrative.  Bah.

I should be working on pieces for a gallery show (gulp!), but clicking stitches into boxes was really the sum of my energy.  And remember, in the immortal words of Cecil of Night Vale:

as you watch the sun rise again tomorrow morning, think to yourself: past performance is not a predictor of future results. And then force a smile, drink another cup of coffee, and try not to look down as you walk across the soil that will eventually fill your lifeless lungs and repurpose your corpse

With that cheery thought, I am off to bed!

New Artistcellar Stencils, Blog Hop, and GIVEAWAY!! WOO!!

HEY GUYS.

Today marks my final post as a design team member for Artistcellar and my very first post as part of a blog hop!  Confetti!  Tears!  Confetti!  Tears!

Those clever kids over there managed to snag an amazing papercutter, Béatrice Coron, as their newest signature artist.  She has done a couple of awesome TED talks, check them out here and here!  She is 12 kinds of adorable.

SO ARE THESE STENCILS!  OMG!

                         
They are, in order of appearance, Painter, Housework, Online, and Dancers.  So SO so cute.

I decided to go with a funky canvas and chose the Painter stencil.  I started by brayering black paint onto a 6 x 6 canvas panel:

I love how grungy that looks!  I laid down my stencil and carefully applied white acrylic paint with a makeup sponge:

And then, without moving the stencil, dabbed on some turquoise acrylic with the same sponge:

I removed the stencil and was left with this lovely bit of lovely:

I LOVE how shocked and/or awed the lady skeleton looks.  I sort of wanted to keep it like that, but then this would be a really short post, so I started filling in bones using the flat edge of a paintbrush:

I also gave them big heads.

I used acrylic paints to give them little skully heads and gave the guy a Dali mustache just because that is the kind of mustache I would have if I could grow a mustache. 

One of my favorite parts of Day of the Dead art is the flowers (sometimes I am SUCH A GIRL), so I gave her a flowery headdress and gave him a flowery boutonniere: 

I could not get over the idea that the lady skeleton was scandalized over whatever Dali Guy is painting, so I thought long and hard about what would scandalize a skeleton and came up with this:

If you can't make it out, it says, "his portraiture was scandalously fleshy" ... hahahahhahahaaaaaaa!

I finished it off by using Distress Stain to age the text a bit:

And there you go!

HEY SO NOW A GIVEAWAY!

You can win the full set of stencils by leaving a comment!  I will use random.org to pick a winner on October 1, 2014!  WOOT WOOT!!

For more chances to win, be sure to visit the other blogs on the hop!  VISIT THEM REGARDLESS because they are awesome, every last one of them!

September 20th – Lisa Cousineau, Artistcellar www.artistcellar.com/wp
September 21st – Jill K Berry – jillberrydesign.com/blog
September 22nd – Janet Ghio – www.janetsartplay.blogspot.com
September 23rd – Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com
September 24th – Sarah Trumpp – WHOA that's me!!!
September 25th – Diana Trout – www.dianatrout.typepad.com

Don't forget to leave a comment with a working email address to win!  GOOD LUCK!!