Just Mary Designs

 Aaahhh...a morning with an extra hour.  So I head straight to my studio - my sanctuary!  The funny thing about having one hour in the studio is how much you can actually accomplish!  Just like in business, work expands to fill the time allotted for it! So this hour in my studio, what I got done is: 1.  Collaged some words I had cut out from a magazine into an art journal. 2.  Printed out my weekly curriculum for my Soul Restoration 2 class. 3.  Layered the first round of paint onto several pages in my "This is the Life I want to Live" visual journal. 4.  Sketched out an idea for a web page that I would like to design. 5.  Kissed my boyfriend when he wandered in. 6.  Added a layer of acrylic to this painting - love bubble wrap printing!!! 7.  And finally - wrote this blog post! Never let it be said that you can not accomplish a lot in one short hour!!!

I'm so excited!  I took a class this summer about how to turn your art into something that can be sold.  And here is my first print!! Step 1 - bought a fabulous new art quality printer (Epson R1900) Step 2 - bought Epson Luster Paper Step 3 - bought and learned (sort-of) Photoshop Elements Step 4 - scanned a painting I had completed Step 5 - edited it and printed it!! Voila! So why does this excite me?  I guess because it is progress towards a dream that a year ago I didn't even know I had.  That's the funny thing about dreams, isn't it?  They can shift and change and carry you in directions that you can't even imagine.  Someday I would love it if a person loved my art enough to buy a piece of it - a print, a canvas, a calendar....  So the first step in making that happen is getting the art into a format that can become "for sale"! Next step - creating the web-store it can be bought in!  You can bet that I am on it!!

I have heard it said why not style yourself as if you were paintng a canvas?  Art is all around us... and our community has a fundrasier each year called Fashion as Art.  I was asked to help color some of the decorations for the event, soI passed a relaxing Sunday morning cooring, painting, and having some fun!

 

               First, I colored with my Aquarelle water              

                soluble crayons (left).  These crayons are so

               cool!   You just add a little water to what you

              have colored (right)  and voila!  It looks like you

              spent a long time painting!                                 

 

              I did a bunch of them, then finished off 

              some of the details with glittler stickles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are gonna get dressed, might as 

well dress with a little flair!!! 

For the last 5 weeks I have been taking an e-course by Kelly Rae Roberts about how to run a creative business.  I have felt excitement, overwhelm, confidence, insecurity, techincally stupid, and artistically inspired.

I learned more about blogging, how to set up a creative website, the nuts and bolts of an etsy store, and how to connect it all to social marketing like my facebook page and my twitter account.

And check that out - I learned how to insert links into my blog!  ha ha ha

I have no idea where that knowledge will take me.... but I feel like I have grown for having taken this course.   And I'm grateful that there is a fantastic artist community out there who support the baby steps of growth for new artists like me!!

You would paint too if it de-stressed you!  Ba ba ba ba bah!!!

 

 

This is a new one I am working on....its slowly starting to take shape.  I have no firm idea yet of where I am going with it... but I am enjoying the process and seeing where it takes me!

 

Normally I am very planned - very structured.  But in the art studio I can float and just go where the mood takes me.   No rules.  No right way.  Just enjoyment.  No wonder I find it therapeutic!

 

So thank you art studio!  You make every day feel like a birthday!!!!

Sometimes learning what is NOT your style is just as important as learning what IS your style.  Here is what I have learned to be true this week:

 

1.  Sketching out a rough draft ahead of time is NOT my style.  

 

2.  Small, painstaking detail work is NOT my style.

 

3.  Highly repetitive work is NOT my style.

 

4.  I like to work intuitively - that IS my style.

 

5.  I like it messy and unplanned - that IS my style.

 

6.  I need for art to happen quickly and come together in an explosion of color - that IS MOST DEFINITELY my style!!

 

What's your style?

 

Today I took a Watercolor Basics class at Canyon Ranch in Tuscon, AZ.  I have never used this medium before and was really curious to try it out!  I loved the pretty colors and how the water makes them flow into one another.

This was our tray of suppplies - and I gotta say I was drawn in from the minute that I saw them!  After learning about how to use wet and dry washes, glazes, and watercolor papers we got to jump right in.  The class was allowed to choose images from a big stash to use as a model.  Everyone else in the class started painting landscapes, sunsets and oceans.  I painted lips.  What can I say?  I must have been ready for a kiss!

What does loving someone mean to you?  For many people it can mean the joy and bittersweet sorrow of being a parent.  For some, love has brought heartache and tears.  Love lifts us up and inspires countless songs and works of art.  Wars have been fought and lives have been lost in the name of love.  

The writing on this painting says "When you love someone with all your heart, you give it away."  So true.  We can loose ourselves in love.  How many women have lost themselves in a bad relationship - only to rediscover their own essence upon becoming single again.  How many mothers have wearily looked up when their toddler turns two and ask themselves in a sleep deprived haze - where did the last two years of my life go?  Where did I go?

When we love with the ferocity of a mother, a lover, a friend, or a family... we give our hearts away. 

(Mixed media acrylics using a masking tape technique!)

Do you ever just NEED to get outside?  In our temporary office there are no windows...just concrete walls.  And boxes.  Lots of file boxes.  It makes me want to break out - to run out into the sunshine and turn my face up to feel the heat of the summer day.  

 

 

In my normal neighborhood we have the most gigantic trees.  Part of the reason I moved there in the first place was to walk daily among the giant trees.  I loved the fact that they cut the neighborhood out of the trees - that they didn't raze the trees to build a neighborhood.  

 

For those of you who don't know this, I am temporarily displaced in both home and office due to flooding.  I want to go home.  I miss my trees.

 

There is something spiritual about being in nature.  The new blossoms in spring, the green leaves blowing  in the wind mid summer, and the glorious changing of the colors as fall rolls around.

 

So when I look out a window what do I want to see?  The beauty of nature smiling back at me.  I am longing to be outside!

 

 

 

 

Help!  This painting needs a name!  What does it evoke for you?  Do you see a visions of traveling with a passport?  Postage markings as if on a vintage postcard?  Beyond a circle and some numbers, what do you see?  

Submit a comment with the Painting Name.  And thanks for your help!

For those who enjoy learning about how this was created, read on... This painting was deceptively simple to create.  I did most of the artwork in a mixed media class I took just experimenting with different looks.  I normally would have added a lot more depth and visual interest to it, but my instructor challenged me to stop and just stare at it for a while...maybe this one would have a simpler, less busy look to it.

First I mixed some yellow, white and gold acrylic paint and laid the base.  I painted a large circle frame with a turquose color and used the frame itself as a stamp.  

Rubber stamps and archival quality permanent ink came in handy to mark the orange and turquoise stamped patterns.  Then I used a smaller circle frame as a guideline to paint the holographic looking iridescent blue.  When you move around to view it, the iridescent quality makes it look different from each point of view - very cool!

Last I used rub on numerals to give it the numbered effect.  And then I stopped.  I think it is beautiful in its simplicity.  And what, oh what shall we name it??