Just Mary Designs

[caption id="attachment_1046" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] She Is Becoming
Prints Available Here[/caption] She Is Becoming.... Every woman lives through her own transformational journey. She grows, she changes, she becomes the best version of herself.  I have been on my own journey - changing and developing as I find my way within the world of art and creativity.  Sometimes this change is welcome and joyful, and sometimes it is challenging and painful.  But I do believe that all change leads towards the life we are desiring.  Often the path there is twisty and turny and different than what we imagined, but the journey itself is filled with moments of exquisite love, happiness and enchantment. When this painting developed into a butterfly, I knew it would become a painting about change.  The day I added the woman in the center of it, I knew it would be about transformation.  I had so much fun selecting the words on this - thinking of all of the things a woman thinks about as she grows into herself.  She thinks about beauty, grace, and fashion.  She feel sexy, alluring, and bold.  Chic and sassy are part of her makeup - and stepping into her vibrancy is so empowering.  I also had fun playing with the title.  She is Becoming.... something new.  And the word becoming also means beautiful.  A fun and inspiring little play on words. I hope she inspires you as you become the best version of yourself on your own journey!    

Tonight  have been playing!  In my Surface Pattern Class by Rachel Taylor we were given an assignment to create a line of stationery from a brief.  The brief specified the elements desired in the line, and that it is to be aimed at a contemporary audience, trendy with a touch of sophistication.  Do you think I hit the target audience?  I hope so! The class is comprised of many wonderful and talented aspiring designers.  Most of them design digitally on their computers.  While I am fascinated by what they create, I am too "hands on" (or maybe that should be "hands messy) to design that way.  So I have taken my mixed media designs and manipulated  them to finish this assignment.  It's much more my style...and much more fun for me! I started with this background that I painted.  I scanned it before adding the words or picture. [caption id="attachment_575" align="aligncenter" width="692" caption="Believe In Your Beauty
Click Here To Purchase"][/caption] Then I manipulated it to create this pattern board - taking snippets of it that I thought were visually interesting. [caption id="attachment_576" align="aligncenter" width="692" caption="Wild Garden Pattern"][/caption] From there I took the pieces of this pattern and repurposed them into the pieces of the stationery set according to the size specs from our brief.  This was really fun for me to do.  I am imagining seeing it on the shelves of Barnes & Noble and wanting to write on these with a fresh sharpened pencil!!

Here she is.  Dancing.  She continues to dance and delight in life even in the midst of challenges.  The bolder reds paint a picture of strife, power and passion, muted by the smokier blues that suggest uncertainty and the unknown.  Throughout it all, she dances bodily and brightly on, radiating color and light to those around her.  She is the Dancing Girl.  A Dancing Queen. This painting emerged through many, many layers.  It started here with some drips and squiggles and a spray bottle of water....   I learned from the Flora Bowley e-course Bloom True the art of intuitively adding color without being attached to the outcome.  Layering on paint and enjoying the process of what emerged.... Adding more color.  Just having fun.  Making marks with odd things.  Starting to look like a cacophony of color!  One of the funniest parts of this was painting with a foam brush.  Yep - a 25 cent foam brush.  Doesn't seem very hoity-toity or artistic....but it makes great marks and was fun! Next I added some black and white to gain some value contrast.  Amazing how depth was instantly achieved.... Still no dancing girl here...but you can sort of see the beginning of the flower in the lower left hand corner.  From here I loosely painted on the images flitting through my mind as these colors seemed to dance lightly on the canvas.... I began to add color....making some bold moves.  The blue came out of nowhere and seemed to dissolve into a mistiness.  The red came out of my heart, which at the time was breaking for my struggling daughter.  Trusting my intuition to cover some parts with new colors and let the amazing under layers shine through in other places.  Feeling my way. And finally finishing it out (same as first picture above).  Dancing with her as she dances.  Becoming the Dancing Queen in my own life.  Dancing my own way through struggle and strife, boldly radiating love and light. Dance on!