Just Mary Designs

I am excited to share a new Pattern Page on my website!  Check out all of my fun pattern designs at http://justmarydesigns.com/patterns. My latest pattern was fun to put together.... it started with this simple drawing below... [caption id="attachment_532" align="alignleft" width="692" caption="Firework Motif"][/caption] And it turned into a pattern like this!  Oh the fun things a gal can do in photoshop!!! [caption id="attachment_533" align="alignleft" width="692" caption="Fireworks Pattern"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_479" align="aligncenter" width="692" caption="Available for sale in my Etsy store"][/caption] Love is all around us.  We see weddings, engagements, and anniversaries happening all of the time.  People honoring their love with celebrations. [caption id="attachment_480" align="aligncenter" width="692" caption="Available for sale in my Etsy Store"][/caption] Sometimes it is easy to overlook the love around us....to feel lonely.  Sometimes it feels like everyone else has the love we desire.  When that happens to me, I begin to look inside.  I firmly believe that we have to have love inwardly for our own selves before we can love outwardly for someone else. [caption id="attachment_481" align="aligncenter" width="692" caption="Available for sale in my Etsy Store"][/caption] When you love someone, you do make promises.  And you create expectations.  I have yet to figure out the secret of loving someone unconditionally, without expectations of what THEY will do for ME in exchange for my love.  But I am working on it!  I believe in the power of love.  I believe that love can help create positive change.  It can inspire people to be the best version of themselves possible.  Love can change a person from the inside.  I hope this brings a little love to your day!! [caption id="attachment_482" align="aligncenter" width="692" caption="Available for sale in my Etsy Store"][/caption]

I can't decide if this looks more like hanging swirls, flowers on a vine, or delicious lollipops!  After many, many layers this is what has emerged in my latest painting!  I really like the bold pop of the turquoise circles with the multi-colored background behind it.  But what is this painting really about for me?  Lately my life has been a swirl of change.  Sometimes change can make you feel like you are barely hanging on, twisting in the wind.  Sometimes change makes you feel that you are softly swaying, attached by the roots and vines in your life that connects you to others.  Change usually makes me feel that I have to spiral inward, reconnect with my own soul, and then I can shine outwards again.  I believe this is what I have tried to capture in this painting. Here is where it started!  In my Flora Bowley Bloom True e-course the challenge was to blindfold yourself and paint with your hands.  Seriously.  It was AWESOME.  Very freeing.  So I squeezed some paint out onto my palette, loaded up my i-pod, and fingerprinted blindfold!  Can you see the finger swipes!?! Time to add some cool colors - an explosion of blues and greens.  I have no idea where this canvas is heading....but throwing color down with wild abandon makes me feel like a child at play.  I can see the energy in this - the bold marks, the aliveness of the paintbrush moves. Adding more layers, covering things up, letting things shine through.  As I was painting this, relationships around me were starting to shift and change.  From my family, to my friends, to my boyfriend....what I knew one day was different the next.  Just like this canvas, the direction before was not the direction it went next. Adding blacks and whites immediately creates depth.  I can  see anger coming out in this.  I can see footprints of pain in the sea of change I was experiencing.  I can see this canvas begin to take on a life of its own, responding to the intuitive emotion pouring out of me.  I can also see the white fighting the black....as my hope and internal sunshine was fighting the hurt and betrayal I was feeling. Adding layers, turning the canvas upside down and right side up.  On its side.  Backover again.  Trying to find the right way to proceed, trying to find the right way to paint.  The swirls of pistachio color seemed to leap from my paintbrush onto the canvas.  A swirl of emotion, but the color feeling hopeful and light.  Grounding the swirls with the dark vines.  Giving the hope roots to cling to.  Seeing a picture of growth begin to emerge. And finally finishing it up.  Adding the lollipop like flowers.  Letting bursts of color in the background shine through.  Blending areas to draw my eye towards harmony rather than discord.  Want to know something funny?  I decided that this was the direction I liked it best...the flowers hanging upside down.  Then when I grabbed it to sign it, I signed it the wrong way!  So now my signature is in the upper left hand corner and upside down.  I think that is kind of ironic!  When change happens, things feel upside down.  I guess my signature even wanted to carry that theme through!  Makes me giggle.

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!

You know how sometimes a picture just catches your eye?  Sometimes it is the composition.  Sometimes it is the focal point.  Most often or me it is the colors. I've always been attracted to bright colors.  My long time favorite color has been red.  Some say that is a power color.  Or an angry color.  I think it is a bold color....and I am kind of a bold girl!  I have now had 2 houses and an office building in which I have painted one wall in a room red! In Module 1 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design we learned how to make these nifty little color palettes.  The instructor Rachael Taylor showed us how to take a picture with colors that spoke to us and pull out the palette.  It is then easy as an artist to create your own work using that blend of colors.  I have had a lot of fun experimenting with it. I hope you enjoy these two fun color palettes that both caught my eye!!

Sometimes a girl just needs a little fairy dust to help everything in life move towards that happy ending.  Right now my daughter is really struggling and has been hospitalized for post-partum depression.  I am taking care of her little baby - my sweet and adorable grandson.  I am loving every minute with him, but I'm tired.  He is two months old....and I have forgotten just how little sleep a new parent gets!  I am also trying to help my daughter regain her footing and grow back the point where she can take care of herself and of him.  Can you see why I need a little fairy dust to help along the way!! I believe that things happen in life that make you smile with the synchronicity of it all.  I participate in an Artists Trading Card Swap monthly.  For those of you new to the ATC world - it's kind of like trading baseball cards - except they are handmade little lovelies that you trade with artists around the globe!  Most swaps have a them, and the March theme was Fairytales.  I created a couple of cards with this them in mind.  What a magical them for a girl who needs a little magic right now! The second piece of synchronicity is that I am taking The Art of Surface Pattern and Design course and I learned how to make repeat patterns in photoshop of things.  I decided to combine my ATC work and my Surface Pattern work and voila - we have a Fairy Pattern!  I guess if I can create a little beauty along the way using the thoughts of love for my daughter and grandson, then maybe I am creating my own fairy dust and something magical will happen!

I can't get enough of learning about painting....mixed media....the art business.....did I mention painting?  One of the best things I am learning in the Flora Bowley e-course Bloom True is to just paint with wild abandon.  It really doesn't matter what the layers look like, it just matters that you are layering.  Eventually it will matter what they morph into, but for now its just a free flow of color from my heart right onto the canvas.  Here are my first 4 layers....I can't wait to learn what the next 4 will look like!!!!

I thought it would be a good idea to practice faces.  I am not really good yet at the noses....or lips....or eyes....lol I am pretty sure that covers most of the face!  I don't want all of the people I paint to be faceless.  So I turned to my art journal and started doodling.  Some features up close.  Some in a small face.  Some in a larger face.  I have found it is pretty hard to capture any type of real expression in a small face.  I think that means I need to practice more!! As I was doodling I was thinking about faces, about facing things, and it morphed into facing your future.  Everyone has things in their future - things looming ahead - that bring them angst and anxiety.  Sometimes it is about a change that is coming.  Sometimes it is because we long for change.  But whatever looms ahead I have learned is best handled by walking straight into it - boldly facing what is coming your way.  We can get through anything - the hardest part is really just taking the steps to get started.  So go - go boldly face your own future.  You can do it!!

Art.  I love it.  I love making it.  Love looking at it.  Love reading art books.  Love reading art blogs.  Love trying new techniques and finding new supplies that delight me. I love creating in my studio....such a place of peace and therapy for me.  When the world starts to feel like it's closing in I can escape to my little art studio and paint out all of my frustrations, angers and overwhelm.  When I have something to celebrate it's a place of private haven where I can relax, bask in my joy and paint brightly colored pieces expressing my love and radiant life. The funny thing about my love of art is that it is all about exploring.  I can explore with a new medium.  A new class.  A new photoshop trick.  A new color.  A new friend.  A new style.  I can constantly invent and reinvent.  If I don't like it I can paint over it.  I can shade it.  I can chuck it and start something new.  Then come back to it later and breathe new life into it. And I love, love, love the art supplies.  I'm like a kid in the candy store when I walk into a Hobby Lobby or a Michaels.  I want to have one of everything....and two of the things that sparkle!! Right now, apparently I am obsessed with learning everything I can about not just making art, but the business of art.  I am taking three e-classes - Hello Business Hello Soul, The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design, and Bloom True by Flora Bowley.  I am finding my way as I learn new things about WHY art is speaking to me - heck its not just speaking to me - it is shouting at me to pay attention!!!  And I am loving it!  Loving it all!!!

Oooh I am having fun with this!!!  I have been working on a class called the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design put on by the very lovely Rachel Taylor and Beth Nichols.  I was really struggling with the class - most of the designs are done or heavily manipulated on the computer.  I am simply NOT a digital designer.  My heart sings when my hands get messy.  I am called to play with paint and canvas, not a mousepad or illustrator wand.  BUT, the content and the way pattern is used really does speak to me. So I looked for an out of the box way to marry traditional surface pattern design with my mixed media love affair.  And I think I found it!  When I do a painting, I always start with a background.  The finished work will normally have some type of central image or theme to it.  But the background is pure texture and pattern.  So why not carve a "Surface Pattern" out of my "Mixed Media" background? With this in mind I pulled out sections from some of my finished work, and from some backgrounds that don't have completed central images yet.  In the class we have been taught how to make pattern boards.  So here are my out of the box Pattern Boards - Just Mary style!!