Valentines

Overview of my drafting table with some new creations.

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday. It is just plain fun and it is an opportunity to use two of my favorite colors--red and purple--with abandon.

Last week a group of friends came over to eat chocolate and make Valentines. Roz arrived with a huge box of "scrap" paper and a WWII vintage Sears catalogue. Karen came with felted hearts and a box of more paper, clip art and nifty stuff for embellishment. Rachel brought Valentine motif pressure prints. Jennie supplied more gourmet chocolate covered graham crackers than anyone should have in her house. I brought down rubber stamps, scissors, glue sticks, glass beads, ribbons, Xacto knives, cutting mats, etc., etc. from my studio. Oh, and I threw in an old organza and feather boa with a long history; it has now been remade into lovely Valentines and pins. (You'll see below.)

We had enough supplies to give the artists huge grins and, for the self-proclaimed non-artists, wide eyes. Three of us who are working artists and one art student were told by the others that this card making seemed a daunting task. In the end, they came up with some of the best Valentines of the bunch.

So, what was the inspiration? The old catalogue generated a load of Valentines.

My grandson came up with the idea that you could glue glass "marbles" (they're not really marbles since they have a flat side) on top of little images and magnify the image. Viola! So I tried it (below):

Below are pieces of what was once a gorgeous boa that could be attached to a nightgown...oh well. The colors are gorgeous. Cutting it up and using it for Valentines is surely a higher and better use. Karen got the idea to attach a bunch of the organza to the back of a felted heart
--it made a beautiful pin.

Now here are the silliest Valentines: The purple ones below are inspired by my four-year-old grandson again. I had gotten him a box of foam hearts and monkeys so he and I could make Valentines one day after school. He was exploring the drawers in my studio and found a bag of "jewels" and sparkley pom-poms which he calls "hair balls." He has already given the Valentines away that he had decorated with monkeys (What can I say, they were in the box with all the hearts....) and several pom-pom-hair-balls so I can't show them here. However, one of his less embellished creations is at the end of this post.

I did a variation on the his theme and added some pearls when I saw a piece of purple velour paper:

Supplies for the Goofy Valentines

The inspiration for many of the Valentines:

Made by 4 year old E.W.

So, the Big Day is almost here. You have until the 14th to deliver some cards. Make some, it's fun.

Two More Oranges

Lots of painting and drawing this week. The oils are getting easier and easier to handle. But it was not without many frustrating moments.

When things were not going well and I was getting discouraged I did two things: I went back to what I can do and that is to draw in graphite. Having some successes with a medium I know well gave me the lift I needed to try again with the oils. Second, rather than paint outside and deal with the changing light, I set the orange up in my studio where I had control over the lighting. Same subject as the last post: an orange on orange paper.


Then I had yet another go at the orange:

In each painting there is a lesson learned.

Yesterday I was back painting outside in the park across the street. Now with the added "brush miles," i.e practice, dealing with changing light went better than the last outside session.

The take-away is: keep painting. And, when all else fails, eating a little chocolate doesn't hurt. Or, to celebrate success, have a chocolate. For those who didn't remember--yesterday, September 4, was World Chocolate Day.