Paint Party Friday

More SBP Pages...

 A couple of posts ago, I was lamenting not having a title for my 

Sketchbook Project journal. I couldn't see how my random drawings

fit any kind of theme. The theme given to me by the SBP people 

was "Encyclopedia of..." 

Readers left so many wonderful suggestions,

my mind was dancing! But one idea really spoke to me

and it was from Tracey Fletcher King (her blog is here).

She suggested "encyclopedia of memories or dreams".

I loved the idea of dreams...

all of my pages so far seemed like something I may have dreamed. 

This is the inside cover spread. I haven't actually done the cover yet.

Here it is flipped so you don't have to turn your computer around lol...

Hopefully it will be less of a problem with the book in one's hands :)

Still working crazily to get finished by the end of the month,

but it's proving to be lots of fun.

Someone commented that I probably work better under pressure.

After giving it some thought, I've decided perhaps it's more accurate to say

I ONLY work under pressure. I get very little done unless

there is a deadline looming. Just ask my husband :)

Taking a back seat to all this is balancing the checkbook, organizing taxes

for the accountant, housework of course....and many other chores that

theoretically I have more time to do so they are my chores.

My son has inherited this tendency to procrastinate

and I'm not sure I approve. But it gives his father, who is early 

for the most minor event, quite a few anxious and irritated moments.

So, anyway, I've gotten off the track...

Other than this spread, I don't know if I've completed anything else

since my last post. Some pages are partly done.

I guess that means I'd better get busy.

Just having the title off my mind is a HUGE relief!

Thank you Tracey!

I'm posting this for Paint Party Friday.

I hope you'll head over to see the awesome artwork that has been posted.

So many talented artists...I never do get to everyone's blog

but I can just try to do better each week.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Butterflies at Inspiration Avenue

The Butterfly Garland

Butterflies under the sea?

But of course! Where did you think butterflies come from?

Besides from caterpillars, that is. 

It's like the old chicken and the egg puzzle. 

Which came first, the caterpillar or the butterfly?

Well, mermaids are in charge of gathering the lost butterflies

and making sure they return to land to lay the eggs,

that will become the caterpillars, 

that will become . . . now you understand.

Without the mermaids' help, there would be many less butterflies.

Of course the mermaids can't accomplish this without a little assistance.

They enlist their sea creature friends to pitch in from time to time :)

Be sure to head over to Inspiration Avenue on Sunday

to see the Gallery of Butterflies.

I believe we have a record number of entries this week.

"Butterflies" is a subject that speaks to the creative soul!

Deadline fast approaching...panic

The Sketchbook Project

I'm frantically trying to get my sketchbook completed 

by the deadline of January 31.

Okay, not "frantically" or I would be finished by now. lol.

The one thing that does not make much of an appearance

in my sketchbook is sketching. I've always hated my sketches...

maybe I should take a drawing class.

The theme given to me by the Sketchbook People

(okay that's a lie, I did choose it myself)

is "Encyclopedia of..."

and for the life of me I can't figure out what my book is an encyclopedia of.

There seem to be a lot of trees, clothing, and some elves and fairies.

How on earth are these related? 

I would like to do the cover in something clever

relating to my theme but . . . maybe the word is "hodgepodge".

A word I don't like at all.

So, enough of my problems. If anyone has a suggestion

about how these things are related, I would be grateful to know!

In the meantime, I am posting this for Paint Party Friday.

I hope you will visit the wonderful entries that are posted there!

Have a happy weekend!

It's a dreary winter day...

I haven't even thought about art in the past 3 days...

Guess I will get busy and/or inspired tomorrow :)

But.

There is a 20% off sale in my Etsy shop!

Heart of the Magpie

And.

A treasury I made honoring Edgar Allan Poe.

January 19 is his birthday!

Click and comment if you're a fan!

Weekly Art Challenge

Paper Dolls

Yesterday I was thinking I wouldn't have an entry 

for this week's challenge at Inspiration Avenue.

I adored the theme of paper dolls and thought it would be a fun challenge.

The execution proved more problematic than the idea!

I started 2 different entries. Not happy with either.

It was harder than I thought it would be! Just not my thing, I thought.

I was expecting to have the best time doing this.

Instead I was stressing over it...

So, today I made myself complete both.

I don't hate either one as much as I thought I did,

and I'm glad they are finished!

The first one...

 Her name is Apolline, a high wire artist at the circus.

When she's not high above the crowd in the big top, she

loves shopping for everything pink! Occasionally

she will include something light green or another pale color.

She loves walking her puppy, Amaroo,

and is searching for the perfect pet bird

for the lovely vintage cage she found today.

For the second one, I fell back on some digital creations

that I mostly had already done, but added some new dresses and colors:

I was inspired by the yummy sixties fashions in Mad Men.

I confess I have never watched Mad Men, but I looked at the pictures!

It's on my to-do list to watch an episode.

Pop over to Inspiration Avenue Sunday afternoon 

(if you are in the US eastern time zone,

or adjust accordingly for your location!)

The entries will be displayed in the Gallery of Paper Dolls :)

Weekly Challenge Inspiration Avenue

BFFs

New best friends.

Okay, here's the conversation.

"I like your hair." "I like YOUR hair!"

"Yay! Let's go play in the damask!"
"I love damask. What's damask?"
"I don't know but I love it too!"

"Okay!!"

I wish I had a better story :)

But I'm rushing to get this posted in time for the 

challenge at Inspiration Avenue, which is

Damask

a quite interesting and challenging one brought to us by Shelly of Pics by Shel!

I have some foam stamps which I thought resembled damask.

I used them to create a background on black Canson paper,

but now I don't think they do justice to the beauty of damask.

But the BFFs don't know the difference, so it's all good lol!

Off to post my link on IA...

Be sure to visit later today to see all of the entries!

Paint Party Friday

Work in progress

First of all.

I hope 2012 is off to a beautiful start for all of you!

Which means inspiring, creative, 

and with your muses present and lending a helping hand!

So, I have a long way to go on this.

I became even more convinced when I snapped a pic in bad light

and put it on the computer. Funny how you see things differently

on a computer screen.

This was going to be my entry at Inspiration Avenue for

the Something old, Something new challenge.

(2 challenges ago)

What is old is that I always start something ambitious

with only a day or so to complete it.

What was new is that this is a very different size for me

(12 x 24 as opposed to my usual 8 x 10's)

So those things combined meant there wasn't a chance in hell 

I would get it finished in time. Ha. It's still not finished.

Alright, enough whinging and whining,

here is the story.

I modeled her after John Waterhouse's Psyche painting.

I love John Waterhouse ~ his figures look so graceful and solid,

like they could walk right off the canvas.

I thought this painting

was Pandora, but apparently it is Psyche.

And this

 

is Pandora.

I am still calling mine Pandora.

I don't see anywhere in the story of Psyche where she has a box.

According to http://www.pantheon.org

this is the story of Psyche:

Psyche is the youngest of three daughters. She was of such extraordinary beauty that Aphrodite herself became jealous of her. The goddess then sent her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with an ugly man.  She was meant to fall in love with the first man she saw, which Eros would make sure was the ugliest man on earth. However, the god himself fell in love with her when he got pricked with his own poison arrow. He visited her every night, but forbade her to see his face, so she did not know who her lover was. On her sisters' instigation she tried to discover the true identity of her beloved. When he lay asleep in her bed, she lit an oil lamp but when she bent over to see Eros' face, a drop of oil from her lamp fell on him and he awakened. When he noticed her intent, he left her. Psyche wandered the earth in search of her lover, until she was finally reunited with him. 

 Zeus himself reunited and married the lovers. 

A nice story, but where is the box??

If anyone knows, please tell me :)

and here is the story of Pandora:

Pandora was the first woman on earth. Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the god of craftsmanship, to create her and he did, using water and earth. The gods endowed her with many talents; Aphrodite gave her beauty, Apollo music, Hermes persuasion, and so forth. Hence her name: Pandora, "all-gifted".

When Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus' brother. With her, Pandora had a jar which she was not to open under any circumstance. Impelled by her natural curiosity, Pandora opened the jar, and all evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to close the lid, but the whole contents of the jar had escaped, except for one thing which lay at the bottom, and that was Hope. 

 Not as nice a story, except the part about Hope.

Interesting, the parallels between this story and that of Eve...

Oh, and the stories all say Pandora had a jar, not a box.
I'm still going with a box because who ever heard of
"Pandora's Jar"?

So Happy Paint Party Friday!

And Happy 2012!

Don't forget to visit the party: