The Man in the Moon and the Moon Rabbit

Moonlight

I love Niina's theme this week at Inspiration Avenue.

On August 10 we had a super moon, an event where the full moon is 

at its closest position to the earth in a given month. This makes it Big! and Bright!

With my less-than-sophisticated camera, I was able to snap a few photos just after dusk.

I'm surprised they turned out at all.

I think the Man in the Moon is tired of all the super moon hoop-la 

and he's nowhere to be seen in these photos :-)

Everyone's heard of the Man in the Moon, 

but did you know there is a Moon Rabbit?

The Moon Rabbit in folklore is based on markings on the moon 

that resemble a rabbit and a mortar. In East Asia, it is seen pounding 

in a mortar and pestle, but the contents of the mortar differ 

among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean folklore. 

In Chinese folklore, it is often portrayed as a companion of the 

Moon goddess Chang'e, constantly pounding the elixir of life for her; 

but in Japanese and Korean versions, it is pounding the ingredients for rice cake.

You can read more about the Moon Rabbit on Wikipedia.

The Sleeping Village painting above is available in my shop.

The two paintings below have gone to new homes . . .

Have a great week!

Channeling Georgia O’Keeffe

The first month of our art journal swap!

Going in our usual order, I have Gemma's book first. 

We've each selected artists for our books and Gemma's artist is Georgia O'Keeffe.

Panic!! I was (am!) very intimidated by Georgia O'Keeffe. Her style is so precise.

And perfect. Perfectly precise and gorgeous.
The exact opposite of my style, whatever that is :-)

The O'Keeffe paintings I'm most familiar with are all

landscapes, flowers, or abstracts.

So I did one of each in Gemma's book...

There is a place in New Mexico called Shiprock.

I don't know that Georgia O'Keeffe ever painted Shiprock (maybe too touristy for her),

at least I gather it's a bit of a tourist attraction...I've never been there.

Sadly I've only driven through New Mexico, and never got to stop.

 The foreground drove me nuts, and I wondered how in the world I would be able
to fill the rest of the page before March was out! That's when I got the brilliant idea
to create the rock out of tissue paper and paint. The process sped up considerably!

And I found in my stash some incredible green paper with gold fibers in it.

LOVE the way it tore to look like dry desert plants!
I received something wrapped in it and saved it for the perfect use.
I think it may have been Kat who sent it?
 
Georgia's quote, which proves how different she must have been to me:

“You know I never feel at home in the east like I do out here ~ 
and finally feeling in the right place again ~ I feel like myself and I like it.”

The desert has never welcomed me...I feel uneasy in the desert
and miss the lush greens of the east.

But once I started putting these pages together,
I could see that there is much beauty in the desert. I know Gemma loves it,
and posts the most awesomely beautiful photos of the landscape!

So on to the next page...
I have posted this before when it was a WIP.
Hasn't changed too much except for the quote
and a bit more done on the green parts.

And last...but should have been first lol ...
my portion of the front cover of Gemma's book.

We have 8 artists total, and the first 4 will collaborate on the front cover
and the last 4 will work on the back cover. My portion of the front
is in the lower right corner. I rather copied one of Georgia's abstracts.
I originally thought to use the design and maybe change the colors.

Then I realized that the colors she chose
and the placement of them were perfection.
What a genius she was!
Changing colors would have thrown the whole thing off in my eyes.
So I used her colors for the most part.

Georgia O'Keeffe's painting.

Mine is flat and hers has so much more depth
and shading. Maybe someone will add a bit more
to make mine look better...?

So, I'm looking forward to receiving the next journal,
which is Stephanie's. Her artist is Chagall.
More challenges! I feel more comfortable with Chagall.
But I may be surprised just like I was with O'Keeffe...

Mixed Media?

 A layered background ready for some finishing touches . . .

This has caught the corner of my eye every time I've walked past it 

in the basement for years. I always think ~ hmmmmm, so grungy . . . 

but I kind of like it!

Maybe it's the touches of pink and blue reminding me of a sunset . . .

Today I hauled it out and snapped a picture.

Can you tell what it is?

Right!

an old skateboard.

Probably took Jesse only 2-3 months to reach this level of destruction.

He used to skate every day.

Finally the board snapped and that was that.

I always wondered why skateboards had such elaborate graphics 

on the bottom when the very first thing that happened to them was obliteration.

Not sure why it was hanging around the basement, but

there's lots of stuff like that down there.

Even some more defunct skateboards, which I will check out.

Have you ever walked by something totally unrelated to art

and immediately had creative thoughts about it?

I've been doing that a lot lately . . .

Happy Monday, and Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Hope you have a good week!

Show and Tell at Inspiration Avenue

A couple of pages for Journal52.

I'm a bit behind, on just 2 weekly prompts:

Week 5, Abstract Art

and Week 6, The Art of Love Letters

Both will be fun...I'll do them early this week.

Would you know he's the baddest cat in the world?

He looks so innocent here.

 

He does stuff like this.

And fights with his sister. I don't have a picture of that.

Visit Inspiration Avenue for Show and Tell Week!

Join in with something you are working on,

you have til Sunday February 16.

Magical Journal Journeys

2013

The Magical Journals have come full circle and returned home!

I'm happy to say we are gearing up to start our third journal collaboration.

But for now, here are the fabulous pages in my

yellow, orange, and gray journal.

Thanks to all my sisters for working in my colors even though

they may not have been your first choice.

As you will see, the orange, yellow and gray pages

are fabulous all together. And I love the way the warm colors along

with the gray create a pushing-and-pulling effect.

Many pages have equated the colors with opposites like

sunshine and rain, joy and pain.

But the overall feeling of the pages is pure happiness I think!

I didn't include my own pages in the slideshow.

I'd like to say it's because I've shown them already 

in another post (I have) but actually, I forgot!

This is my first-ever video, and to say I was tense and had 

tunnel vision all day would be, well, pretty accurate.

I didn't photograph my own pages because I already had them done

and then I just forgot to include them.  And, I tried,

but I couldn't get Cat Stevens to make his song longer either. lol.

Here are the artists in order of appearance

(sort of in the order the books traveled 

but the middle is mixed up):

Priti Lisa of Priti Studio

Angie of Art Angel

Lisa (the Wright One) of The Wright Stuff

Tammy of Art and Inspirations

Kim of IMGirl

Kat of Wright Story

Stephanie of Dragonfly Design Studios

Gemma of Gemma's House

Click the links to visit each artist where you'll see all of the pages 

that were created from March to October.

Giveaway!

Two days left to enter the giveaway!

I will draw a name on Monday, December 2!

I finished the 4th painting in my "Houses" Giveaway,

so as promised I will soon be drawing the winner's name!

Cyber Monday (December 2) seemed like a good day to do it,

so if you haven't entered, you have until then to:

 "Like" my Facebook page

and leave a comment there saying you want to enter the drawing.

(You can leave a comment here too...I love your comments!)

Below are paintings 1, 2, and 3:

[ They are mixed media paintings

with acrylic paint, ink, colored pencil, graphite,

and lots of collage material, like papers and book pages. 

Sorry, I may not have remembered everything. ]

All are around 7.5 x 10 inches.

If you'd like to win one painting of your choice,

head over to my Facebook page,

 https://www.facebook.com/MaggieNemetzArt

I'm also linking this to Inspiration Avenue's challenge this week,

which is Show and Tell, always a fun theme!

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend,

a long one for many of us in the US :-)

Pssst . . . a giveaway!

A Series of Whimsical Houses

And a Giveaway

Or at least it will be . . . 

How many items make a series? More than 2, I know!

I'm having fun creating landscapes with unusual buildings and other elements.

I'm trying to do one a day . . . so far so good.

These are painted on heavy paper and are around 8 x 10 inches.

So . . . my idea is to have a giveaway, so stay tuned!

When I finish 4 (or more) of these paintings

I'll give away one of them (winner's choice).

The reason for the giveaway is to let you know I've finally

started a Facebook business page for my art.

Yes, I've mostly avoided Facebook, just not really getting it,

but have recently been convinced it may be a "good thing" after all.

I'm actually starting to warm to it a bit . . .

All you have to do is visit my page, 

“like” it, 

and comment on the Giveaway post,

saying that you would like to enter.

Go HERE to enter. 

The winner will be drawn randomly using

either the random number generator

or, knowing me, a hat  :-)

I've started painting more randomly again after finishing

the Magical Journal Journeys journal swap

so I'm sharing this at Paint Party Friday :-)

Have a beautiful weekend!

Houses tucked in tight

The Neighborhood

I've been trying to do some fun quick pieces,

not wanting to spend a huge amount of time, just some things

to encourage inspiration and creativity.

These whimsical houses fit the requirement.

The background is a Gelli plate print

(Ya, like everyone else, I have a stack of 'em mouldering on a shelf :-)

And the simple geometric shapes are quick to paint.

So ~ at least they start out simplistic. Of course then I begin playing with 

all the little details and the time adds up.

But it's OK because it's lots of fun. . .

I may do a series of these little neighborhoods.

This one is a nighttime scene, so no people in it.

They're all fast asleep in bed!

I call it "Tucked In Tight"

The theme at Inspiration Avenue this week is

Houses

Stop over HERE to see the entries in the challenge.

They will all be in by Sunday, November 17.

You still have time to enter!

Outfits for All Occasions

Inspiration Avenue Weekly Challenge

This week at IA, we have a guest host, Jez, a wonderful follower of

the Inspiration Avenue blog. Jez came up with the interesting topic,

Outfits for all Occasions

At first I thought this would be very easy, since most of my art is of figures, 

and they pretty much are always wearing an outfit of some sort.

So, piece of cake, right?

Not so fast. I must have been trying too hard to create the perfect outfit,

because I just couldn't come up with any good ideas.

So I ended up with two best friends, 

and best friends (of a certain age) must dress alike, no matter what the occasion.

All Mr. Kitty would agree to was a dapper bow tie in the same

ribbon as his friend, but I think they look ready for a special occasion.

Thank you, Jez, for coming up with this great theme,

and for sharing it with everyone at Inspiration Avenue!

Head over to Inspiration Avenue to see all the various interpretations.

Visit Jez and all of the other entries...

If you didn't enter this time, we hope you will soon!

Magical Journal Journey Tour

Stephanie's Journal

~ More (very belated) pages in the Magical Journal Journey Tour ~

I'm so happy to be back to Art and Blogging 

after dealing with family health issues in April...

 Stephanie chose Purple, Black, and Metallic with touches of Blue Green

as her colors. I have absolutely no idea why the theme of India popped into

my head, unless it was because of the beautiful jewel-like colors

she chose. I was meant to do these pages in April, but luckily,

the pages in Steph's book are detachable, so I sent

the book on to Priti Lisa and kept these pages to work on :)

I had fun with the rich darkness of the colors and the brightness of the gold paint.

“Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is but a vision. 

But today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness 

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” ~Indian proverb

On the last page, I finally got the Indian theme out of my system. . .

I learned how to make these 3D flowers from Christy Tomlinson in 

a Life Book 2013 lesson. It's fun and very addicting!

(Life Book is packed full of lessons for one whole year, 

a new one each week. If you enjoy online art lessons 

and tutorials, it's well worth the price.)

So now I'll pack these up and send to Priti Lisa.

And I already have Kim's juicy Red journal to work in.

I'll say goodbye to Purple . . . Gemma and Steph are the

only ones who've chosen Purple and I've already

had both journals. It will be interesting to switch gears,

but so easy because RED is one of my dear favorite colors!

Oh, and Kim chose Pink and Orange to go along with the red!

Delicious!