Golden

I'm not even sure what to say about the events that have just transpired. They have been so challenging, illuminating and made me feel something.....odd...."lucky" is a good word. I have felt very lucky the past few weeks. I am definitely in gratitude mode and the golden sunshine streaming through my window today was the first thing I thanked. It is going to be a beauty of a day.
I guess a quick recap is in order since I haven't blogged much here. I have been so wrapped up with the art of poverty blog and getting everything ready for Good Morning Texas and UNDERGROUND.
So it has been a marathon around here of painting up a storm, getting fresh pieces for both of these things BACK TO BACK. Deciding what I should take on TV and what should go to the Janette Kennedy Gallery and then hustling some vinyl record pieces (which I knew would be hot tickets at UNDERGROUND) has consumed my life the past couple of weeks. Then there was the ride wrangling and supplies I needed to borrow from here and there and everywhere. Meetings to go to, things to schedule and reschedule and ICE! Which threw a big wrench into a lot of my plans but you have to adjust and keep on going. Not to mention my bike TUCO has a flat tire and I need him to um...do everything practically! Groceries and post office runs will not be possible without TUCO!
So, wow...so many people popped out of the woodwork to help me in so many ways that it is hard to feel like a hermit right now. Last night I certainly did not feel like a hermit as I sat in the gallery at UNDERGROUND painting live surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of people and artists and people in body paint and devils on stilts....it was a sensory overload!
My friend Lorena (who helped me MAJOR last night) took photos and I'll be posting them soon. It was a crazy night, my whole stack of business cards disappeared QUICK! My mailing list grew without me having to butter people up.


(these pieces drew rave reviews!)
I had a great spot in the gallery and two pieces in particular had people like moths to a flame, I got so many wonderful compliments and interest in my work that I had a permanent smile glued to my face all night. Wait, it's still here this morning!
The painting I was working on live sold before the paint was even dry (yay Moustachiopus!), old friends and new came out to say hi and wish me well.


I got to meet Joe from 420 Tattoos in Denton as he came to visit his Jimi Hendrix piece he bought from me. I got asked if I did tattoo art because my line work was excellent. I got blogged and promoted by some awesome people like Schmidty who wrote a nice piece about ArtLoveMagic here. And the lovely Cori Berg who used my painting over at her lovely blog Sacred Arts: Healing Art Gallery, cameras were going off all night...it was good vibrations and a nice wind down to all the work I had been doing.
The precursor to this was the GOOD MORNING TEXAS show which had my facebook CRAZY with wonderful peeps cheering me on and cyber high fiving me all over the place. I got some new blog followers and interest in my work, my stat counter went off the chart and I got some nice emails from strangers saying they were impressed with my work and loved my idea. I AM WRAPPED IN LOVE SWEET LOVE.
So Valentines weekend has given all this sweet love to me and I send it out to you. THANK YOU ALL, EVERY ONE OF YOU! You make the world a better place, you bring a smile to my face :) Happy Valentines Day tomorrow and remember to let the people in your life that mean the most know it!

(*my paintings will be on view until Feb 26th at the Janette Kennedy Gallery 1409 S. Lamar in the Southside on Lamar building)

New Addition

"The Roots Remain"
24" x 24"
acrylic on gallery canvas

She's officially finished! You can come see her Saturday Feb 12th at the UNDERGROUND show! Whew! Lots of work went into this one!

So Close!!!

Ok my new painting is so close to be doing done, I'm expecting another hour or two of work and this thing will be ready to hang. I had been sitting too long on hardwood floors painting that I just HAD to stop and rest so it didn't get finished last night. I'm a wimp...but I also like being able to walk and stand up straight.
My impetus for finishing is this beautiful SNOW! I want to go play, I want to go play! But can't play until work is finished. WAH!
I'll post the photo of the painting later. I am feeling it is one of my best yet and already see some forms I want to explore in my next canvas.
Everyone enjoy this beautiful rare white snow!

Studio

This is my little dining room/studio and that is the current canvas I'm working on. Heres a closeup shot

As much as I'd love to go take a walk in this 17 degree weather and do a little slipping and sliding on the ice...I'm not allowed to go outside until this is done. Today WILL be the day! It is marathon painting day in the studio! Everyone have a great day whatever you do!

Hot Seat!

I'm sitting in the Hot Seat and that isn't the same as Sitting Pretty- you can read about all that over at The Art Of Poverty though. I wanted to blog about my upcoming show here and why I hope you'll attend.
You should attend because it's going to be AWESOME!
Attended a pre-meeting for it this past weekend and saw a little video of last years event. It truly looks like a good time for all. Live music, live art being created (yes, painting live...come see us artists in action) and a TON of amazing fresh art from your cities underground talents! There will be a sensual art room I hear- ooh la la...with live models. A place to grab drinks or coffee, shirts for sale (really cool shirts!) and just a great interaction of artists and creative people, music and good vibrations.
I'll be working my butt off to get ready for it so please come support the UNDERGROUND artists- all my stuff will be priced economically and will mostly all be NEW stuff created for this event. Everything you need to know about this show can be found here:
UNDERGROUND EVENT INVITE ON FACEBOOK and get to know the awesome crew who puts this event on as well as many other art events around town
ARTLOVEMAGIC and if you are an artist in the metroplex wanting to make a connection with ArtLoveMagic and get in on some art showing opportunities-I suggest you come to this and start chatting with them. Amazing group of people who are trying to help artists out. How rare is that?

TGIF

This is yesterdays Hour Swap piece! I would love to do a whole wall of these, it would be so groovy! They remind me of little tiles. By the by, I love little hand painted tiles. Pretty Talavera Mexican tiles...when I'm rich I'm going to have them all around me!
Visions of grandeur this morning, obviously I'm not quite awake. Although the idea DID pop into my head that if my TV appearance made my business boom the first thing I was going to purchase was something I have never had the pleasure to purchase. It is something that I haven't even had the pleasure of experiencing in a very long time. That my friends is a real honest to goodness bed. Sleeping in a bed! Not sleeping on a shabby hand me down mattress on the floor?! THAT is my dream. I will totally be content with a bed. A BED!!!! But back to reality....
It is Friday morning and my TO DO list is so long I was considering blowing off Yoga but remembered that Yoga is doing wonders for me right now. It calms down my anxiety, limbers me up and makes my back feel good, gets my blood flowing and my brain working (hello oxygen!) and takes care of something I promised to never take for granted. MY HEALTH. No matter how busy I get HEALTH and FAMILY take precedent. So to Yoga I go and then the post office and then busy in the studio day....the day looks like a gorgeous one so Im contemplating setting up my canvas outside, hmmmm...
today feels like a good one, hope everyone has a great Friday and weekend!

1/24 Get Movin'

Spent a lot of time in the studio working on orders this weekend and finished these "Tiger and Honey Bear" themed pieces. Today is Pilates and supply day so almost no time in the studio but I am going to try and push myself to do my Hour Swap. It's going to be a tight squeeze.
Then I have another box order in the queue and then...time to get serious. I have the UNDERGROUND show to prepare for and won't be able to do much but get ready for that- all extraneous projects will have to wait until after Feb 12. There will be -if all accounts are true- a LOT of people at this show and the more pieces I have prepared for it the greater my chance of selling and I need to sell bad. Going to be putting some major mileage on my studio...consider me Miss Hermit until this show is over.
And if you know any artist you know this is the equivalent of hanging a sign on your hotel room doorknob that says DO NOT DISTURB. :)
It's go time and I feel the fire under me! Everyone have a great Monday!

Too Cold

It is just much too cold for waiting on downtown streets in sweaty clothes for late buses. I'm going to do my yoga and Pilates here at the house today and hope to get some running in this weekend when the temps climb up a little. Wuss....yes.
Plus I'm doing a studio lock down day and working on orders and getting some stuff done.
Featured above is yesterdays Hour Swap piece, you'll have to visit my other blog to find out it's fate!
I've been featured in some treasuries this week so I'll try to do my gratitude blog either today or tomorrow.
Everyone have a great Friday and weekend!

Nothing from Nothing

11/19/11 HOUR SWAP PROJECT
"Ripple Effect"
7" x 7" acrylic on wood panel
Winning Bid: $10
My Pilates teacher has a little saying she likes to throw out there while we're struggling to not die on the floormats in a half crunch we've been holding for a full minute...she says "Nothing from nothing equals nothing! Something from something equals something!" Which of course means- your effort will provide gains and she is right- not only has my effort in Pilates already provided me with gains (or losses I should say, bye bye 3 lbs!) but it is a good thing to remember when you're working on other parts of your life. Put in the effort! Things aren't just going to magically happen by themselves. So when sales were NOT coming through my door via ETSY I figured I had better put some effort in and use the ol noggin'...that was the impetus for my other blog. 2 Blogs is not so easy to keep up with- especially when you're trying to keep your content varied. And then add on to it that one blog requires you to work for it, work hard so that you not only gain readers but buyers! But something from something equals something and I'm in it to win it.
I was feeling silly yesterday and have been enjoying watching Sanford and Son on Antennae TV (33.2 here in DFW) so yesterdays HOUR SWAP was..."Fred G. Sanford" and he sold at a bid of $10! A steal! I painted him not only because he is funny but like me- a little entrepreneur doing what he had to do to make it. In his case- collect junk. In my case hustle artwork.
I updated my website with more about the project and hope to see this thing grow- at least get a little handful of pieces into the hands of those who would like to collect art but can't afford to- not at gallery prices anyway.
Today I have orders to work on (YAY! WORK!) and do you actually think I got my Christmas tree taken down and anything cleaned yesterday?
Big Fat No.
Nothing from nothing equals nothing after all...or a bunch of dirty dishes, hairballs and a dirty house.
Wah.

Mid Week Mess

This was created for yesterdays HOUR SWAP project, if you're keeping up with that you know a lucky person is getting a painting that took me ONE HOUR to create in exchange for one hour of their hourly wage. That one went for $9! Follow my other blog The Art Of Poverty "Experiments in Unemployment" if you're interested in getting an art piece for insane prices....like $9! Or if you're interested to see how crazy it is trying to live off your own wit, skill and creativity. It's like Survivor but I have yet to succumb to eating grub worms or killing my chickens!
I looked around my place yesterday and noticed....wow, this place is a mess. For all intent and purpose it looks like Christmas is still going strong in my living room. EVERYTHING holiday is still up down to the cheery wreath on my front door-which tells the whole world you're slackin' or still waiting on a late delivery from Santa. I would be the former.
I promised my Mom I'd lunch with her today and then I have band practice this evening so my studio is not gonna get much action today but if I can I will be disassembling anything holly and jolly and starting to put my cave back into place.
Somehow Im going to try to squeeze an Hour Swap project in but it's gonna be tight. Hope everyone is enjoying hump day as much as me! WHEEEEE!

Buzzin'

Yesterday was a day of fun experiments on wood panels. I bought these nice little 7" x 7" wood panels and decided to see what I could do in ONE HOUR. The end result was this:


As I sat there trying to decide on a nice price to list it on Etsy - the idea struck me...how about charging one hour of someones hourly work wage for one hour of my painting time on this painting. It would be fair and affordable and would get my work to someone who might not be able to afford it otherwise. Not sure how to accomplish this on Etsy I decided to make it a purely Facebook and Blog experiment. Want to see what happened? Go to: the art of poverty to find out!
Above is another wood panel I did just for kicks, I'm playing with my paper cutter and this piece kind of reminded me of Matisse and his cut paper forms and colors. I am itching to get at a canvas but know I need to create some smaller works for Underground before I can.


I also have an order for a France Gall box and I need more valentines in my shop as we approach that holiday. I also need to dust off my bass guitar and get in tune for The Shapes show coming up. We start practice this week!
My other blog has definitely lit a fire under me and made me put my foot to the pedal on trying to create more money leaves on my tree. Not sure if it is pure luck or what but I had a sale last night in the Etsy shop!


Wave bye bye to Mr. Tiger Record!
Time to go update my other blog and in case you're interested I'll be doing another "HOUR SWAP" today so stay tuned to the Art Of Poverty blog to see if you can get a painting for like $12.78 or see if I sink or swim....da da dunnnnnnnn!

(pictured above: Papercut Painting Vines on Wood $15 in my etsy shop and "Against The Grain-The Hour Swap Project" 7" x 7" acrylic on wood panel)

Rain Puddles

The weather icons on my computer screen show a grey rain cloud and rightly so. It is raining and has been for a few hours. A perfect day for staying in and working on a new project.
Only- I also need to get groceries and this is where it gets complicated. You see, I have no car. Never have. I get my groceries on my bike and well...rain just kinda sucks to do the grocery trip in especially when you add into it that it's 41 degrees. So I'm hoping for a rain reprieve, a raincheck from the rain. Dear Rain, please stop for like...2 hours so I can go get groceries. Please. Thanks.
Yesterday I ran out for supplies, I'm trying my hand at schmancy invitations and had to get nice paper. I also saw this paper punch that I had to have- I tell myself- even though it was out of my budget. So now I feel compelled to punch paper and try to make my money back on it. I'll post pics of my efforts later this weekend.
Thoroughly busy weekend making invitations, new stuff for the shop and a flier for the next gig. Oh yeah, The Shapes are playing a reunion show on Feb. 25th and I gotta get the graphic word out!

Treasury Up!

Finally got the treasury up, take a peek:
Love is in the Details

A lovely assortment of finds from people who have treasured me, favorited me or who just had some amazing stuff!

Today I'll be locking down in the studio and photographing my Mondrian record set, finishing a record mandala and starting something....new....not sure what yet but lots of ideas brewing upstairs in the noggin'! Speaking of brewing...coffee time!
Have a great day!
(featured above: Something New II Red Heart Two Tone Necklace with Coral by Amoronia)