Tea Day--dragonflies, dolls and dyeing

Happy Tea on Tuesday!

I just finished my 1.5 mile walk with my friend

and before going into the city I wanted to

slow down and take a few moments to have some tea.

My friend Karen brought me some tea bags this morning,

some I had never tried before.

(I love trying new teas!)

This one is STASH premium

double spice chai black tea.

It is delicious!

Full of cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, cloves,

coriander and nutmeg.

Mmmmm good!  Thanks Karen!

This will surely start my day out right!

Here you see a dragonfly....
it is actually a cast iron door knocker
that I haven't put up yet.

Of course I love dragonflies and you can read about

my RED dragonfly experience here....

http://inkspillersattic.blogspot.com/2010/08/red-dragonfly.html#links

The doll you see here is one I made awhile back.

She is one of my favorites and one I will keep.

The linen, which is something else I like to collect,

if from my Italy trip a few years ago.

When I was in Italy I found table linens that had dragonflies on it.

It was perfect. 

I no longer have a table to fit it, but I throw the tablecloth

over the little sofa in the entry

and then I made pillows from 2 of the napkins.

I am in the process of de-cluttering and rearranging my home.

We have only been here for 2 years

and I'm learning what works and what doesn't.

Getting rid of the things that I don't just absolutely love

has made me feel pretty good actually.

I love books, but have learned to pass on many of them,

and just keep my very best favorites.

I guess purging is good for the soul in a way.

Oh yes, almost forgot,

do you want to see my latest project....

This is a piece of fabric that several of us dyed

over at my friend Shirleys. 

She called me and ask if I wanted to use the whole piece

to create something

for my August Merit show at the art center.

I was thrilled!

My friend Brenda saw a tree near the top of the piece,

so I am going to run with it.

Lots of stitching will go in this piece,

for the tree and the strata layers below.

It is about 3 ft. by 4 ft.

Any other suggestions from all you talented people out there!

 

For more tea posts visit Kimmie at

http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com/

 

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

Paint Party Friday-WIP

It's Paint Party Friday!

I have had so much on my plate this week,

that I have not finished a painting.

I think it shows in my painting below

how stressed I've been lately.

I started this one in class,

and have not touched it much since.

So here is my work in progress

(or maybe just finished).

I have never done white flowers,

and it was difficult to say the least.

I am not happy with the background most of all.

I tend to go over and over it sometimes,

and have to keep reminding myself that

once I put a stroke of color down,

to leave it alone.

I am constantly striving to be loose.

Maybe I will try it again this week, all new and fresh,

learning from my mistakes on this one.

Maybe a few glasses of wine would help.

LOL

Would appreciate ANY critique.

It is very helpful.

Your comments have meant a lot to me.

Thanks.

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

Every Inchie Monday

This week's word prompt for

Every Inchie Monday is

FANCY.

I had just been thinking of the many

beautiful, colorful and fancy butterflies

we are having lately.

We finally got some rain,

so the birds and butterflies

are loving it as much as we are.

This butterfly is made from a

very delicate and extremely thin paper cut out.

It was part of a larger design that I cut it away from.

I just glued it to the watercolor paper inchie.

It was so delicate I could barely handle it

without it getting crumpled.

A friend of mine gave me several of these awhile back.

She told me they were hand cut.

I think it is

Chinese Paper Cutting, which is called Jianzhi.

Click here to see some art made with paper cut outs.

http://habit-of-art.blogspot.com/2009/12/delicate-art-of-paper-cutouts.html

Below are a couple of interesting books.

By Hand: The use of craft in contemporary art

The Art of paper Cutting

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

PPF--week 9

Last week I posted three of my CD cover ideas

that I am doing for a client.

The gospel CD idea, by the client,

was to be an angel on a hymnal page. 

So I painted it, got your wonderful input,

got my instructors input, studied on it,

painted several more pieces, and this week came up with this.

This one is slightly different...

This time I started painting on paper the size of the CD,

4.75 by 4.75 inches.

First I tried making the halo transparent

and the background just a watermark.

It was still too much clutter, so I decided to

just have the hymnal page on her face.

The halo looked best gold, as I tried it just about every color.

I also tried the background almost every color,

but I really like the purple.

I was going to show you every one of my attempts,

but there were a lot of them, and most of them looked terrible.

Another thing I changed was,

I tilted her head.

My instructor noticed right away that she looked too much

like a keyhole before.

So what do you think?

Better?  Worse?  Wasting my time?  :)

I am still working on making the other two covers better also,

but blogger would not let me download those pics tonight.

So maybe next week.

In the meantime, go enjoy the other

Paint Party Friday art works and

don't forget to...

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

In the Pink and Audacity

I'm in the PINK this week

for Every Inchie Monday....

because PINK is this week's prompt word.

Red and white make pink, of course,

and pink is one of my favorite colors.

All of my inchies are kept simple, made on used watercolor paper,

and are of course one square inch in size.

Each one has the prompt word cut out of an old dictionary.

When I get 52 of inchies, I will create an art piece

with all of them.

Visit Kris at

Every Inchie Monday to see some great inchie art,

and why don't you think of joining us.

Click on the logo in my sidebar

or click on

http://everyinchiemondaymonday.blogspot.com/

***

Audacity happens to be the last doll

in the Art Doll Cool-aberration 2010 Project

for me to work on. 

I can hardly believe this project is almost over.

Audacity started with Gail,

the project originator.

She is the coolest,

Gail and Audacity to be precise.

Here is Audacity after my additions.

I gave her a starfish breastplate, a few more hair strand additions, an abalone button,

a sharktooth embellishment, a pearl to hold and more. 

 Visit our blog to find out more

about Audacity and the other dolls in this project. 

They are all very cool.

Their journals all tell a story and are very full of cool stuff.

Here is one journal page I gave Audacity.

So, go find out all the details and see close ups of all the dolls.

They have traveled many miles throughout the U.S. and Canada

 over many months,

and have visited quite a few artists.

I have really enjoyed the journey.

Click on

http://2010coolab.blogspot.com/

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

PPF--new project

It's Paint Party Friday!

I have been working on a new project.

I recently got a commission to do art work

for the covers of 3 music CD's.

In a previous post I showed photos of

two of my watercolors for the first CD

with the title song

 BEGIN AGAIN

and this one was the favorite

of those who commented.

Now, these are just preliminary works to submit to the band,

but I need your feedback on all of these please.

This one below is one I worked up for their next CD,

one they are doing for Christmas.

They want color, that's why they wanted my watercolors to begin with, they told me.

Also I realize there has to be room for the title of the CD etc.,

so they are not busy.

For the final CD, it will be a gospel CD...

and they requested that an angel

be put on a hymnal page,

so I did this.

I'm not sure if I can get the wrinkles out of the halo.

She was done with watercolor pencils and acrylics

on the Amazing Grace hymnal page,

which will be one of their songs

on that CD.

I'm still working on others to present to the band,

so they will have several to choose from.

So, I would appreciate a critique.

Thanks everyone.

Go click on the

Paint Party Friday logo

in my sidebar

to see some wonderful art

every Friday.

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

A teacup and bacon tea??????

Happy Tea on Tuesday!

This pretty little teacup graphic and more can be found

at http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

I'm sure most of you out there already know of this site.

There are daily postings of free graphics

for you in just about every category you can think of...

including tea.

So go check it out!

Now...

you are probably curious about

the bacon tea I mentioned....

Well, I found a site that reviews teas of over 4 thousand blends.

They actually had a review on bacon tea,

marshmallow tea, carrot tea and yes....

'regular' blends of teas also.

Very interesting.

You may want to check this out

and receive their newsletter.

This was taken from their website.

Teaviews.com is an online collective of tea lovers and reviewers

from across the United States and Canada.

All members receive free periodic shipments

of high quality tea samples,

 which they select themselves

from our inventory of samples,

 to taste and review

 on http://www.teaviews.com/.

Our tea samples come directly from tea vendors

all around the world, large and small.

All of our reviews

are published at http://www.teaviews.com/,

along with other tea-related posts,

thoughts, musings and miscellanea.

Teaviews.com is completely unaffiliated

with any tea manufacturers or merchants,

so our reviews remain 100% unbiased.

So let me know what you think.

Savor the Day!

Yvonne

Heart Inchie and a project

Running late today.

Here is my inchie

for this week's prompt word...

HEART.

I am having fun making these inchies.

When I get all 52 done, I already have an idea

of what I will create with them.

But I will leave that for a year end surprise.

Visit Every Inchie Monday

and see what Kris and all the others

have created in tiny inchie art.

Speaking of 'heart'......

I need your critique on a new project-----

For the prompt words...

'Begin again'

do you like this one...

with the two little love birds

looking at the sunrise...

maybe this one needs the birds sitting on a tree branch

instead of a wire????

or this one...

with the man walking toward the sunrise

with his shadow behind him?

Begin again...

like in....

love never ends,

love will find you again,

then you can begin again,

heartaches will mend.

Am I on the right track,

or do I need to do something else?

Would appreciate any input.

Come on, I can take it!!!!!

I will let you know what this is for in a later post,

once I finish this project.

Savor the Day!

Yvonne