Another Walking Stick for Upcoming Class

i have just finished creating this walking stick for an upcoming class that I am teaching online next month. Since it was mentioned by my good friend jean Bernard about using tree branches to do a walking stick as I was only planning to use cane I took up opportunity to choose both options for this class. When I visited my Sis Tammy she had a bunch of branches laying in her backyard and this one spoke to me. I was even able to ct part off to make a handle like a cane.

This one is of an Indian Chief and two maidens. I may decide to add a robin later on but everytime I tried to sculpt one that goes with the tory it did not work out so I have left it alone for now. It can always be added on with some other aditions that I would like to add like a small pouch which I till need to finish up and tie on to it.

The class will be taught at http://www.classheaven.com/ in January so you can sign up as the one I will be teaching will be in the website. This is just another option.

Christmas ornament

I have finally gotten back to doing some eggs. I am working on some ornament eggs now in between getting some classes ready to teach for next year. This is the first one that I made which is a snow babies ornament in a goose egg. I used apoxie to make the berries 3D and also used 2 colors of micro marbles to add more dimensions to the centers of the pontsettias. My focus on this eggw as to add depth inside the egg something that is not easily acheived in something that small as most people just the figures inside without looking at acheiving depth in a diaroma scene.

Two Friend's Chair

Here is my latest creation that I have been working on this week and finished. jean Bernard finally is doing one of her chair classes on line. She is one of my mentors and have waited for almost a year for her to teach how to do her chairs and she created a new style. What was different about this class was that it was more free style and eveyone is making compleeltely different looking chairs.

I was able to use some different products in some places and also had so much fun creating this piece. First I started with only the girl but she wanted a companion and when I got done it was destined to be called two friends. I can't wait to make more of these but it will have to wait for a while as I have other projects that need to be done first. They will be posted as soon as I get them done.

Day of TheDead Mirror

Being that today is the day of the Dead I decided to make another mirror in honor of this day. It is a Latin tradition that remembers your family members. This tradidition is observed not only in latin community but also n the European community we have that tradition to but in another way.

I am not totally satisfied in teh way the layout came out as I am going to redo part of it as my vision did not come out. The background was done using structure paste from Paverpol. This is one of my favorite products of theirs to play with.

Well this is the end of my playing with mirrors for awhile since I am out of them. But I wanted to show my class some other ideas they can do using the techniques they are learning at classheaven.com

My Award At Reno Retreat

The Reno Retreat was a complete blast! Learning from Masters like jean Bernard and sherry Goshon is an incredible experience. Not only do they make it easy but the weekend was full of laughter and fun. All the ladies that were there were just so warm and friendly and we had such a great time. During lunch I was surprised by Norma with A Meadow Muffin Award. Afterwards everyone signed the bottom of the base. This was a moment to remeber in my lifetime!

Mirror Class Now Online

The Mirror class is now being offered online since I have had requests for it. You can sign up at www.classheaven.com for it. Each one will be your own unique creation as you will add your own touches and colors and customize it to make it your own. What you see here is just a sample. the ones that were done in Reno were each totally different and had all different themes. The class is more about techniques and they can be used for a variety of other projects in the future.

Mini Class at Luna Retreat

This is the mini class I am doing at the retreat in Reno being held by Jean Bernard and Sherry Goshon. It is filled with all sorts of techniques as they will be using Paverpol, learning how to do bleeding ink technique, distressing on paper and other techniques. Everyone will be making there own style mirror and tehre are some awesome ideas already in the works from the participants. I can't wait to see what they create!

Chaos-Memorial to 9/11

This is canvas that I started some time ago and put away and have come back and got consumed working on for the past couple of weeks. All of the sudden it spoke to me to be a tribute to 9/11 victims. Beng a New Yorker we all know at least one person who was killed in these attacks.

This is a 16x20 canvas the middle face is a fibre mache mask. The surrounding abstract is all done with dyed paper towels that have ben dipped in paper towels and then drybrushed afterwards,

The middle face represents a figure dressed in a burkah. Then there is faces flowing all over representing all the innocent souls that have perished. There are pockets in between the dyed paper towels that you see the white canvas this represents the unfinished business these people left behind in their lives, The gold color in the background represents the Heavenly Light. I purposely did not use smooth faces as wanted to show the emotions of what happened but also used different faces showing different emotions.There is also some cracled spotson the canvas that stand for the fragility of life.

I am not sure if I will ad something in the space at the bottom as I keep getting the feeling to add a cripture or other quotation. But havent found something yet that I am comfortable with. This was a piece thatsome may not understand but to me it took me in a way I never thought it would.

This piece is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Fumando and all who perished on this unforgettable day. May they have Blessed Repose and Eternal Memory!

been Tagged

I've been nominated twice for the Nice Matter's Blog Award given to those that care about others and that are there to lend support or those that are just a positive influence in our blogging world and inspire! A big thanks to Linda Fleming and Noel Wolfman for nominating me.

IN Loving Memory Of Sabrina 4//28/97-7/21/07

Sabrina aka Nunz wemt over the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon. Your twin sister Shayna is here as I type this blog entry. We will miss you very much amd thank you for all the wonderful memories you have given us.

You were such a trooper never showing any pain even in thend always full of love. That stubborn streak was always tehre which is why I always called you a little witch sometimes. But you were always full of love in your won special way.

LIke Grandma said she is ging to miss you sleeping with her and Grandpa is going to miss you walking with him and Shayna. It was heard for us to let you go but we did not want you to suffer and your kisses and love in the end made it a little easier to say goodbye.

You will forever live in our hearts and know that we miss you very much my little nunidoo.Till we meet again I love you!!!

Tibetan Blessing Tree is Finished

This morning I finished my tree. This has been such a wonderful journey doing this tree and now I have another one thatI am working on that is totally different in nature. But I am looking forward to making more of these trees.

The mandala inside the tree is one for healing and balance. The four quadrants of the mandala represent the four elements converging to form a unity, healing imbalances throughout the universe and promoting harmony among all beings.Red represents all knowing compassion,green conveys action action informed by wisdom, white symbolizes penetrating insight and yellow represents the treasures of equanamity. Together these forces combine to promote physical health and spiritual well being.

The bowl was made with cotton fibers dipped in Paverpol and molded into a bowl.

I placed this tree outside afterwards so that it may send blessings out to all of you my dear friends.

A tree is born

I have been working on creating a couple of trees in the enchanted forest. Here is a a Wip picture of the first one. It will be a Tibetan inspired tree. I have used over 500 mirror tiles on this piece so far and am awaiting for more to come in then I can proceed with finishing the tiling on this tree.

Rodohan has landed!

I have spent the last week working on finishing this gourd sculpt. This weekend I finally finished the wings. They are large velvet wings that when I saw them at a floral warehouse sometine ago I knew they would make great dragion wings. Mind you the plant was 6 feet tall so good thing it came apart in the middle to fit in my truck. I paverpoled the wings then crackled them and used a gold finish.

I now have to find a place for him. Marilyn Razdat suggested that I get a pedestal for him since he commands such a presence. But since space is limited here that is a challenge as the one space I do have i am saving for my next project.

I am now off to the enchanted forest to start creating my houses.

He now has scales

Well I have spent tme this week working on him and have made progress then my computer went down. i got my computer back and now I couldnt get onto blogger so am using my back up computer .

It has takien me a couple of days to work on dragon man as I have never spent so much time at once on a piece. But I am happy with the results and even surprised myself. There is no way he will be hanging as the weight is just too heavy with all the apoxie I have added.

The pictures do not capture the colors as he is done in pearlescent inks which I love working with. And his underbelly I did with mulberry or bannana paper not sure which as I have rolls of both. I then crackled it and then use blue ink over that for contrast instead of the usual boring black and brown.

A new sculpt

I have been working on a new project. The next project in the series with Marilyn is a Dragon.Well I am behind as this class is ending and the next project begins next week so I am trying to catch up. The class project is more of a chinese style one however I have been struggling with mine since I cut the gourds. Then i realized it was because it was too big and too fat! Also we are to learn to do lyrical shapes and mine did not come out really lyrical but I am happy with the shape.

So i have decided to follow my muse with this one. So here is Dragon Man. Well actually not sure if he is a dragon or what but he is definitely a mythical creature. This is definitely out of the box for me but so much fun in not thinking and just creating with my unconcius brain as one of teh students said. I did try to control one part of my creating today and it looked horrible so took that part off. So this is a learning exercise in this piece.

I was hoping to have him hang from the ceiling but he is heavy from the apoxie.Will need to get some real heavy line if I decide to go that route.

Gift from Canada!

I got a surprise gift from my friend Linda in Canada. The customs label said a stuffed rabbit and a brass stand and I was like why do people always send me stuffed animals. Well imagine my surprise when i opened it up and found these wonderful gifts! Leave it her to find a Grasshoppa,lol and add a karate jacket no less. She also made a home made card and sent me a brass grasshoppa too!

These now reside atop of my TV and the stuffed grasshoppa will now be my traveling one when I do any shows. inny partw as when i was at an egg show I had seen a lady ahd who had some nice ones on her table and had nothing to do with her name but she wouldn't part with them. Well now I have something special that will go with my logo for my eventual website.

Thank you Linda from Canada for this wonderful surprise!

I have been tagged

I have been tagged by good friend Linda so I am suppossed to list 7 habits about myself and then tag 7 more people. I am not good at this thing so I will just list what is required about myself.

1. I love to watch reality TV especially Survivor.

2. I don't have patience for slow drivers.

3. Spend too much time on the computer, no wonder I cant get projects done.

4. Hate cooking meals for one person so wind up eating same meal for days.

5. I hate the cold weather and wonder why I havent moved yet.

6. I am not a neat freak.

7. Have too many art supplies and need to stop buying but cant resist a good buy.

Flight of Fancy Finished

She is now done as I redid her hair but the picture did not come out right. The hair is a blend of turquoise and gold pigment powders and some irridescent green blended in too. her headpiece has tiny pearls inset in there and her body has accents of opals. i do not know what her name is yet as she has not told me when I asked her. I guess she likes being mysterious.

My Girl's Birthday

Yesterday was my two babies birthday. Shayna is the black one and her twin sister Sabrina is the brown one. So of course i had to get them something special so i went to the bakery and got them special treats. I was going to get them a doggie cake but found these instead as they like the yogurt icing treats. So they got peanut butter bones, liver hearts, and vanilla rings. It is so hard deciding what to get with teh varietyof stuff they have there from canollis to all sorts of cookies, to donuts. And they have carob since you cant use chocolate. I only go for special occassions like this and the holidays.

Happy 14th Birthday Shayna Maidel and Sabrina!

Sphinix progress

I have decided to gold leaf my sphinix inside. i went with a variegated green gold leaf and it adds a nice texture and a mystical appearance to the piece. She also now has a head with a hairdo that she wanted. It is hard to capture the colors here as there is some irridescent green in the hair, gold, blue and I think i might have used another color. I just cut loose and added the powders to the apoxie and all over myself too,lol.

A New Canvas

Well today i wa restless and my muse was active so I decided to start a new canvas using Paverpol and napkins. The colored paper around the face is paper towels. these are some paper towels that I had saved from when i was dying fabric that you sawin my earlier posts. i dont throw away tjose paper towels as you can see they can be used later on for projects like this or glued onto ATC's for backgrounds. i am using a variety of press molds the small ones are all from Jean Bernard some which i have altered to get different looks and the bigger ones are from Sherry Goshon.

Startibg The Sphinix

I have finally started working on my third class in teh series with Marilyn Razdat. This one i am actually using a gourd as there is no egg to substitute for it. i had to wait to find the right covering as my first attempt was just to dull with the handmade paper I used. So after searching up and down the aisle at Party City this napkin grabbedmya ttention as I like festive colors. I also needed to wait for inspiration on the face as I wanted to see what my piece wanted and I used a different brand of crackle. I tried Anita's fine crackle and really like the results as it is very subtle. i then used Lumiere's gold with teal acrylic building up layer after layer and mixing the two to do my highlights till I got the look I wanted. I think i have found a way now to do my fantasy faces as never have used lumieres and acylics before and really like the look.

I am going to gold leaf the inside of mine as I think that is what I want to do with this piece. I am starting to feel now that i can take courses for technique and have to do my own thing and follow my muse in where I am heading with my pieces. But it sure is leading me to try things I never would have touched before and expanding my horizons. I never would have worked with gourds before and have to say I am enjoying them very much. now I understand why my friend Linda loves working with them so much. They are so versatile and the fact that no two are the same can provide some interesting challenges to say the least. You know that no two will ever look exactly the same. We will see where this piece leads as te journey continues.

Sculpt Is Finished

I have finished Rising From The Pain for now. I say for now because I am not happy with her overskirt. I used up all the fabric i had and am not sure if I can get anymore. It looks good but is not the result I was looking for so eventually I am going to redo that part. As you can see I redid her face fabric. The color was too pale so i mixed some mica poder into some paverpol and went over the fabric and am much happier with the results. also added a gold netted mesh veil for that finishing touch. i also used vintage stones on her headpiece. the bottim pendulum swings from a piece of fishing line and the ball was something I took out of one of my potpourri bowls. I love searching through potpourri as you can find some of the most unique things to embellish with in there. I learnt this from Carol Newton when she did one of her projects. After seeing that it opened up a new door and i search the bargain stores for bags of potpourri as once the scent is gone save the good stuff that you think you can use later on. Or if youa re like me evn if the scent is gone well jsut leave it in the bowl because it looks nice anyway and you have no room to store anything,lol.

Some of my Eggs

Some have asked to see some of my eggs that I had been working on for the egg show and i have not had a chance to post them till now. I did not get to take these to the show since I didn;t go so now have the opportunity to share them with you through my blog. Guess now I will have a head start till next year. however knowing me I will still be scrambling as I am such a procrasinator.