A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Landscape Painting

This summer I had a magical painting experience in Florence! It was an awesome time of growth as an artist and also an amazing adventure as a person! I loved every minute of it! When I came home I knew that landscape painting was something I really wanted to keep doing. So whenever I can, I've been travelling to different spots near my house to paint! Thank heavens it's been unseasonably warm, more days to paint! Here's what I've been up to:

This painting was from a site just down the road for our house!

Painting

Real Life

Painting

I'm not as big a fan of this one, it's a park near our house and I think it needs some more contrast.

Painting

This is at the Cranbrook House and Gardens. Beautiful area!

Painting

 This is my favorite one! It's of the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club and I think it turned out really well!

Real Life

At Home with the Artist: Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu!

My husband's dream has been to hike the Inca Trail in Peru, all the way up to Machu Picchu. So this summer, we made it happen! I've already been to Machu Picchu once but I did not hike there ( I took the lame-o train). And man, what a hike!! It was almost all up hill, lots of stairs, and high elevation. All combined to create lots of work, but it was beautiful and wonderful and a totally once in a life time experience! Check out our pictures!

The start of the Inca Trail

Drinking some hot chocolate to stay warm at our campsite

The first Inca site that we saw!

The highest elevation that we were at (13,000 feet)!

We're so cute and you can see the Urubamba River behind us in that beautiful valley.

Another Inca site, they were an amazing people!

There's Machu Picchu

A view of the mountains around us when we were in Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu

Check out that amazing view!

A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Flight Series Continued

About a year ago, I was working on a series of acrylic paintings that involved the idea of flight. They were based heavily on photographs and sketches I did of my husband's airplane that he is building. You can see those previous paintings here and here.
Anyway, I have decided to expand that series and work on getting some of the pieces into galleries and shows. So over the spring and summer, I have been working on another small work to add to that collection. I plan on doing at least two more, hopefully before the summer is done!

Original picture of the plane that the sketch and painting are based on.

Getting started!

Blocking in basic shapes and lines.

It's looking more real!

Almost done!

Finished product :)

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Embroidered Bracelet

Still on my Fiber Arts kick! One my summer projects was to design and sew a cuff bracelet for myself. Embroidery is so nice because I can sit and do it while I'm watching TV or listening to music or relaxing out on the porch. Check out some of my other fiber arts projects here, here and here!

Gathering all my supplies! Embroidery Floss, material and leather. Don't forget a needle, scissors and a button to finish the piece.

Here's the sketch on the material and you can see, I've started to fill in the design and edges with a solid border.

I wasn't sure about filling in the area with yellow but I ended up liking the look!

Here's the finished piece with the button on the back to close it.

Finished bracelet!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Clay Stamp and Studio Portraits

Hey all, just a quick update on what's going on in the classrooms in which I teach! My foundations students recently completed clay signature stamps that they will use all throughout this year and on to other years if they continue with their ceramic endeavors. Check them out!

Also, my photo kiddos are working on their midterm which is a studio portrait. Take a look at them hard at work!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Photography- Shutter Speed

Just an update on Photography students! Students just finished up learning about and using shutter speed successfully in their photography to blur and freeze motion and paint with light. Look at the amazing results they achieved!

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Figurative Sculpture *UPDATE*

Sculpture Class is over! Last night was our final critique. It went fine and I can officially say I'm done. One more class and a thesis until I get that Master's Degree! Now if you remember from my last post, my figurative sculpture suffered some damage in the kiln. I did decide to use Kintsugi to repair it and I love it!  But before that, here's the final image of my subtractive sculpture:

Turned out just great! Now moving on to the 'happy accident' piece... After some serious epoxy use, both to repair my piece (as best as I could) and secure the posts for weaving, here's what my piece looked like:

The I used acrylic paint and water to create a stain for the piece. I used brown, black, red and brilliant yellow straight out of the tube, watered down, and layered over the clay. Then I covered the entire piece in a wash of black, watered-down acrylic. The places where there were missing pieces, you can see I left un-painted. That's where the Kintsugi comes in.

If you click on Kintsugi, you will head on over to a webpage with some wonderful info about the art form. However, briefly, it is a way of taking broken pieces of pottery and putting them back together to create a new and possibly more beautiful piece. I just used some gold leaf and gold paint, nothing like the actual gold resin used by professionals. Regardless, I still think it turned out pretty nicely. The weaving looks great as well!