My Weekend and a new project

I had a busy (for me) weekend! Saturday I went to an Art Marketing workshop at Artists on Central. It was very informative and inspiring and now I have lots to think about. Tony had to be at work, so I rushed home afterwards and I worked all afternoon on my new project!

This picture was taken on my kid's recent field trip to Elmwood Cemetary. I absolutely love this statue. I cropped and enlarged the photo, printed it out on regular legal sized copy paper, and spent the afternoon manipulating the image with gel medium and copper leafing. I am still playing with it, but so far the results have been lovely. I'll have a picture of what I've done with it as soon as it is a little further along.

Sunday was busy as well. I spent the afternoon at Chessie's friend's house, working on her science fair project. She is doing it in a group this year, which requires me to interact with the other moms. I have mixed feelings about this, because I don't usually feel like I fit in. But every now and then, I meet someone really cool. This time, I lucked out. I had a great time hanging out with Jane, who is Chessie's friend's mom. She was very cool. And had some awesome photographs and art. We made solar pizza box ovens with the girls.

After science projects, I went home and picked up Vinnie and dropped off Chessie and he and I went to the movies! We saw Cloverfield. Vinnie has been talking about this movie for ages and I really wasn't sure if it would be too scary for him, but he loved it. I liked it too, it was very entertaining in an updated Godzilla kind of way.

I also worked on a couple of other projects this weekend, off and on. This first one is a background i created. It is on a 12X12 canvas. It reminds me of the ocean, which I love, though not colors I normally paint with. I tend to use a very earthy kind of palette, not too many bright colors, but I have been dreaming of the beach. I have a vision in my mind for this one. I think I'd really like to use old engravings from the 1800's and collage the rest of this one. Jellyfish, I am thinking. I picked up a Dover clip art book of animal engravings, and there are pictures of every animal imaginable, so I could use squid, or coral, or fish...

I have one more picture to share today.

This last one is currently on my easel. I've been working on it for a while. I started this painting in anger, and every time I look at it, I can feel hints of that anger, so I really need to finish it soon or put it away for a while and move on. I like how it is coming together, but I can't decide quite which direction to go with it. This one is 30 inches by 40 inches. I am pretty sure it will look very different by the time I finish it. I tend to start out with one idea and over time, I add so many layers that you can barely tell it is the same painting.

It is a dreary, rainy day today. It makes me want to curl up with a cup of hot coffee and my dog butterscotch and daydream. Have a great day!