Happy Events

"Happy Event"
Graphite, Watercolor and Acrylics on Mixed Media paper.

Speaking of happy events, one very happy event that occurred in the studio was that my blog was featured this past Tuesday on my local television station, WBRE! I was most honored to be featured on their show PA LIVE! If you are curious you can catch the episode here:

WBRE's PA LIVE!

(Thank you to Harold Jenkins for suggesting my blog be featured for the segment.)

Vanity Restoration (Mirror)

Mirror found in a dumpster

This weekend I centered my energies on the mirror I pulled out of a dumpster. As with the vanity I started by roughing up the surface a bit with a 3-in-one and a hammer.

Fun.

You can't make too many marks or do this step incorrectly. Every mark you make gives the wood that much more texture which makes the finished result prettier. I documented the process as I worked on the mirror. If you are curious this is how I re purposed this old unwanted mirror. Not bad for a new vanity! Overall cost (minus all the elbow grease): $11 ($4 for the desk and $7 for the can of Xylene....I had everything else just lying around.)

Quality primer used over the old wood/paint

Light washes of blue/black paint spread
over the entire mirror and wiped off just a bit

Detail that comes out after
the wash is wiped off slightly

Dry brush white over washes

Laser print burnished on wood
using Xylene transfer

Another transfer on the mirror

Cause it needed just one more transfer....

Shot of the finished piece

Finished piece (close up)

"Game"
Graphite, Watercolor and Acrylic on archival Bristol

More Fortunes

"Fortune 3-"Hang On"
Decoupage, Graphite, Watercolor, and Acrylics
on Archival bristol board.

Fortunes are not safe. I've been having a ball collecting Chinese fortune cookies and incorporating the mice into the fortunes. Last time I went to dinner with my family I quickly rounded up everyone's fortunes for later use. I was eyeing the cookies on the table next to us too. I didn't have the nerve to ask the people sitting there if they planned on keeping the fortunes inside. I'm willing to bet there was a 50-50 chance they'd keep it if it were a good one.

"Fortune 4-"Lover's Spat"
Decoupage, Graphite, Watercolor, and Acrylics
on Archival bristol board.

"Fortune 3-"Twilight"
Decoupage, Graphite, Watercolor, and Acrylics
on Archival bristol board.

Peeps!

Emily my broody Silkie

So for approximately three weeks now my Silkie hen "Emily" has been sitting ever so carefully and gently on her poo just waiting for the nuggets to hatch. She didn't eat. She didn't seem to be drinking. All she could think about was hatching those nuggets. Of course, they weren't nuggets to her they were fertilized eggs. She was in full fledged "mama mode".

So when the opportunity came up to obtain two Bantam chicks I took it. I replaced her precious nuggets with two sweet peeping chicks at night and both mamma and babies are happy. Emily seems to be a very careful and loving mamma. She seems to be tolerant of them jumping all over her too. Its been sheer bliss to watch this beautiful interaction of nature. Drawings to come soon, but for right now I'm enjoying this in "real time" without any distractions or thoughts in mind. Its been extremely therapeutic and lovely.

Hop on mom!

Peek-a-boo!

"Paper Trail II"
Decoupage, Graphite, Watercolor, and acrylics on archival bristol
(Im for sale! Email: jenndanza@gmail.com)

"Paper Trail III"
Decoupage,Graphite, Watercolor, and acrylics on archival bristol
(Im for sale! Email: jenndanza@gmail.com)

Detail on illustration reveals....yep, a heart!
Graphite, Watercolor, and acrylics on archival bristol

What I See

Every morning I wake and start my daily ritual. First, I look outside my bedroom window to make sure that my car has not been stolen (habit from living in Brooklyn) nor that it hasn't been demolished over night by a drunk driver driving recklessly down my street. The second thing I do in the morning is look out at the huge pine tree across the street. Every day since moving here in June I have been meaning to draw what I see and what always makes me laugh especially on a very windy day. Today was that day. :D

What is outside
my bedroom window.

What I see.

"Intermission"
Graphite and watercolor on paper

“Play is the beginning of knowledge.”

Fortune Cookies

"Fortune 3"
Graphite, Watercolor and
Decoupaged paper on archival bristol

I'm craving Chinese fortune cookies now! Not because I want a cookie but because I want more fortunes to play around with. This idea has been great fun. I may have to search out a bag of fortune cookies somewhere just so I have a fresh and new supply of sayings for my mice to play around with. These two just won't stop scampering about in my head.

Little Lonestar (grulla) getting oil glazes

Indian Silver Paint Correction

Beginning stages he's orange

I thought putting all the photos of the paint repair on Indian Silver together might be helpful. When you see the transformation happening in steps and all together it sometimes bring better understanding to the process. Again, the transformation that took place happened slowly and with several layers of oil glaze. If you add color slowly you can control the color.

Layering in oils with a silk pad



Layering....


Layering....


Layering....


"Fly!"
Graphite and Watercolor on archival bristol.

"Flying without feathers is not easy; my wings have no feathers." ~Titus Maccius Plautus

Candy Hearts

Hearts, paper and hot glue
completed this project....LOL

One pink xeroxed sheet covered with hearts, words divided into two columns with the names of the boys and the girls in the classroom, and candy hearts were placed on the kitchen table tonight from my son's school bag. Memories of Valentine's Day past came rushing in.

Which card would I give to the cute little boy every girl would be giving a card to so he'd know *I* gave him a card? Did he give one to ME? Yes!!! Yes he did!! But, oh wait, everyone got a card from everyone in grade school. But then came high school and that was a different story. Carnations were freely purchased and distributed with sheets of paper attached with the sender's name. Did I get one! YEs! Yes I did….from my friend Amy. We made a pact that we would purchase each other one so we wouldn't feel left out. Every year I got the one flower. So did she.

So now my son gets to go through this school ritual. He seems very excited about purchasing cards and writing everyone's name on each. No girls seem to be getting his attention. Not yet. I'm spared….for now. We had great fun reading the candy hearts tonight too. For the most part they haven't changed much. Well, for the most part they were normal. A few were "odd". Of course, my brain went on overdrive when I viewed them. I ignored this for about two hours and then after my son went to bed I tore through my supplies and just let the mice do as they pleased. I have no control over these two at this point. They have taken over my brain. LOL



He was to be going for her tail but as I was coloring the background a heart came through. No manipulation on this one. I decided not to glue the candy heart to it. The heart that showed up is more special.

Modern Love

No hot glue project would be
complete without a huge glob on the project AND a finger.
This glob got both.





Im still trying to figure these out.
The "hopeless" one will most definitely get chucked
in the garbage. Love is never hopeless. It is always right.
I think the last one needs a decoder ring.

Orange Indian Silver

Basic palette for chestnut
(Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre, Indian Yellow, and Burnt Sienna)

Repair.

No matter how long one has been painting no one is exempt from some sort of repair at some point in time. This Indian Silver resin decided to go orange during the initial stages of pastel/pigment placement. No matter how I tried to change the color when I would spray I got this horrible orange color. One way to fix such an imperfection is to switch gears and use a completely different medium. In this case, oils.

Oils are lightly glazed onto the already painted surface. It doesn't matter how offensive the color currently is, the glazing process in oils will change it slowly. The key however, is to go SLOWLY. One layer is glazed onto the horse at a time. Because oils and linseed oil are being used the layer will need a full day to dry. So this is a time consuming process but it does fix the problem perfectly.

All colors were mixed together with the linseed oil

then brushed onto the neck of the horse.

The basic formula (if you've never used oils before) is to squeeze a bit out then dip your brush into some linseed oil and mix the oil with the oil paint. This just gives the paint some smoothness and flow and the more linseed oil you use the more transparent the glaze will be. So truly depending upon the repair you'll have to use your judgement on how much linseed oil to mix in with your oils. Experiment and see what feels and looks best. You'll know fairly soon what works best.

Basic paint formula is (I guess you could say): 60% Burnt Sienna, 30% Yellow Ochre, 5% Indian Yellow, 5%-or less-Aliziran.
That's the easiest way to describe the color you see on the resin's neck.

A silk pad (found at Maryland China) was then used

to "blot" and blend the brushed oil into the horse.
Please note: If Maryland has discontinued this item look to other
suppliers of "china painting" supplies for the silk pad.

This is only ONE layer. It hasn't changed much

but you can see it is darkening and slowly changing.

Let dry fully.

After the first layer has had 24 hours to dry.

Repeat the exact same process. Let dry another 24 hours.

"Three Little Owls"

Graphite, Acrylic, and Watercolors on

archival bristol

"Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day."

~ Matthew Arnold

All Those Commercials And Stuff....

Brigitte Eberl's "Bjalla"
resin in progress

I watch zero TV.

Seriously.

It just doesn't hold my interest hence I don't have cable or a working TV. I do *have* a television in the house. It's this old set that has a DVD player and an old Nintendo 64 gaming system hooked up to it. If I or my son want we pop a DVD in the player and watch. Most days we either play board games or have adventures with his toys or we draw together. The TV cabinet usually remains closed.

Of course, the problem with this comes in when there IS something on that I do want to watch, like the Super Bowl. I love the commercials during the Superbowl. I find them most inspiring and rejuvenating and I just couldn't participate this year. I'm sorta bummed.

I thought about going up to my parents to watch, but neither my mom or dad watch sports, esp football. My dad is certainly not into sports and I never learned the game of football. I have no clue how it's played so I can't even pretend to enjoy it. No one has ever taken the time to teach me and hence I remain clueless. I guess a young woman learns such things mostly from male figures in her life. Well, I learned how to field dress animals and fillet fish from mine. I can field dress a bird without blinking an eye then cook it up for you how ever you want, but football.... that's GREEK to me and honestly a whole ball of messy confusion. But the few commercials that are circulating on Facebook did bring joy and inspiration. Perhaps next year I'll plan accordingly.

"Silent Admiration"
Graphite and Watercolor on archival bristol

"Silent Admiration" (detail)
Graphite and Watercolor on archival bristol

"Silent Admiration" (detail)
Graphite and Watercolor on archival bristol

"Age does not protect you from love, but love, to some extent, protects you from age." ~ Jeanne Moreau