Time for some peeks!  I am so excited for Winter CHA and  new stamps i have coming out with Art Gone Wild (AGW).  This week i am finishing piles of cards for their booth display.  I have 12 collections with a total of 36 pieces of red rubber and clear.    Here is the first image in black and white.  These are called “Getting Punchy Stamps”,  sold in a set of 4, made to fit in a 3″ circle punch. (Marvy= purple punch).  Here are some fun sentiments and coloring images to make a quick and cute card: 

Then we have my son Kevin who is a senior at Nazareth College studying Art Education.  He just started his student teaching today, at an elementary school, grades K-5 in Greece, NY.   What a thrill!  The minute he walked in the door today, he collapsed from exhaustion from the draining teacher day.

Kev is a clay guy, makes amazing artful ceramics!   What’s even more exciting is that Kevin attends my college alma mater.  On May 8th he will graduate from Nazareth College with a degree in Art Education, exactly 30 years after i received my Art Education degree from Nazareth.  It’s such an honor.


Kevin’s twin, Brian does amazing woodwork, and has a flair for music.  While i never pushed my kids in the “arts as a career” direction, i always encouraged their creativity with good art supplies, journals and sketchbooks, and teaching them fancy techniques.  I cherish those times, they grew up way too fast. 


I’m so amazed at their passion and creativity, and extremely proud of the great contributions they are making in our world.

Here’s a fun way to journal!  Make your own art calendar in a book form.  Just started this one for 2011, after seeing a challenge somewhere online.  Heaven knows how i find things, and get connected to links that take me to people and projects and challenges.  There is so much creativity on the internet.

This calendar challenge came from Kate Crane, an artist in the UK with this really great blog The Kathryn Wheel.  So much fun to be inspired by others, especially in another country!  There are over 70 people following along, doing her calendar art project.  t’s not to late to make one yourself!  You would just have to gather up your supplies right away, make the book and remember what you did the last nine days!

This week, I’m all over the place. Working from sun up til sun down, in the middle of some big deadlines for quite a few projects.  There are several art licensing design and product submissions, workshop and class proposals, stamp design samples for CHA, and my debut article and artwork for Cloth, Paper Scissors magazine.  It’s all good.  Sooo good.


As i am looking for my own inspiration, i end up paging through all my art journals from 2010.  I think i have about 12 journals, all different sizes, papers, covers, etc.  I have painted, markered, collaged, doodled, lettered, wrote and sketched on a few hundred pages.  It’s so rewarding to put them all in a pile and see where i was all year.  These are some of those pages. 

 

 I love words.  I love writing words, and apparently i LOVE the WHITE PEN!!!!!  I love how the white ink pops on a page of intense bold color and squiggles and flows as the words pour out from my soul.  Still playing with styles and outlines to see what stirs me in journaling.

 These pages were all “Ranger Driven”, using Color Wash, Distress Inks, way too many Stickles and lines of Liquid Pearls with gobs of Glossy Accents.  I have piles of flower scraps from Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, and i seem to love them in a lot of my projects!

 …the whole spread was misted with Perfect Pearls Mists in Perfect Copper, toning the bright colors and coating the pages with a warm glistening hue.  It’s the perfect finishing touch that takes your breath away.