Just keeping on keeping on

Just keeping on keeping on, love that saying.   I know the months of the year do that.   They just float into our lives and float out.  You think yikes where in the world did that month go?   The changing of the seasons  is Mother Natures way of reminding us that they just keep on keeping on.

                                                                                                                                               

 You know I love the changing of the seasons, each one has it's own little personality. You  look forward to each and every one but then glad when they are over and looking to the next season to float into our lives.   So welcome Fall and all of your beautiful colors you share        with us.                                                                                                                                                         

 

Sometimes in my art I feel the same way, I don't know about y'all.   When I start a new art    piece I love the blankness of the canvas or page.  Here is like a new beginning and just love  seeing what will develop.     What story is waiting to be unveiled and what colors will emerge on it.   Even when I do my crazy quilting I never plan what I am going to do.   Oh I start with an image but then off it goes to develop how it wants to be.   The same way with my faeries     when I create them.                                                                                                                                   

 

 

I start with the eyes and then start playing with them and seeing what colors they want to     be.  Yes I talk about them like they are real and have their own personalities.                               

 

 

This sweetie was taken from a photograph of a dear friends granddaughter.  I did another    one of her but think she is hiding on the computer somewhere.   You know how the                computers do-hide things from us.    She normally doesn't wear bangs but this one wanted   bangs so bangs she got.   I do their faces in pastels and seems to make their faces so smooth and delicate. Then "Katie bar the door" on whatever else I use on the background and            sometimes the hair.   Lots of drips and splats and fancy curly queues and whatever else         develops.                                                                                                                                                                   

 

Now case in point , this little faerie didn't want to be painted.   You know how it goes sometimes when you start drawing  an art piece, nothing goes right about it.   So I erased her face and  so the bottom of the stack she went.   Well the other day I pulled her out and she just went together so well and colors just danced on the page.  Some of the colors I haven't used before but she went together like she was suppose to.

                                                                                                                   

 

Now if I hadn't of done the keeping on keeping on she would not have been created.   So that is my story and I am sticking to it.

 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.

Happy Fall Y'all

 

XOXOXO

Annette

Persistence and the Art Room

Don't you love that word?   Persistence, I have a little dictionary one of our daughters used in High School like in the middle 80's, yep they had books back then.  LOL  She said is was awful but it has gotten me out of the spelling scrapes before I figured out how to use spell check.  Oh oh I ruined it for you didn't I?   You thought I was a spelling GENIUS !!!! 

Now I remember when me, myself and I was in the 8th grade in an English class. We were just learning phonics.  To spell also how it sounds  and making the weirdest sounds with short and long vowels .  It is so funny now when I think about it.   When I learned to read it was by site.  Man this list a mile long or it looked to me it was that long and you had to say them all but when you got them all right you got a sucker.  Was that not the reward of all times?   Well in the olden days it use to be.   But I spell by sounds now and believe it or not it is not always right.  So a spelling genius I am not.

Ok back to persistence, in the little dictionary it says to continue steadily.  So that can mean practice practice practice and more practice or keep on a truckin" with a project you are doing.  

Now I can remember one time at a farm we purchased it had a large abandoned tank on it, very large  and it use to hold oil and everyone said you cannot remove it, it was to big yatta yatta.  All the usual negative things people say sometimes.  Well Eldon, dear hubby got it moved and he found a man that tore it apart and moved it for the metal in the tank.  The tank was preventing a circle system on the farm from making a complete circle.   So we had the electric lines moved and guess what ? The tank was gone, the circle system made a complete circle.   To me I kept thinking man he is working hard getting this done but his persistence paid off.  It not only got the tank out of the way, circle system total circle but improved the value of the land.   I guess I need to find some pics so yall can see what in the world I am talking about with a circle system.  Guess that could be another post. What do you think?

I have a art friend Monica Zunica of Hands and Heart  (her link : ) ) and she is such a persistent young lady and just had to share her post and how she is not afraid to try new things and keeping on keeping on.  I just loved it and thought y'all might like it also.  

 I have an art room and it is like a tornado hit it even when I clean it up.  But isn't the saying an artist is rarely tidy?  Well friends I am not tidy, try but am not.    We are having a little project done here at the house and the glass man had a bunch of beveled heavy glass that was cut the wrong size.  He asked me if I could use it and if I could I could have it.  Well I took a piece of it and I can use 6 of the pieces, I don't want to be Miss Piggie.  So we toodled down to his shop and got the other 5 pieces and then went to the store and got some brackets and I painted them a light color. This week I will have 6 new shelves to get some of my pretties off of the floor.   Clean real estate-yea.  Of course that will mean going and buying a couple or three new pretty boxes but a girl has gotta do what she has to do.  Right?  Shop?  The shelves will be low so I can reach them but that is ok, I can just raise the paintings I have in the art  room and that will be good to go.    Pictures will be coming. 

I do have this one wall that is totally full so will show it to you.

 

I think I might have shown it to you before but here it is again.   The drawers are full of my Crazy quilting fabrics.  I am trying to make this the CQ area so I won't hoard more than I need.  I use to play the game of who has the most when they die wins, but not any more.   Just use what is in the drawers and when they get unstuffed buy more.  I know me, I would buy more and more if I don't put a lid on myself.  The bottom two larger drawers are full of beads and threads.   Of course the bead drawer weighs a million pounds and you need a fork lift to lift it but that is ok.   Room in it for more beads. 

 

There you go my friends  welcoming in Fall and just saying Hi.

 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.

 

XOOXOX

Annette

What If --- a visit with Art-Traditional and Digital

If is such a little word isn't it?  But oh my goodness it can mean so much.   What if Christopher Columbus turned the wrong way and not "discovered" America in 1492?   So many what ifs can change so many things. 

I have had on my mind for a while about traditional and digital art.  I even woke up the other night thinking about it and how it would have turned out in the art world.  Now the funny part is me waking up in the middle of the night.  That usually doesn't happen at all with me.  I am asleep for the duration !!!!! 

Now bear with me with this one.  Picture this----- what IF a four some of artists from the 1500's and the late 1800's got together with a glass of Iced Tea,   remember I am from the south so iced tea is the  drink I want them to have.     The artists just chatting art the way artists of all kinds do.   Now I am talking some big wigs here.    Leonardo Da Vinci, way ahead of his time and for my story I am going to call him Leo,  Michelangelo, the artist not  Michael the Angel,  Mary Cassatt and Claude Monet were the artists that I dreamed about.  Might as well have big wigs in my dreams.  Right?   They probably would be talking the media they liked the best and then what about that new fangled Photography?  Oh my goodness would that not just ruin a traditional artist?  I mean why even draw, paint or anything with that around?

Then Leo said in his knowledgeable statement,   well what about DIGITAL ART?  Well heads whipped around and everyone nearly dropped their glass of iced tea and said WHAT are you talking about?  Remember Leo was always way ahead of his time here.   After going to the exhibit in Vegas last year man was that ever an eye-opener of his genius abilities.   Mary C. and Claude M. and the big boy Michelangelo couldn't image what in the world he was talking about.   Now remember this was in my dream .    So I stepped in and said may I say something about all of this and including Digital Art?    Leo just smiled and said yes Annette please enlighten my fellow colleagues.     Remember this is my dream and I do have some doozies sometime.  Lots of action and goings on but this one was a calm one. 

So here goes my friends my take on DIGITAL ART and Traditional art.   I feel like DIGITAL ART WILL NOT  take the place of traditional art.   But they can go hand in hand like the new fangled photography of years ago and traditional art.  I call it traditional art  for no other reason than it sounds good to me, a brush, pencil, pen or what have you to create art--a devise or tool.   Like a computer and a Wacom tablet.  A devise or tool.   There is even a Facebook place for the Digital art and I do feel like if you are going to do digital art  tout it for what it is.   Don't say I painted this and try to pass off as traditional art.   Be proud of what you do even if it a piece of charcoal on the sidewalk.   Don't hide it, I don't think Leo would have hidden it.  He would have jumped in there and ran with it.  Be proud that you are a part of the Corel Painting world and the Wacom tablets.    

There are some 21st century artists I have run across that are wonderful artists and the new fangled digital artists.  They are a few of whom I have been influenced by in the digi world.

  Helen Yancy is the first one I came across at a photography convention in Mississippi.   She was up on stage and in her soft voice went thru the whole process of  Corel Painter and how you can achieve photograph and painting together.   Not just the smearing of some pixels but true painting of a photograph.    Stroke by stroke and she has such a soft palette.  So I, of course bought here CD ( then were CD's) and went home with some new ammo to add to my photography business.  Later I will tell more about Corel Painter.

 

This was one of my first Digital paintings.   It is photographed based and a photograph I took of one of my clients daughters.  I cannot remember what I did to the painting,  it was to long ago.   Funny we had this porch built on the back of our garage and some people thought it was the porch to our studio.    Nope just a big prop.   Anyway this is a digital painting.   It is very pretty, soft and I think Leo would have liked it.  I know the parents did.

 

Now I do want to show you a couple of my traditional paintings done with  Soft Pastels.   I do know how to paint traditionally also.  

 

 

A tad blurry, one morning it has sort of snowed and I ran out and snapped this it was across the street.  I had on my robe and Eldon's house shoes, a neighbor one never said a word what I was doing.  I did use the photos as a reference but just pure charcoal drawing and pastel painting.  

 

  The next Digital artist I ran upon in my quest is Marilyn Sholin.  Beautiful vivid colors and of course I have her Cd's and DVD's..  She left a wonderful impression on me and she is teaching and guiding so many artists in Painter and teaching about  enhancing the art with Golden acrylics.    She encouraged to use your own colors and make the paintings yours.

Karen Bonaker is the next artist that has taught me a ton about Painter and has  a "school" that teaches so much about Painter.   I took many of her classes, some wanted to know why.  I wanted to know the program in and out to see how and why it all clicks and what it can do.   She has a wonderful way of teaching and you just can't get enough of any of these teacher/artists. 

Jeremy Sutton, was the last artist that I have DVD's of and loved his accent of course when I talked to him.  He has another way of the digital painting.  He is outstanding in his field of art of several medias and can draw like crazy. 

Jim Cunningham came to Lubbock Texas one year and gave a two day workshop.   He was so kind and patient with all the "class' interruptions.   I so enjoyed the teachings of this patient young man.    

I just want to say if you are going to do Digital Art jump in with both feet but learn what you are doing correctly.  There are more out there in cyber world that teach Tim Shelbourne and Skip Allen  are a couple I can think of off hand but you are an artist and I know would want to learn the program and techniques.   Not just the smearing of pixels.  Sorry a pet peave of mine.     Take the time to learn the program you will be so glad you did.  I promise. 

 

These are two digi paintings on canvas that I painted from my own photographs.  

 

Now how in the world do you do this you may ask.    Corel Painter is an awesome program.  You have many brushes and media to choose from , different papers and I could go on and on of what it entails but you will love playing and learning on it.  A Wacom tablet is a must.  The tablet that hooks into your computer and you use a pen that comes with it and just draw and create to your little hearts content.     You can use your photograph as a base and play on it with the colors and techniques or start from scratch and create your art.  Adding your own colors is part of the artistic touches and as Marilyn Sholin teaches enhances with acrylics.  Makes it even more fun.  Your choice you are the creator of art here.   There is a magazine, I use to get called  Corel Painter and was a wonderful magazine.  A friend Cat Bounds did articles in it and you could understand it perfectly.  People language not geek, sorry, language.   Thank goodness I kept all the issues.   They changed it   Digital Artist  is the name and I quit taking it but some may love it.   Anything you can get to help you understand the program.   But please if you do digi painting s own up to it, tout it.  I think Leo would have, nothing to be ashamed of at all.

 

Now some of you know I have been painting faeries and all traditional with pastels and Twinkling H2O's.  Just another media.   I will do more on that later but I wanted to give Digital Art it's own little section of my world.   

 

Why did I start doing digi art?  Another media to learn and while in my 24 years of professional photography I thought the two medias-photography and digi art  went hand in hand.   I do love my film though, expose it correctly, compose it in the camera and you were good to go.  No color correcting and hours at the computer and now I sound like Mary C., Claude M, Michael and Leo.   Well not Leo he was heads above us all.  LOL not that I am in the same category as those guys but you get the picture. 

 

And you get to meet a lot of wonderful people.   

 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  Well my dream on this one. 

 

xoxoxoxo

Annette

 

Do you ever feel like busting at the seams?

 

Happy September already !!!!!! The leaves will start turning and the weather a tad cooler unless we have an Indian summer.   School has started and I can smell the fall cooking and baking in the air.  Yummy.   I think I have shared that Fall is my favorite time of year flowers are still mostly pretty and the grass is still mostly green and it is not hotter than a red hot pistol.   The blooms at the tops of cotton should be turning red  and the crops are getting ready to harvest.    Fall was always a busy busy time when we farmed our cotton and peanuts. 

 

Now busting at the seams could mean that our house is jammed  packed with stuff, not here after moving and then moving again it is pretty scant here even the closets EXCEPT for my art room.  Course if I knew what I really wanted to do in that direction for the next 25 years I might could cull out something.  I don't see that happening in this century anyway.    Or I could be busting out of the seams in clothes, nope not today anyway.   Maybe after I cook all the fall goodies, naw not even then.    

 

I am busting at the seams with pride and feeling good today.    I just had to share this with you and if you don't know about Pat Winter's magazine ----well you are in for some wonderful "eye candy" when you purchase one. 

 

As you know I started Crazy Quilting last year and flat out fell in love with it.   Then my faeries came to say Annette get busy and draw girl, so they have been drawn and more coming.  However they dictate to be drawn.  Everytime I draw one I think oh Ben Konis, whom I took art classes with several times would be proud.   I finally got the eyes, noses and lips down.  Bet being photographer for 24 years had to have helped.  Surely it did .

 

 

So the Faeries became ciggies, you know the cute little pics we use in Crazy Quilting.  

 

Well enough babbling about this gotta show the pics and you know a picture is worth a 1000 words so just pretend you are reading that many words while looking at the pictures. 

 

 

 

 

The beautiful cover photograph is from Sandra Krystalowich from Alberta Canada.  Is this not the most beautiful colors and stitching ever?   Oh wait, it gets better with each page and from gals all over the world. 

 

 

Now I don't know if you have ever had to write sometime about yourself but people this is tough.  I thought where do I start? What do people want to know?  I don't want to bore the readers to death you know and have them nod off asleep.    So I just dove in head first and started writing about me.  Nothing fancy just me, myself and I.   Of course I had to have a picture of myself but I am not complete if I don't have a picture of the loves of my life.  Hubby and our two wonderful grands.  Sorry Addison the glare got ya in the pic. 

 

Ok now you see why I am busting at the seams.  My sweet little faeries are smiling at you and sprinkling some faerie dust on you .  

 

 

I had to include Tisha's Needle Art Studio where I get probably 95% of my pretties, which reminds me gotta order some stuff.  LOL   She knows so much of what you need and she is like the man I use to buy my photography equipment from.  I would tell him what I wanted to do and he would send me exactly what I needed. I never worried one iota  if he was sending the wrong thing and I don't worry about what Tisha sends either.

 

Here is a link to the magazine and of course you may buy Pat's other magazines they are so pretty.  

 http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/614457?__r=84546

 

Now on the other side of my "page" Pat had shown how to create a night light.  Tisha has the blanks so I had to try it.  Was a quick little project while we watched the Texas Rangers Baseball game-go Rangers!   Sorry. 

Here is the backside of the nightlight and no it is not a clothes pin forest.  Promise.  Course one time we were in Oregon and they had Popular trees growing as close as these clothes pins and we asked why. Well----- the cut the every few years I am thinking 8 and make cardboard out of them.  I just never thought of where cardboard came from, just from a tree but now I know. 

 

I had to use one of my faeries and the little bird was a gift and fit perfect in the Night light cover. 

 

Here it is in the sunlight with the dangles that are from Tishas.

 

 

Here it is doing it's little job glowing at night so I don't stump my toe on a step stool I use to get on our bed.  Man that hurts doesn't it?

 

There you go and thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.     My traditional and digi blog is a comin.    Promise.

 

XOXOXO

Annette

A different glasses case or the 18 inch Rule

Well lots of things have different names like in this instance glasses aka specs  or eyes or whatever else the names come up with.  Cases, pouches, holders   (the holders is my name for them)  sometimes they are called the little do dads that hold my eyes. 

Now sometimes these "eyes" are on top of my head, beside my end table or on top of some stuff I am sewing.  Right now they are sort of Wally World specs but trust me they have rhinestones and bling on them.  I bought them at a needle work shop and of course had to have them with savorski crystals on them.   A lot of the time they are lost, yes lost.  Laughing their heads off saying " she can't find me yatta yatta yatta".   They could be sticking their tongues out if they had them.    I use the 18 inch rule a lot.  Now what is that you may ask?   Usually what you have lost is within 18 inches from where you are standing or were sitting.  I kid you not.  Or when you walk in a room 18 inches from the doorway.  I don't know if that is as far as they can run but that is usually where they are. 

Ok enough about my eyes today.  

I have been infatuated with the Day of the Dead fabric art.  Or Dia de los Muertos.    It even prompted me to open an Etsy shop.  Yes a cyber shop if you will.  What am I going to do next in this fast moving new fangled world?

  So here is my DoD pretty. 

 

Part of the embellishment on the front. They eyes, better to see with you my dear. Sorry had to say that. 

 

Another angle of one of the front skulls.   Love all the beads they just bring the whole piece to life.

 

 

The whole front are these not colorful and fun? 

 

 

 

 I had to add a pocket to the back, a girl cannot have to many pockets to hold treasures.

 

There you go my case, pouch or whatever you want to call it.   

 

I just wanted to show you and wish you a safe Labor Day , I use to take it to heart.  Labor Day and we would clean out the garage and whatever little projects we had.  Labor-work?  Get it?

 

Next blog post might be long but it is one that I have felt in my heart to talk about.   It will be about art----TRADITIONAL and DIGITAL.   I think you will find it interesting.  I am thinking it may take me a while to write it.   Remember I am not an author just me.

 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is happening in my world.

 

XOXOXO

Annette

On the way to the Accountant with the clouds and a little CQ

We went to the accountant today and it is never a bad experience, well when we have to write the tax check but that is life isn't it?   He is about an hour away in another town and have used him for over 30 years.  So he can read my handwriting, he does say he has to study it for a while but gets the hang of it.  I am left handed and it slants to the right and sometimes I get carried away with the curly queues in it.   Yes I still write with a pencil and pen.   I do, promise.    He  knows how I think sort of.  That is scary trust  me.   Maybe he and Hubby can figure out how I think.  

The sky was a beautiful blue and full full full of the prettiest clouds so light and fluffy and just a tease of anything wet falling from them. This is West Texas you know and we don't get the wet stuff a lot.   Anyway the clouds were beautiful just beautiful and could see all kinds of shapes in them.   Dogs running, sharks, dolphins, fish with big pretty tails, teddy bears and angels to name a few.  I love watching the clouds we get, they are so fluffy like marshmallow crème or some fluffy frosting you could dig your finger into.   Just floating around changing shapes constantly.  I like to think the angels are changing them constantly but I really think it is Mz. Mother Nature with the winds. 

It is funny you are looking at the clouds and as  we are whizzing down the road they change almost instantly.  I think I even saw Abraham Lincoln pop in there once.   I guess you could see ugly things but I like to think they are angel creations and just a treat for us to see.   Now did you take some pictures Annette?   Of course not, I didn't bring my camera.  I did have the cell phone but didn't have grandson here to help me figure that out, to me it is a phone and a texting thingies.  No one showed me how to do the texting I figured that one out myself but unfortunately my texting  fingers don't always type correctly.   Grandson says I have Nana language.    Could be, you know we Nanas.     I have other things to clutter my mind that to live and breathe with the phone.  I know that probably sounds old fashioned but I am old enough that I can think that way if I want to.  Really!!!!

When we got home of course the clouds  floated mostly away but there were a few out there.  Would love to hear from you of what you see.  

 

These were not as full of things as the ones driving with us were but still pretty.

 

Could the bigger one be a dog on it's back waiting to have it's tummy rubbed?

 

 

Please excuse the neighbors part dead or part alive tree.  It is hanging in there trying to live.

 

 

 

 

I have been doing a little CQing and this is the newest DoD clasp purse.   I had to add some fun ribbons on the side, it is a celebration and I knew it just needed them.  

 

Here is the back of the clasp with a little pocket on the back and has one inside also.  My fancy smancy  dime store glasses are in the pocket.  I have to admit I have to were them at the end of the day when doing my beading. 

 

There you go my Monday doings.   1/2 half of our work week is over.  Bank and accountant  the first half and tomorrow mowing the second half.

 

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.

 

XOXOOX

Annette

 

Friday Night Lights and CQ Art

The school bells will be ringing soon.  It will be the time when the kids and teachers are fresh for the school year.  Fall sports will be going on and in Texas, the Friday Night Lights will shine proudly in every little town around.  Friday night High School Football is a strong tradition here in Texas and I am sure other places.  I am only familiar with the Texas tradition though, but would love to hear about y'alls  Friday night school functions.   You could always find where the football field was in any town but the giant lights.  They would light up the whole area.  Saying here we are come on over.     We don't go to these any more, we did go a few years after our daughters graduated but just wasn't the same.  Not that we didn't enjoy seeing all the young kids in the activities but just wasn't the same. 

Our daughters were in the band and that is the half time show of the football games.   Such excitement and we always looked forward to the tunes they played and the formations they formed with their straight lines .  Always with precision.   The French Horn and Clarinet were the instruments that we were familiar with that our daughters played.   I was always amazed at how one band director could teach all those students to play the horns, teach them to march and all at the same time.   

Now I don't have a clue where this post came from it was not where I was going this morning but here it is.  

I have been doing some of the Day of the Dead fabric art and have sold my first one.   Crazy Quilt style with the DoD style.  The bright colors and just the fun of the whole pieces.   Now my faeries are just taking a week's break but  I will be back in the saddle with them soon.  I mean I even have new pastel pencils to break in and they are calling my name.   "Annette come play with us and see what you create".   New art supplies are like new shoes, you have to wear them and see how you feel wearing them.   Running faster if you have new tennis shoes and jumping higher.  I am sure my new pencils will have the same effect on me. Don't you?

 

So here is my DoD purse, I have just almost sort of finished two.  

 

Front of the purse, it is like 8 inches long and 6 1/2 inches wide at the bottom a fun size to hold things ladies carry and has a pocket inside and on the back.  Hey it is ready for most anything. 

 

Close up of some of the bead work.  I do love doing the bead work on any Crazy Quilting.  I piece it together and put the pretties on it and then it seems to come to life when the beads come into the picture.  I have a drawer full of the beads.  I think I need a hoist to lift it at times.   I have been truly blessed because the majority of the beads have been gifts.   Oh I have bought a few odds and ends of the weird colors I use sometimes.  

 

The back of the purse.

There you go  what I have been up to lately.  Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  

                                                             XOXOXO
                                                              Annette