Cleaning The Clutter Of My Life......Plus Some Art Card Designs

 Before I get to the clutter part of my life, I did make a couple of new art cards a while back.  The "Butterfly Garden" card above was created from the original painting below (with Chris's help cropping and sizing everything).  I'm very happy with the way this one turned out.

Chris had to do a bit more work on the "Bearded Iris Garden" card because the original painting below was a big square and he was trying to change the shape while keeping as much of the main subject as possible.  I would love to get these art cards (including all that I did before this) photographed and onto ETSY but I just don't think that is going to happen at this point.  Seems like too much to get done for now and this kind of thing can wait until the upcoming months.

With just over 2 months until we leave West Point, I have some clutter and garbage to remove from my life.  For me, the worst possible thing would be to not bother with it now and have the movers pack all my trash, with me having to throw it all away when I get to Orlando.  I'm trying to avoid that so I've been working in my messy studio above to go through everything, recycle what I can, throw away what I don't need and just organize what I'm taking with me to make it easier to pack.  I tackled the messiest part of the room this week, the area to the left of my desk that is actually not in this photo.  It is all clean, organized and ready to go....I was able to get rid of a ton of junk from this area.  Going through everything I found things I hadn't seen in years, things I wondered why I didn't throw away long ago and many items that gave me the "so that is where it has been all this time" moment.

Dudley of course kept me company through the whole thing and I think was standing there in awe of my finally having done the stuff I should have done a long time ago.  He by the way offered no help with this task what so ever but did stop long enough to pose for the camera.

Dynamic Duos Exhibition At Celebrations Gallery

Celebrations Gallery & Shoppes in scenic Pomfret CT is hosting a new show next month, The Dynamic Duos Exhibition which will run from May 20th to July 3rd. Usually we artists are a solitary lot when it comes to our work but for this particular show , those participating have stepped outside the box and teamed up with a fellow artisan to create a variety of beautiful and creative works. I colaborated with the very talented jewelry artist Anna Mancini and we created the necklace you see above. I decided on a spring theme, pink tulips on a black background, which I then hand painted on 6 puzzle pieces and Anna took that pendant and created something quite magical around it, the beautiful beaded necklace that you see above . The postcard for the exhibit just arrived and I was blown away by it, the first thing I noticed was all the vibrant color, color, color. I cannot wait to go to the opening evening of the show next month and not only see the necklace in person but all the other beautiful works that the participating artists have colaborated on. If you are in the area, please stop by or you can visit Celebrations' website at http://www.celebrationsshoppes.com/ .

"Gazing Upward" - Acrylic Painting & Sand Dollar Pendant Set

Did you every hear that old expression, when it rains it pours?? That is about where I am in the world these days. So much seems to be going on all at once and I'm not really finding the time to stay up to date with blogging or even getting on the computer for that matter. A week of jury duty turned into being selected for a trial, which I thought I would have hated but I must admit to enjoying and being quite fascinated by the process. In short, I'm glad to have had this experience, I never thought I would hear myself utter those words, but there they are. All this fun of course has kept me away from painting as well so I've just been doing what I can, when I can. This chickadee is the second in my painting/pendant combo sets.

The chickadee is painted on an 8" x 8" gallery canvas that is 1 1/2" deep.

The matching pendant is painted on a 2" sand dollar.

This set is now in my Artfire shop: www.artfulcreationsbyruthwelter.artfire.com . Once my head comes up above water level again, I can start to think about Christmas....how can it already be 2 weeks away??

"Whimsy Leaf" Acrylic Painting & Puzzle Art Pendant Set

Where did Thanksgiving go, does anyone know?? I really feel as if it were summer just yesterday and then turkey day was coming and now boom, it's gone and Christmas is on it's way . The weeks sometimes get away from me when I've got a lot of painting projects that I'm working on or trying to decide how to execute them. One of the ideas I've been playing around with are miniature painting and pendant sets. I thought that a set for each kind of pendant would be pretty neat, ie....puzzle, sand dollar, wood and glass.

This is one of the first, "Whimsy Leaf" it's painted on a 2" puzzle pendant and an 8" x 8" gallery wrapped canvas.

Some of the squiggles have been carried around to decorate the sides of the canvas.

Of course, whimsical circles and squiggles were added to the pendant as well so that it would coordinate nicely with the canvas painting.

The first set is now available in my Artfire shop: www.artfulcreationsbyruthwelter.artfire.com .

This And That.....

While some of you might have thought I fell into an abyss somewhere, I have not.....I stiill live on. It has been a while since I've blogged and the break that I took really did me some good. I was able to finish up some art projects I had going and embark on some new ones, coming up with lots of new ideas for future paintings.

I thought I would share some of the colorful photos I recently took at the botanical garden. It was an Emily Dickinson display, a lovely re-creation of her childhood home and surrounding gardens. I'll share more of those pictures another time but for now, I hope you enjoy some of the close ups of what might have been blooming in her garden over 100 years ago.

I've finished up some new pendants and in addition to that, just purchased a new mannequin to display and photograph them on.....isn't she lovely and very chic looking?? She also has a pierced ear which will come in handy for some earring photographs I might like to take in the future.

I'm working now, just today actually, on finishing up a very large canvas. I think after this I will be ready to work on some smaller pieces. I love these large paintings, designing and working on them is fun but there is so much to do and even when you think you are done, there are always more details to go back and add in the end. ARGH, it feels like the never ending story at times.

To give you a clue on the subject, the new painting is called "Monarchy" and before you picture the royalty of yesteryear running around with their crowns and holding court, this painting is more connected to the royalty of another species and might be somewhat related to the painting you see in my last post. Hmm, you probably get the idea now.....

I thought I would leave you with a quote I just heard recently that happens to come from one of my favorite artists of all time.....it is so true, especially for us artists.......

"I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it."

Vincent Van Gogh

Until next time!

Custom Bluebird Paintings And The Curse Of the Dreaded X.....

Well to start, now that spring has sprung, I've been painting quite a few bluebirds, some have been custom orders, like this ceiling tin above.

My customer wanted a happy, chubby little spring bluebird surrounded by lots of lavender, painted on a vintage ceiling tin.

The completed bird on a very ornate ceiling tin!!! Another customer wanted a bluebird pendant, done on glass and with a brown background to match up with as many of her work outfits as possible.....that little fused glass bluebird sits below, hanging from a satin neck cord. He has already flown on to his new home.

Now for the curse of the dreaded X or actually I should say, an X (a really giant one) and a curse (pick your favorite). What is an artist to do when she screws up a painting, a very large one, one that she has been working on diligently for over a week now?? How does she get rid of the frustration of it all and move past that failure to another piece of artwork??

I don't know how other artist's do it but here is my method put into practice by me again, just yesterday.......very unfortunatley. I had been working on a very large canvas for over a week, the subject doesn't really matter at this point but it was one that I knew could go either way, a great painting or a disaster well...... it turned out to be the later. When this kind of disappointment hits, I have a little therapy session with my painting, first of all, I make absolutely sure the the work is not worth saving and once I've determined that, I pick a nice bright color and paint a giant X through the canvas.....here is where the curse comes in, I then write my favorite curse word down across the canvas, right near the X , in big bold letters. I then proceed to go out my back door and over to my trash cans, where the canvas promptly gets thrown away, never to be seen again. This practice, followed by ordering some comfort take-out food, assures that I can put the days train wreck out of my mind and start anew on a fresh piece of artwork tomorrow. There you have the story of the Curse of the X!!!!

Colorful Glass Pendants For Spring....

I just received my order of these beautiful glass oval blanks in the mail the other day and knew they would be perfect for pendant designs. I've created the first batch of 4, colorful abstracts along with a rose and the popular red poppy design.

The glass ovals are large and smooth and make a wonderful canvas for wearable art.

I had a couple of (do-overs) but when these 4 were finished I was finally happy. By the time I was done with them, I felt it was time to go on to something else so I took a pendant painting break to work on some custom bluebird orders I'll be showing in my next post.

Available soon at my ETSY shop: http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com/

Puzzle And Wooden Pendants....

Now that the weather here in NY is getting so lovely, I've been very inspired to do a lot of painting these days. Besides working on a very large painting I'm trying to finish up, I've been creating quite a lot of pendants.

I've made many journeys into my basement to collect specific pieces from my stash of puzzles. Even after a couple of my large puzzles fell on the floor during a mishap months ago, I still have a very good selection to choose from.

With many of the puzzles, the shape dictates to me what needs to be painted on it. That was the case with the tree above, once I saw the pieces together, I got the idea of what I wanted to paint.

I've also been creating some wooden pendants for the musically inclined .....

You can find some of these pendants on my ETSY site: http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com . I hope beautiful spring time weather inspires everyone to get creative in some way.

Victoria Magazine.....

Chris put together a beautiful ad for me for my new advertising campaign this year in Victoria Magazine. This particular ad is featuring my line of hand painted pendants, I took all the test photographs, we picked a favorite and he assembled the ad.

I tested many differnt layouts and ideas before I hit upon the right one that would allow for the placement of all the text as well as look appealing at the same time.

These are of course, some of the rejected layouts, for one reason or another, they just didn't work.

I also tried some photos without greenery and decided I didn't care for them at all. Since my pendants are mostly created by using nature as my inspiration, the stems of my pretty little green plant seemed to work best in representing the necklace portion for this trio.

At last, the photo that seemed to be just right for what I needed......

The finished ad.

Contemporary Abstract Pendants

I've been trying to catch up on work in the studio these days and have finally been able to create a few more art pendants. I guess I've been on an abstract kick, these two pendants are abstracts painted and fused onto glass.

I also really enjoy shopping for my jewelry creations.....these new and elegant satin rope cords just arrived in the mail the other day.

I have a contemporary garden painting on 3 gallery canvases that I've been wanting to finish as well. I'm at the point where it is basically done, all that remains for me to do is finish up the last few details and then paint the sides. What is the hold up you might ask?? Well, it is just one of those things, sometimes when I put something down for a while, I just don't feel like picking it up again right away. Today I told myself that I really have to though because at some point you realize that if you have to dust a painting (because it has been sitting so long in the same spot) it is time to do something about it and get it finished.

So that is where I'm at in the land of artwork these days and that is my next goal, to get that painting done and up in my shop. http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com/

Painting More Pendants.....

I truly don't know where the time has gone this week....I had really meant to post earlier on in my week and it just didn't happen the way I planned it.....you know what they say about the best made plans.

I've been working on more glass pendants and puzzle pendants as well. I love the fun shapes and angles I get when I work with the puzzle pieces.

I keep rotating the pieces until I get just the right shape for my creations, puzzle pieces are bit more work to turn into pendants but are well worth the effort.

Now I just have to get myself back into the studio to finish a painting I've had in the works since before the holidays. I seem to be running way behind this year, I actually just took all of my Christmas decorations down yesterday.

A snow capped flower scene above might be the perfect thing to cheer up a cold winter's day. A customer of mine from Hong Kong asked me to create a painted tiger pendant on glass for her celebration of the Chinese New Year.... I have yet to start on it but I think it will be a really interesting and challenging art pendant. http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com/