just quick...

Well, we are back. Italy was wonderful! I came back so inspired by what I saw and experienced. I will explain in better detail soon.

We just had a few days home to get sorted and today, all four of my kids flew in- the two that live here with us, and the two that are young adults, living on their own in Ottawa, Ontario- here for a visit with Mom!

All four of my children are creative and artistic, each in their own way, and each in more ways than one. Some of them are musically inclined, some draw, some paint, some write- I am always impressed by what they can do!

I am looking forward to a fun week with them. We will definitely spend some time creating some things and maybe I will have a few new things to show you- and to hang on my studio walls.

So I will be back soon, with stories and photos.

Happy creating, all!

Elizabeth...

Hello all! It's been a while since I posted- it's been crazy here; last few days of school, helping the girls get ready for their trip to Ottawa, getting things set for our vacation.

Now that I have things organized, let me show you what I have been working on in between cleaning and packing!

One of the Suzi Blu classes I am taking right now is called Piety & Passion. It is a part two of the portraits class (the first is Goddess & Poet- FANTASTIC!). We are learning to draw the face from the side and the 3/4 view, very challenging. But we have a theme- the Tudors! How fun is that? This leaves room for lots of mixed media embellishment and it is a blast!

This first photo shows the sketch I started with:

This next photo shows what I submitted for critique last week... and believe me, it looks a LOT better than when I started adding colour to her. She had this giant head of screaming red hair and it was TOO much! lol And the border, made with torn squares of paper, angelina fibres, and paint was too- I don't know what. Defined maybe.
The pink was my solution to re-unify the piece in order to go forward. The paint had to be thick, so I added some texture with the end of my paint brush. Oh, and the velvet for her dress.

This is what I am submitting this week.

I am playing with things to add texture, I want to see how they work, how they look, how they play with other products I use in the work. I am also trying to remember to do the push-pull thing. 

This photo is not very good- the light is reflecting on the metallic paint on her eye and even the inks seem to be picking up the light. 

This step has left the piece much less defined and more chaotic. Kind of like life in general right? lol
No matter how organized I try to be, no matter how good my plans are, life always seems blurrier and less defined than I counted on. But you know what? I am really becoming okay with that. Maybe this new life of mine is finally teaching me to let go of my need for so much control over things. This class is sure teaching me to go with the flow- and not to give up, no matter how awful a piece looks to me at some point. I now actually feel there is very little in my art that I can't make pleasing in the end.

I feel that this piece is not done, but I am not sure what she needs. I will think on it. Maybe when I come home from our holidays, I will have a fresh enough eye to KNOW what she needs.

Did I tell you that next week my wonderful husband and I are going to Italy for a two-week vacation?! I have pinched myself so many times this past week... between the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the strike at British Airways (we are flying with them), I just didn't let myself get my hopes up that this trip of a lifetime would actually happen. But it IS!!!

We will fly in and out of Milan, and spend time in Lake Como, Turin, Genoa, Cinque Terre, Lucca, Pisa, and Florence. From what I have read, I could be happy spending the whole two weeks in Florence... *sigh*

My husband is not much into art, but I am dragging him to at least a few galleries anyway! I just can't even imagine what this trip will be like... One of our assignments in this Piety & Passion class is to take a field trip to a gallery or museum and draw a portrait from a sculpture. Holy cow, can you think of a better place to do that than Italy????

I will put up a blog about it when I get home and hopefully have lots of sketches and things to show you too!