it's beginning to look a lot like christmas!

i have made two sets of xmas ornie party favors... here's a sampling of one set ... 

 all together so far this Christmas season, i've made about fifty ornies ... for parties and friends and all sorts of reasons ... 

 some of them i did lots of the same .... and some are SUPER one of a kind.

i love the "making stuff" part of christmas .... and the giving stuff part too.

love much

i made this piece (11x14, i think) during my written collage class at life is a verb camp .... i sorta cheated because i KNEW what i was going to make ahead of time ....but i used the steps as demonstrations for the class .... in the meanwhile, at the camp auction that had started the day before, there was an EMPTY frame ... haha ... where i had some sassy note about how much would you bid on a painting that hadn't even been started yet! but, because of nothing more than camp love and faith, there was a bidding war going on before the first drop of matte medium had touched the canvas ... haha.... so when a lovely, lovely wonderful soul won the auction i was so happy  .... yay for people who love art!

written collage ....

that is the back of my car .... and all that stuff is for a workshop i taught at life is a verb camp .... written collage .... where i taught a bunch of collage techniques .... and then we did some calligraphy/font/handwriting celebration ... and everyone wrote something profound on their collage .... i LOVED doing it .... and had awesome, wonderful souls in my class ..... and lots and lots of successes ...

bright, bright underglazes ....

so i'm experimenting with less texture and more graphic design with underglazes .... these first four plates were done using my everyday lunch size plates as a mold .... mr.e.beck.artist asked how i got them so perfect when he saw them .... i wondered why they were so imperfect .... nice to be able to hear someone else's perspective!! love him.

 these plates are about 8 inches, i think .... white clay, underglaze and clear glaze .... food safe.

 this is a pretty big plate ... maybe 12 inches across .... working on my technique with designer liners ... i had trouble with them not flattening out when they were fired so i got some potty texture i didn't want and had to grind down some of those dots and reglaze the clear .... 

this is a good sized bowl ... maybe 14 inches across .... i'm pleased with the color and the graphic design and the happy and the bright ... but the clear glaze bubble on the underside .... so not quite right ... but pretty darn nice.

happy thanksgiving

happy thanksgiving..... i am thankful for a world of bright, lovely colors ... especially orange .... i am also thankful for all the people who color my life with joy and wonderment.... wishing you and orange, joy filled day ... and pie.

pottery, pottery, pottery ...

here is a round up of the pottery that i took to life is a verb camp ..... 

black and white and black and white and black and white ....

 i have a thing for the simplicity of black and white on the extravagant, unsubtle textures that i love so much ....

red + orange = plate

this plate is about 8 inches across ..... i used a weird rubber place mat over a slab of white clay. by pushing the mat into the clay it gave it some texture ... then glazed it with a mix of orange and red underglaze ... so all the color bits you see are raised texture ... (sold already, oh my)

different is beautiful ....

oh my .... this pear fills me with extra joy .... it is laden with wonderful happy reminders .... 

first: i did the background with susan and ann and dionne when they came over to my house to do art in my basement with me ... and having friends to do art with is high on my favorite things list ....so it had a happy, happy beginning for this painting .... so that's the first joyful memory related to this piece.

and second:  i made it with the intention of it being a sample for my life is verb camp collage workshop .... so when i got to camp i showed my wonderful class what i meant by having a papered background, a light glaze of paint over it and then a texture from stencil or stamps ... in this one it is an alphabet stencil .... so this piece was sitting on my demo table .... ready to become something ... and a nice memory of my class of most awesome people .... 

and third: i was doing a different collage to put into the auction but i liked this background so much i just knew i could do it too .... and then while rummaging through my magic painted papers i found this pear ....i believe it was meant to go on another piece of art but didn't make the cut (probably for size reasons, or it somehow it knew it needed to be saved for a later piece) ..... and i thought it would look perfect.... and i held it up to katie in my class and said, sorta flippantly, hey, whaddaya think about blue pears? and katie (so kindly) said, if you 're doing it, it will be awesome! .... so that's a great memory: so kind katie! 

and fourth: blue pears are kinda different.... and camp is kinda different .... and i dig different ... so different is beautiful sounded right. i thought that up ... and then tried on (in my head and aloud) about 20 other ideas .... but came back to the first idea, different is beautiful .... there is something to learn from that, huh? so happy memory four is thinking of the perfect thing to say for this unexpected piece for the life is a verb camp auction.... that kind of speaks to the whole camp experience.

and fifth: saturday night, when the auction was ending, i was wearing a dinosaur costume (that's a different story) , and when i walked into  the meeting room, there was ANOTHER DINOSAUR ... a new friend was dressed as a dinosaur too. what are the odds? zero. the odds are zero. we so beat those odds.  so my new friend in a dinosaur costume ("i'm so happy to see you! i thought i'd be the only one!") jumped from new friend to soul mate .... and my dinosaur soulmate bought the blue beautiful is different pear at the auction. that's a big happy memory of dinosaur onesie joy!

so ... this pear fills me with extra joy .... it is laden with wonderful happy reminders .... that's an awful lot of goodness smashed into a 12x12 collage.

pinch pots ...

i made a batch of pinch pots .... thick white clay bowls .... with texture on the outside... black wash underglaze to highlight the texture ....

 and bright colored insides ..... rainbow bright .... 

all ready to hold some change ... or your rings ..... or, in my case, to put your avocado pits to root in the window sill that is called the guacamole farm ... 

37

look. this is a 12 by 12 canvas ... i made it when i had some friends over to paint with me in my basement .... susan painted and cut out the orange flowers ... i did the rest. we are putting it in an auction at life is a verb camp .....

JOY

i made a small plate .... joy, it says ..... still doing my usual playing with textures ... that one at the bottom is a new roller ... i love it .... i've decided to do a black and white series .... i actually think it shows off the texture more than some of the colored ones do .... white clay, black underglaze wiped away, clear glaze ...

do you have a spoon rest?

do you have a spoon rest? do you use it? do you like it? do you have it and not use it? do you not have one? what do you use then? i have one. i always find it to be in the way ... except when i am using it .. and then i love it .... maybe it is supposed to be stowed in a utensil drawer and pulled out as needed ... but mine is always out .... 

i've been working on making spoon rests at a friends request .... here are two of the four i made ....

dobby

i used to have dixie in my blog posts all the time .... i don't think i've ever shown dobby. 

i love her.

two bowls

turquoise textured bowl ... quite small... 

actually celadon over blue ...

 orange bowl ... quite big ... 

actually orange underglaze washed off to show texture with clear glaze .. all on chocolate clay ... 

 size perspective... big and little.... 

rainbow assemblage

i have a new series that i made just for myself to put on the one white wall i have in my house .... 

it all came about because i was "cleaning" my studio .... which really means rummaging through the stuff that i am meant to be cleaning and sorting .... and i was struck by the rainbow happiness of it all .... and it wasn't long before i was sorting things by color .... and then it was a small leap to painting canvases to showcase the fun .... the hardest part was deciding what size to go ... and i went big ... these are all 24 inches square .... 

the red one was the easiest ... apparently lots of fun things come in red .... i had to sort out what not to put in the composition .... that elephant up top fell off .... but while he waited on top to get re adhered, i decided i really loved him up there ... 

 the orange one is my fave because ... well, because it is orange .... but also the monopoly cards down the left side .... i have happy memories of monopoly games with my brothers that would take days and days and days to complete .... and then the clever scrabble rack at the bottom holding orange bottle caps makes me happy too...

 in my art studio i have a cheerios small box that is embellished and embroidered and beaded ... for real ... this cheerios box on yellow has been saved for 10ish years to do the same .... but alas, one beaded cheerio box was enough ... how odd that i kept this one for so long ... that's why you do assemblages....

this green one has mona lisa and sun glasses .... and the coolest bingo board with sliding red windows .... and an old housekey .... i played risk with my brothers ...i'm certain i never, ever, ever, ever won.

this one has an actual doll on it .. i'm pretty sure she's from a happy meal ... could that possible be right if she is porcelain? i kept her because she was so fancy and i swear my memory says she came with a kid meal somewhere .... and that paintbrush is the most awesome sort .... and i wrecked it ... but i generally keep wrecked ones cause there is always something you can do with them ... the bottom right hand corner could be my safe .... i could put secret important things in that metal box and no one would ever think to look there .... except my two or three blog readers .... 

green goodness ....

my favorite glaze ten years ago was transparent green .... my pottery studio, spruill, quit having it, because it was so drippy and ruining kiln shelves ..... i mentioned it to my teacher, carol ... and lo and behold she had some ... and i got to use it .... and i was NOT disappointed ... it turned out just as beautifully as i remembered ... 

 and i made these two lovely square plates .... of green goodness ... and boldly declared that i was entering my green phase ...

and then i glazed two more ... and they turned out terrible. just terrible. haha. and my green phase abruptly ended. darn.

i have a guacamole farm going on my window sill .... i frequently do this .... and then kill them ... and give up ... and then start over .... so this is a newish avocado endeavor .... 

 i made those little pots specifically for avocados .... and in the avocado less times, i use them for other things ... they are super duper handy ... and i like the size/shape/color/texture .... so i made some more:

 and here they are, out of the kiln .... ready for their own pits .... doubling my guacamole crop in no time ..... but doubling zero is ... um ... zero ....

so maybe i should say i'm growing the pits for the health benefits of having house plants ... rather than for my unlikely chance of growing actual avocados..... but ever the optimist, i'm calling it my guacamole farm.

i like to ride my bicycle (imagine me singing that)

you never know when someone is going to ask you to draw a bike ... so i've been practicing .... i imagine i'll do a bike canvas soon/eventually ... in the meanwhile i'm practicing getting them just so .... little.e.beck.artist saw what i was doing and tried as well .... and her handle bars were better than mine ... so i'll keep practicing.

assemblage ....

when blog posts are few and far between, you just add the most recent art pics .... so here ... this is what i'm working on:

 i was in my studio a few weeks ago to "clean" ... ahem ... cleaning is not my strength .... getting side tracked is .... so as i cleaned up, i dreamed up a new series from all the crazy fun stuff i have in my studio... rather than clean, glue it down....

 so my studio is far from clean ... but soon i'll be able to redo the art wall in my kitchen with five new, big, bold lovely assemblages ....

red, orange, yellow, green, blue. my favorite colors.