colored pencils

i've been doing some color pencil doodling lately ... i've been wearing out pencil sharpeners .... this is a tiny fraction of colored pencil collection.

vases.

i have a new idea ... for some vases ... and really it is just a new to me glazing idea ... patchwork ... but i'm going to do a black rub on it before the clear glaze ... so .. we'll see if they turn out groovy or not ...

red LOVE

one of my LOVEs is now red .... i LOVE that red paint ... it is thick and rich and awesome ... and i painted some papers the same ... they will be birds on a commissioned piece .... well ... probably.

turquoise canvases.

 i papered my big canvases ....

 i blue glazed my big canvases ....

 i fretted about the right colors for my back grounds ....

 and i did dark letters on one ... and decided that they were TOO dark for the art i was doing ... so i papered and turquoise glazed a third canvas .... so now i have two for the commissioned piece ... and
this third one that will just be something else all together ....

roygbiv and a dictionary....

 i love this organized picture ... all my paints filed in bins by color ... i'm working on the opposite side of the table than i usually do so the paints ROYGBIV read backwards ....

 and this is a brand new to me, 40 year old dictionary, that i'm just starting on .... this is my third red american heritage dictionary for collage ... my family had this same dictionary when i was a kid .... not sure where it is now, but i've not laid a hand on that one, i promise.

LOVE

i have an artsy friend who has a new gig going with wood and a fancy saw.... she usually uses gorgeous, fancy wood and makes coolio things ... but i went for the plain wood so i could paint it .... i bought four .... i'm pretty sure one will be orange .....

cleaning.

my art studio is a crazy disaster mess ... or it was on january first ... but slowly, slowly, slowly i've been working on straightening it up .... this is my new favorite spot .... a whole cabinet filled with awesome papers to collage ... the middle shelf is atlases and bigger books on the left .. .and maps and sewing patterns on the right .... the middle of the bottom shelf has awesomeness like monopoly cards and paper game pieces and such ....

romania ....

i have not been to romania ... but my twins have. and girl.beck.artist bought me a romanian art history book..... so that i can use the pages in my collages. i love that. 

 they were in romania for a habitat for humanity build .... worked on three houses there .... had an amazing time .... learned new things in a new place ... vazut .... decorului ... dezvelli ... cand .... do you know anything about romania?

angels....

raku angels.... rick's turquoise is my favorite glaze i think... but i love them all.

i save these angels to give away on special occasions .... mostly to friends who need an angel present ... cause angel presents can make you feel better when things aren't going so great.

another angel post ....

 look! the raku firing is done .... so the hood has been lifted and everything is FIRE hot .... and glowing ...

i'm a bit intimidated by the whole fiery hotness of the raku firing. the kiln goes up to 1000 degrees or something insane. i'm not in charge of the firing, so i'm not certain .. but i'm pretty sure it is THAT hot.

 the pictures above and below are of my bins that i put the angels in after the raku fire. you need a closed (closable) container full of combustible material ... i used newspaper ... ripped up into a nest.... the angels were put onto the paper and the newspaper instantly caught fire ..... i let it flame a bit and then put the lid on .... so that all sorts of chemical reactions could go on in the heat and fire .....

 the picture below, taken through a smoky, raku haze is two of the three containers i used for my five angels ....

red hot angels ....

 two of my angels lost their halos ... alas, i think they are still angelic ... i hope to add halos later ... some metal or other probably .... a washer perhaps? or fancy, twisty wire ... that's what i did last time i lost a halo ....

 this is the gas raku kiln at the spruill center .... above, you can see the one that is lowered and has my angels inside .... and the one above is lifted up .... you put the pottery on the shelf and then lower the canister/hood/cover ... then gas on and fire up high ....

this last picture is through the peep hole on the top of the kiln .... the inside is aflame ... so hot it is green and blue and everything is glowing ....

when angel wings look like mustaches

i know they look like mustaches ... but they aren't .... you can see that one white card that was the template for the wings ... i just flipped it to make it a double....

 so i made five mustache winged angles .... i tried to give them movement ... not standing quite upright ... with a bit of a tilt to their bodies ....

 so they have some shimmy ... some lean ... some bounce in their step.... maybe even they are dancing angels ....

 the hope is that they make it through the firing without losing wings or heads or halos ....