Cleaning

As an incentive to get the studios clean and get psyched up for the run with encaustic, I agreed to be part of the Mid Michigan Creative Alliance Studio Crawl, April 22 from 2 - 8pm.

This event will have many creative spots around town, followed by a gathering for a sip and a bite. Should be fun.

I THINK anyone can attend, but go here to learn more if you're interested.

Won't take it for Granted

I just learned that I've been awarded a grant from the Arts Council of Greater Lansing. My project will be the exploration of encaustic, with two hands-on demonstrations down the line. With this grant I'll be able to purchase the tools I need to take this medium through its paces - without toxic fumes. I've already been playing with the medium and will be curious to see what the proper tools allow me to do. I'll be posting what I learn along the way.
Thanks to the Council and to the funding which allows for such grants. I'm grateful and very excited to get to work.

Capital Area Women's Lifestyle Magazine

Looks like I'm in this month's CAWL. All I know is that I should have had my glasses on for that photo. Thanks to the magazine for the covergage. Brittney Moody, who wrote it, did a great job.

Logos

Lately logos have been coming my way. I've always loved doing them - saying the most as simply as possible, but have not had much opportunity. One of these is for hand-harvested wild foods like sassafrass tea (GREAT, by the way), mushrooms and wild rice. The other is for a series of workshops for women to learn pretty much everything about nature - medicinal plants, living out of doors, making fires, identifying edibles...really sounds intriquing!

In Vino

Hate to admit it, but I'm one of those people who buys wine because the label is cool. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. A few years ago I came within cork-sniffing closeness to being able to produce a series of wine labels for a young company. It would have been a dream come true.

A recent conversation with friends about private labels made me long to do this art. So, I decided to create labels for wine which does not exist. I could have a collection of labels and someone could pair a wine with them, or I'll simply have some fun along the way.

My husband named the first one as I was describing the image I wanted to do - Caged Crow.
I do a lot of birds - they mean many things to me. Did this piece in encaustic.

Learning Curve

So, it seems that for silk screened work I need to have created vector art. That means back to Illustrator, which makes me make ucky faces...too mathematical in feel and I've finally gotten so comfortable in Photoshop. There's apparently no easy way to translate from one program to the other. I just need to learn it, so I can create are that's easily reproducible. As long as there's no deadline, I enjoy the curve.

Baby Birds

This might be the last of this little series (for now, at least). I think the giraffe will have to be the outlier. The vertical bands of color just set it apart. It might become the first in a separate jungle series ( later, if at all). Not sure what's going to be the next focus.

You never know when you do something completely new if it'll make sense, so posting these was a little test. I so appreciate the FB feedback along the way...kept me at it.