A coordinated art trade! And it happens every year. Neat-o!

I think I would like to go to this someday:
http://www.yumaartsymposium.memberlodge.org/

Trading my art for other folks' art can be way more fun than selling it :) and learning new techniques is always fun....AND both of these are a most excellent reason to visit a state I've never been to.

Pictures of recent projects are slowly migrating off of my camera and will be showing up here soonish.

Exciting things in my basement....

• Envirotex Lite (what's the difference between regular & lite? idk! but I'm going to find out!
• Roving + two felting needles....
• Many, many half-finished metal curiosities!
• A dozen+ landscape paintings that will get MONSTERS painted into them in January!
• A piano waiting to be disassembled into many different pieces for different uses.... i forsee a bench, some jewelry, and some sculptures coming out of this :D
• Generally organized chaos!!!!!

Art Every Day Month

Inspired by friends who are participating in NaNoWriMo, I decided to see if anything similar, but more in my own line of hobbies existed.... and it does! Here's someone who's been doing Art Every Day Month for 9 years!




I'm #328.

I've actually been playing around with this idea for most of this year. In January, my mom sent me a link to a blog/person who had decided to make 2011 the year of the ring, and set a goal of making one ring every day for a year as an exercise in creativity. I was intrigued and in many ways wanted to try something like that for myself, but also scared. A whole year of promising to create something every day??!? That sounded CRAZY. Especially since at the time I was traveling more often for work, traveling for fun, and was spending more time than I care to admit working in general (heh - perhaps working a lot to help avoid facing personal life mess, too).

BUT.

In the past six months I've changed a lot of things. Fixed a lot of things. Gotten rid of people who weren't kind to me. Etc. Now, one month I can do. So. Here we go.

spring is coming....

It's almost warm enough to
(a) work on hot glass in my garage!
(b) work on larger cement project in my garage!

....the "almost" is only in there because...... not only are the weather folks predicting cold weather & snow for this weekend, but due to hasty winter preparations last fall..... my garage is not exactly in great shape for anything other than storage.... so I think that first big pring project will be to re-organize the garage in to a better workspace. yup. big plans, people. big plans.

Now available on ETSY!

Select stuff now available on ETSY!

http://wintersnowgypsy.etsy.com


but this, I think, is going to be slow going folks. There's something left to be desired in ETSY's interface for uploading stuff --- though I'm sure eventually I'll get the hang of it :)

keywords

This is not an art post, but this is funny (I think). Check out some of the keywords that people used to get to my site in March '08:

birthday kittens
i will go slightly out of my way leaf
installed slate floors + pictures
malva paintings
pictures of slate on a porch

In April '08 it was:

cement mushrooms
peep art
peep zilla
winter's edge
"electrical wires" and artist

And now in December '08 it was:

boro pendants
tie dye folding chair
"i will go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy-looking leaf"
6" flat lap grinders
672dc924fff1496fb3a664cf6c8d560eda967ddb49c1a177
attaching cabinet knobs
dwarf kittens up for adoption december
flat lap grinder

DWARF KITTENS?!! really? hee hee hee.

Oh it's been a long time since I've posted - eh? fear not, there's been a LOT of stuff going on. Some art, but mostly home rennovations.

At least 3 posts from Oct/Nov are still on my camera.... and some time at the end of December I will show you what my new, 75% done kitchen looks like. (remaining 25% of remodeling to happen in Jan/Feb).

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

July & August intentions

I'm starting to think that perhaps I'm trying to fit too much in to one month.... especially considering that in the last two months I've only finished one of the things on my list :S

....starting in September, I'm narrowing the list of things to accomplish and adding a section of "bonus points for doing _____ " kind of list. Or that's the thought at *this* moment anyway.... let's see if that works or not....

July/August
- re-wire kiln
- re-do the patio furniture
- mat and/or frame a bunch of stuff
- begin a woodworking project (a table!)
- paint the 3.5'x7.5' paintings at D's (or at least *start* them)
- track down one last ceiling tile painter.... who happens to be my roommate!
- rehab clay & glazes
- get back to creating that window!
--- grind down the edges
--- wash & dry all pieces
--- wrap with copper foil
--- burnish the copper foil
--- solder the window
--- ?patina?
--- install the window
- play with hot glass

June intentions

should I be keeping a list of what last month's goals were so I can see what my progress was? Hmmm.....

June intentions:
- finish up 2 print exchanges
- consider participating in a photograph exchange
- finish installing the new side screen door
- mat and/or frame a bunch of stuff
- begin a woodworking project (a table!)
- paint the 3.5'x7.5' paintings at D's (or at least *start* them)
- re-do the patio furniture
- re-wire kiln
- track down one last ceiling tile painter.... who happens to be my roommate!
- post photos of those last few tiles
- rehab clay & glazes
- create the window!
--- grind down the edges
--- wash & dry all pieces
--- wrap with copper foil
--- burnish the copper foil
--- solder the window
--- ?patina?
--- install the window
- play with hot glass

.....ummm this was definitely too long for this month.... yikes.

March intentions

so... there wasn't as much actual February art as anticipated... though there *were* a lot of posts of art from the last year..... there are a few other panels still waiting to be done....

Here are February's results:
- photograph the ceiling tile mural
- post photos of ceiling mural
- track down four three delinquent painters
--- D
--- K
--- L
--- J
- post photos of those last few tiles
- re-wire kiln
- decide on a 23.5" x 15.5" design for a stained glass window
- create the window!
- rehabilitate clay & glazes
- decide which (if any) art events to participate in

Which are now morphing in to March intentions:
- silent auction
--- make the item(s)
--- photograh & post them here
- re-wire kiln
- track down those last three ceiling tile painters
--- K
--- L
--- J
- post photos of those last few tiles
- rehabilitate clay & glazes
- spend more time playing with hot glass (making marbles, pendants, etc)
- create the window!
--- grind down the edges
--- wash & dry all pieces
--- wrap with copper foil
--- burnish the copper foil
--- solder the window
--- ?patina?
--- install the window

March intention #1 is about 75% done. Yay!

In the pipeline for February....

- photograph the ceiling tile mural & post that on here. This also includes tracking down the 3 people who've not yet painted their promised paintings... consider yourselves warned :)
- re-wire the large kiln in my basement
- decide on a 23.5" x 15.5" design for a stained glass window
- create the window!
- rehabilitate many pounds of clay & many jars of neglected glazes
- decide whether or not to participate in:
---> the 3rd (4th?) annual Earth Day Celebration the ReStore in April
---> the Recycle/Reuse Art Auction
---> the silent auction @ work

In roughly that order. I also have some ideas incorporating Latvian designs in to light switches, making a second window if the first one turns out well enough, and once D & I coordinate our schedules, there will be a 3.5' x 7.5' painting thrown in that list, too ... though at the moment this is still in the "brand new canvas needs prep" stage so no promises on pictures.

I hereby pledge to send a handmade gift to the first SIX people who comment on this entry. No real promises about time frame, but it’ll be within the next 365 days.

By the way, I'm going to just keep moving this post to the top until I get 6 people signed up...

in the pipeline....

Here's what you'll see in the next few weeks:

1. a three panel painting. Total size = 8' wide x 3' tall
   (I'm still working on making the frames and stretching the canvas)


2. a lino-print for a print exchange in California (I'm still..... ahhh.... remembering how to cut linoleum. yeeeouch.)


3. some Latvian-inspired metal work


4. some more sketches from work
   (need to remember to bring work notebooks home for the evening)


5. Eventually some more lightswitch plates, too.
   (It's about that "that time"... though I have yet to signup for any holiday fairs... I am procrastinating. a LOT.)

7 random things

Since I was tagged and I feel like sitting downstairs for a bit... I will fill out the request, but with the standard L-edits

The Rules:
• Start with 7 random facts/habits about yourself
• People who are tagged have to write their 7 things on their blog
• Then choose another 7 people to get tagged and list their names
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they have been tagged


1. In general I find that at any given time I have no fewer than 5 projects in some form of not-finished.
2. I have heard people refer to those as UFOs... Unfinshed Objects.. so apparently my house has UFOs in it.
3. The UFOs are usually in vastly different mediums. (in other words, when I say 5 projects, I don't mean I am knitting 5 scarves or painting 5 paintings at a time)
4. My favorite art materials are.... metal, glass, cement and paint. In roughly that order.
5. Even though paint ranked as #4 in that list... I have oil paints that I am a little afraid of trying. Something about needing strong chemicals to clean your brushes/fingers and the paint not drying for ages.... it also brings to mind images of some cool painting marred by stupid pets while I'm not home.
6. I tried batiking for the first time ever today. let me tell you. it's a SLOOOOOW process.
7. my hands were dyed blue-green for most of friday and saturday but I remembered to wear gloves when batiking today.... so except for a little dye around all of my fingernails, we're pretty back to normal in this house :)

in the hopes of keeping myself a bit more on task, here is a list of art-type projects that I have in progress somewhere on the premises:

• sterling silver jewelry
• light switch covers
• sand-blasted glassware
• a stained glass window (for my bathroom)
• a wall-shelf to be mosaiced (also for my bathroom)
• a bowling ball for my yard (to be mosaiced)
• styrofoam insulation blocks --- to be glued together, sculpted, covered with a ~4 inch layer of flying cement and then treated with an interesting surface treatment (mosaics, paint, and a few other texture-related plans) and sealed with envirotex
• a dresser to re-finish
• back porch to tile
• mosaic project for bathroom #2 (wall/sink/nook plan)
• a couple of other, smaller glass/mosaic ideas
• a number of fabric projects (some re-cycling, some quilting, some batik-ing, some just fixing things)
• a number of paintings (acrylic and watercolors)

and now.... now i think i see what my 'problem' is... i need to pick one or two to focus on and THEN go on to the others... i think tomorrow I'll photograph the things i've done for April 1st SpringFest and see if I can figure out how to x-post to TCEKU...