Weekly Canvas Panels

King Crow
Mrs. Bird
Party Bird

These are my weekly canvas panels that I have been working on. Since my outside time is limited I am trying to bring the outside in. I did these with oil pastels, a pencil, and my heat gun.

Oil Pastels

I am frustrated. I bought a product thinking I was doing something good for the environment, helping to save the planet in little ways, baby steps so to speak. I bought some oil pastels from a local craft store, one of the biggies, made by Loew Cornell. They say the labels and packaging is recycled. Okay that is good. The the actual pastels are non toxic an organic. They then go on to talk about there blending capabilities. I am sold. They are the same price as the other cheapy oil pastels I love. Even though there are only 20 and the ones I usually use come in a package of 24, these are small and the others are big and fat, I am doing right for the environment. Right.

I tried them last night and they are DRY. Did I say DRY. So dry they actually ripped the paper I was working on. Unbelievable. Blendable - no way. They were horrible. I have had better luck with crayons. I know the oil in them is what makes oil pastels work so well and also so environmentally unfriendly. But...for goodness sake they need to work.

I have decided to treat this as a butter versus margarine issue. The Loew Cornell oil pastels are like margarine and my favorite cheap ones, Portfolio's are the butter. So, I am off to spread some butter on a new project.

Row Houses

Houses have been on my brain lately. Maybe it is because I had my kitchen floors and hallways replaced, stained, sanded and finished. This meant six days and five nights at a local resort. On the beach. Sounds like fun? Actually after a few days you just want to be home and sleep in your own bed. Home looks pretty good!

These are row houses. I first saw these on a yahoo group, Next Generation Stamper, and the Creative Card Swap group and then on Trish Bee's blog. Leave it to those talented British. They just sort of sat in the back of my mind. I believe they did a swap, but with knowing my floors had to be done and the commotion surrounding that I was afraid to join in. I get discouraged when people don't follow through. So, I decided to make a bunch for myself.

I don't know the "right" way to do this or even if there is a "right" way. This is how I did them. I took 3 by 5 inch index cards and cut the various size house shapes out of them. Then, I got out the oil pastels and chalk inks and just played with colors. After that the fun began. Stamping. I forgot how much I enjoy stamping and how many stamps I have. You can use decorative paper, scraps, material, whatever you want to make your house out of. Each one is just a little piece of home. Add embellishments, just go to town. You will be surprised how fast your village will grow.

This could be a portable art if done in stages. The cutting and coloring on the go and the stamping and embellishing in the studio. I also think this could be a lot of fun to do with kids - of all ages. Leave a baskets of pastels, house shapes and some embellishments on the table and see what they come up with. I see lots of possibilities with these.....

One piece of Paper

The long weekend was long.....I always feel like I need to clean and start the new week of right. I am not sure why I have this compulsion, but it is there. Sunday night, after all the cordite had cleared and the house was back to normal, I decided to clean up my work space in my studio. So with recycling in mind I decided to make a few quick things with the paper on my worktable.

The paper that covers my work area was covered in ink, acrylic, and oil pastels. So a few random snippets of text, and a few images pre-cut that I had also laying around I made four 3 by 5 skinnies and a couple of ATC's. I think orange and turquoise are my new favorite colors. They seem to be showing up a lot in my art work. Have you noticed certain colors showing up in your work?