Flowers Blooming, Canvases Brimming - the Spring will be Breathtaking.

A Lovely Friday.

Hope you all are ready for the weekend!

I certainly am...

There is no excuse to start getting outside, planting gardens, breathing the air, and taking in ithe beautiful birth of Spring this year.  So GO - well, read my post.  But then go!

Trees can dance like nobody else.

More art, more places!

I am very excited to have my work displayed in the gallery at Temple Shalom in Norwalk, CT.  I was able to hang some of my newer pieces, which is great because I am really running out of places to store things!

I'm excited that I get to show some work I've done in the past few weeks!

If you are far of in cyber-space, just take a virtual tour, led by my awesome fiance - he'll stroll you through my gallery in under a minute at this YouTube link HERE!

And here are some pictures...

 
 
 So, anyway, it is hung quite nicely and I'm so thrilled that some of my newer works get to see the light of day!  There are a few more gallery openings of mine in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!

So about that newsletter...

For those of you who are not signed up for the newsletter on amyoes.com...you should.  But if you just haven't gotten around to it, there is now a handy little newsletter archive on my website so you cn get all caught up before the next one!  Newsletter #6 will go out next week :)

"Tree Love"

Studio time YAY.

Fun things happening in the studio.  First, I'm waiting to get my hands on more spackling plaster before I attempt big 20 x 24 four seasons painting.

Summer-->Winter-->Autumn-->Spring

The idea was to have a tree of each season painted on each panel, but then it occured to me that I could even do one huge tree with a juicy thick trunk, sprouting four different trees out of it for all four seasons - I'm thinking something huge like the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom in Disney World - which only happens to be my favorite place in the universe and beyond.

The Tree of Life!

Man, I love Disney World, but that's a post for another time.  BUT - you can watch an awesome time lapse video of the Tree of Life being built here at this link so WATCH IT it's very fun!

An up close view...

And if you go back a very long time in this blog, you'll see that the 21st (yep) time I went to Disney World was for my 24th birthday - a bittersweet distraction, because I was unable to eat or drink anything - and it was hot.  But I actually brought gesso, magazine pages and watercolor crayons as a distraction when the hunger and thirst became too much for me.  And went on a bunch of fun rides :)

If you go all the way back in my blog to April 2011, you'll see how I made due not being able to eat or drink on my birthday - Art, Family, and MICKEY!  

Not the easiest thing being NPO for years...

NPO (means nothing through the mouth BOO) #1

NPO #2

NPO #3

Anyways, I'm thinking with some nice spackling plaster I could really get into creating an elaborate and enormous trunk that all four seasons could grow out of - I'll keep you posted!

Another trick of mine to create texture on the trunks is actually the spice nutmeg believe it or not!

Background #2!

I also painted another background today - mostly out of resourcefulness.  I wanted to do a huge nature scene to have my tree-couple finally walking down the aisle to be married in the forest (three months from TODAY actually YIKES!)

When Mr. Tree proposed!

So I looked through my canvases, and I have a billion 16 x 20 canvases, but nothing bigger.  So it occurred to me...

Put three 16 x 20 canvases together!

I'm glad I had this problem to begin with, because I'm quite happy with the solution!  My tree couple has come such a long way over time, and I'm excited to painted the tree bride walking over an aisle runner of leaves, with the tree groom waiting on the other end under a canopy of larger trees - tears in both of their eyes, of course.  And two hearts coming together.  This will be great fun to paint.

Sheesh.  I remember when they first met in 2011!

I'll post the intricate step by step layering photos I took to create this series when I'm done with it all!

I plan on hanging all of my tree couple paintings from their very first glance, to marriage, to their tree family sprouting all four seasons in our home together.  The trees have just taught me so much, guided my way, and have always been my sacred nature companions.  I couldn't imagine not bringing them into my married life.  Nature is part of me, us, everything.

Finishing my other series!

I am very excited about this little project of mine - for this four panel series, I used the spackling plaster I had been using for everything else, as well as this new jar that has a firmer texture.  

Spackle

When it's wet, it's pink, so you know it has finally dried when everything is white:

 The good part about it being wet is that I could see the figure I wanted to create.  Working with this is so fun - now I'm realizing I can create "sculptures" on canvas - I can make huge mountains, wells, and sculpt really three-dimensionally - and I can't tell you how easy it is to do!  Fast, cheap too :)

Once everything was dried and all firmed up, I could start painting things in.  

 
I didn't plan on anything - including the woman in the painting - I was just trying to dig deep holes into the spackle with my fingers, 'cuz it was fun.  But what evolved was this woman, who eventually turned into a tree trunk.  I still had to sort out the other dimensional things around her though...

This is what I came up with.  

I wanted a burst of fire in contrast with the depths of the ocean - something that could allow me to paint the darkness into the light - I really love playing with shading like that.

Now, my fiance said I should leave this as is.  But you know me.  Just can't.  But I added very minimal touches.  And I'm glad I did.

It's interesting - originally I painted the fire in the top left panel, and the fire was the grass with the flower on it, but it didn't feel right, so I switched it at the last minute.

 
 
It's also interesting how people see things differently - I thought of this as fire at the top and ocean at the bottom.  My fiance interpreted it as sun on the top, and that big well at the bottom is the moon in the night sky.

What do you all see?  Leave me a comment - I'd love to know!

More inspiring artists 'round the world wide web...

I'm going to keep featuring a few artists I've discovered every day because the internet is just brimming with inspiration - and hopefully I can encourage you to browse around and get some ideas too!  As you've probably noticed, I've been fascinated by paper sculpture and altered books lately.  Well, is this not unreal???

Awesome Book Carvings by Brian Dettmer

You can learn more about Brian Dettmer on his website and also watch a very interesting Ted Talk he gave on books reborn as art.

I also love making inchies and am always looking on the 'net to see what other artists do with them, since the possibilities are virtually endless.  (That link is a wonderful tutorial by Misty Frederick-Ritz)

Some of my own "inchies"

I love these sewn inchies by Nadine which I found on her website Fabric Bias.

Fabric Inchies by Nadine, artist and author

Random Inspiration...

It's the weekend - so here's some fun stuff...

Mark Strand on Dreams: A Lyrical Love Letter to Where We Go When We Go to Sleep

Jurassic Park recreated with Legos

How to Turn Ice Cream into Bread with just Two Ingredients

These Waffle Iron Hacks Prove That It's the Best Kitchen Appliance on Earth

Enjoy Today.

So much to create, and to be created!  I've got to get to Lowe's this weekend to buy some more spackle, and also pick up some huge canvases!  The future is a wide open trail, a blank canvas, a fresh jar of spackle just begging to be messed around with.  So go dig your fingers into that awesome gooey spackle and please to get creating!!!

"Bloom"

"Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance."-   Yoko Ono, Season of Glass