My Art Work

I love, love, love to paint on canvas! I use acrylic craft paint and then seal my pics with a gloss or matte sealer. I began painting one day when I had some cross stitch material and thought about doing some wall hangings. So I made this first little guy welcoming us into Autumn, because I am a huge Fall fan! I love all the pumpkins and scarecrows and the earth-tone colors and the cool weather. So many of my paintings are folk art/fall related and it doesn't even matter if it's summer or spring or winter, I love to paint in the primitive and folk art genre.

After I used up my scrap material, I bought 11 yrds of a good cotton material that was on sale for $1 a yard! SCORE! I was able to get many paintings out of it. Some I left the edges raw and some I hemmed and added a wooden dowel and twine for easy hanging.

Trees are another one of my favs! I've painted many different kinds. This tree was made in the primitive look. Its crooked trunk and curvy branches give it a spooky halloween-ish feel. I actually do have some Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas pictures that I painted, but they are all put away with my holiday decorations. I'll get them out closer to fall and post them then.

There are times, though, that I like to divert from the folk art look and do something crazy. Like this fish. This little guy is completely wild and the colors were exciting to work with! I really wanted to blend the colors together and have them fade into each other. I think I pulled it off well!

In my first post for today, I said I wouldn't take pictures of all of my paintings, but there really weren't many left over that I didn't take pictures of! Ha! And there have been paintings that I've given as gifts, so I don't have them readily available for snap shots. But, I hope you keep checking back, because there is more to come!~

TA DA!!

Ok, Tabby juiced up the digital camera and uploaded (or downloaded or whatever you do with it) all the pictures I took to my files and now I can add them whenever I'm ready!! Yay!
So, the very first one I will post is the crocheted TN/GA blanket I made for Tripp. And there he is when he was just little! I decided to crochet this blanket because it was a big thing between his parents, my niece, April, and her husband, Lee, about which team they're fans of. April is a TN fan (Go Vols!) and Lee is a GA fan (but we don't hold it against him). The recessional song at their wedding was Tn's and Ga's fight songs! So when they found out Tripp was coming, I thought what better gift could I give them? Of course, I could never make them and sell them without getting licensing, but I can make them for gifts. I was really proud that it turned out so well!~

I Said I was Fickle!

Last week it was painting on canvas and gluing polymer clay sculptures to it. Today and yesterday it was writing on the long story I spoke about (which I will probably stay on until I hit a writer's block), but I also must revisit my artwork sometime today after Tabby's camera charges up so I can begin to once again take pictures of them all and post them here on my site. Maybe today I can get them posted. Granted, I won't post ALL of them, just the ones I think are best.

I'm also posting another one of the blankets I made for my niece's son, Tripp, (not Whitley's mom--my other niece). This is the one that got me started working on blankets for all of my nieces' and nephew's kids. I'm currently working on one for Whitley's brother, Keaton, and then I'll start on Jackson's--my nephew's son. I also made one for Emma--my step-granddaughter, and Madison--my expected granddaughter--oh yeah, and one for a friend's little baby, Zoe. (I hope I spelled that right!) Wow! I never realized how many blankets I've cranked out! Besides those I also made two huge bedspreads for my and Bill's bed and I'm working on an afghan for our bed and a throw for my antique rocking chair. Being fickle causes me to have many projects going on at any given time.

I usually never know from day to day which project I will wind up working on when I wake up in the morning. I can't decide the night before what I'll work on the next day. I have several cloth dolls (I named Prissy Prims) that I've been working on from time to time (when I remember I'm doing them. They will be posted as well) and I think they are just adori-bell.

My other "fickle traits" come in the form that I usually end up being the last one to decide what I want to order at a restaurant or--on a broader scale--do with my life. I usually have an easier time ordering in a restaurant than deciding what to do with my life (professionally speaking) because ordering in a restaurant offers very little risk. I've always been very interested in the medical field. I don't know why, maybe it was because my mother worked for an insurance company for 26 years and I thought the building looked cool? Or maybe it was because I associated my mother's very stable job with a lower level of risk and the medical industry is by far the least risky profession to get into--if you pick the right venue. The problem between me and the medical industry (in which I have never had a job), I think, happened when I did very well in my Medical Assitant training, but flubbed up the practical side of it in my externship. I made a very low grade and it did something to my thinking--or my self-confidence.

Then a few years ago we bought our first house and were faced with higher-than-rent mortgage payments. Once again my fear of instability kicked in and I decided I should go back to school and get a degree with which I could safely land a secure job. So, what did I think to do? I took classes for an Associate's degree in Health Care Administration! What a shocker! I graduated in October of 2008. In November, I was at my sister's house in Arkansas when my husband informed me that my degree had come in the mail. I thought, "Oh, how nice." It really was very anti-climatic because my sister, Linda, was in the process of moving from her home in Arkansas to her home in Heaven. After going through all that, in January of '09, my best friend's father passed away and I was there with the family afterward and it was excruciating for everyone. I then found out I was going to be a Grammie again, which was exciting, but very unplanned. So, needless to say, my emotions and mental state were crazy. Then I kept feeling nauseous and it wouldn't go away so I went to the doctor and did all sorts of blood work and tests and found out I had an ulcer and needed my gallbladder removed (which I'm still waiting to do four months later).
After all that happened, I started to dread looking for a 9 to 5 job. Such fickleness! Now, the very thought of it absolutely turns my stomach. I just feel there is more required of my life than that and I can not shake it. So I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and I'm trying to do things that will fulfill my dreams. I have to. I can not do anything else. I WILL have the life I dream of and it will benefit me and everyone that God has brought or will bring into my life. Maybe then I'll only be fickle in restaurants!~

Whitley's Blanket

As I intimated earlier, I am not very technology savvy. Luckily, my kids know more than I so I can easily learn from them and take advantage of their knowledge, but the one whom I (and the kids) rely on most for all of our computer learning necessities is my wonderful sweetheart, Bill.
Bill is a self-professed computer geek! He knows soooo much! I am always astounded at the vastness of his knowledge. And if he doesn't know, he can usually quickly find out.
So what does this have to do with Whitley's blanket? The thing about it is that my daughter, Tabitha, took a picture of the blanket when I presented it to Whitley (my nieces daughter) with a digital camera and then put it on the computer, which is where I found it. I had no problem going in to her account, finding the picture, and copying and pasting it to the public pictures folder. But, I'm going to have to wait until Bill wakes up or Tabitha comes home (whichever comes first) before I can take pictures of any of my other creations and get them onto the computer. I've actually done it before, but I never know which cord to use or which thing to click on when the little box thingy comes up!
I'm sure now that I have a good reason to learn and will be doing it more often, I'll soon get the hang of it. So for now, since I know how to copy and paste, I can present a picture of one of the blankets I made. I'll soon be adding more of the hard copy pictures I can scan and easily get to. Have a great day!~

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! Except for email, this is my first attempt at doing anything similar to what the rest of the world is doing on the internet. I usually run about ten years behind the times of new technology and it's been a couple of years since I first heard the word "blog"--what an odd name!--so I guess maybe I'm getting better!

I decided to try a blog since it's free and easy to set up and because my husband and others in my family have been trying to get me to show off my artwork. I figured even I could do this much. I read about setting up a website and it really scared me with all the optimizing and search engines and such. Right now I don't know if the blog thing is any different than that, but I decided "let's just see"! Sometimes ignorance can be bliss!

I also wanted to use this blog as a creative outlet for my writing. I love to write! I'm currently working on a story--a long story!--and I've also thought about doing short stories as well. Whatever I'm in the mood for.

So, as I go about working on my new blog, adding and deleting different ideas to see what works and what doesn't, I hope you will walk with me and give your input and ideas (or instructions!) so we will both have an enjoyable place to visit!