Top Ten of 2016

Hi artsy friends! It's been a long time since I've blogged. 2016 has been a very busy and somewhat distracting year. It's been full of personal goals being met, but also a year of making tough choices. One of those tough choices was letting my design team obligations go and just create for me. This means that I haven't been under the gun to create and have sort of let it go by the wayside. Not that I haven't created art. I have! I just work on art over a longer period of time and with no deadlines. I've been running, working, teaching, and parenting. I've had an emotional roller coaster of a year and learned a lot about myself and people around me. My family is busy too... sports, performances, a child in middle school, a child still in elementary and loving it. It's been a heck of a year. So, as a tradition, here are my top 10 pieces of art created this year.

If you leave a comment on my blog, I'll pick a random winner for a small prize of a pack of Steampunk Colored Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Gelatos. Leave a comment by midnight on January 1st!

1) 2016 Canvas: I created this for Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft and did a second one for them to display at trade shows. It was slightly different in color but same design. I displayed this on my mantel for the New Year and I'm thinking I need to do another or change the year for this year!

2) Altered Canvas Sneakers: Another fun project for Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft and love wearing these still! They always get a lot of questions and compliments. I love unique shoes!

3) Journey Mini Album using Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft's mixed media kit.

4) Encaustic Painting with Image transfers

 5) An art journal page... we did a swap for the art teachers in my district. We all trade sketchbooks and do pages in them each month and pass them on. At the end of the year art show, we display them!

6) Another Altered Shoe project... wedges this time!

 7) Die cut Encaustic necklace: Using a chipboard die cut, I created a monoprint with wax crayons and adhered it from the back. Lined with felt and a necklace attached. Love wearable art this year!

8) Nature's Playground: An amazing ceramic tile mural project that I worked with my students in grades Kindergarten through 6th grade and a visiting artist on. Deb Walsh helped kids create these relief tiles and created two huge murals outside facing our playground. So, while I didn't actually create the whole thing, I help design and facilitated the project and I'm so proud of the kids for this work!

 9) Blackbird Fly Away: Encaustic Mixed Media piece that won Honorable Mention at the New York State Fair Fine Arts exhibit.

10) Beehive: Encaustic Mixed Media- Won 2nd place at New York State Fair.

 This piece is an Intuitive Painting piece that isn't done yet, but I created in an amazing workshop at the NYSATA Conference this year. I'll post when I think it's finished.

 I hope 2016 treated you well and you created some work to be proud of. If you had a difficult year, I wish you all the best in 2017! Happy New Year!

If you leave a comment on my blog, I'll pick a random winner for a small prize of a pack of Steampunk Colored Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Gelatos. Leave a comment by midnight on January 1st!

Please visit all of the blogs in this Top Ten hop and leave a comment for a chance to win a prize on some of them!

Mendi Yoshikawa

Audrey Yeager

Christine Meyer 

Juliana Michaels  

Wendy Antenucci 

Suzanna Lee 

Karen Hunter

Monique Liedtke

Kat Benjamin

Jennifer Haggerty

Jen Matott

Missy Whidden

Marcia Dehn Nix 

Heather Leopard

Rebecca Keppel 

Traci Penrod

Melissa Elsner

Monika Wright

Laura Whitaker 

Chantalle McDaniel 

Starting From The Same Place... An Artist's Collaboration

Welcome to 

"Starting from the Same Place" artist collaboration.....

What is this artist collaboration I speak of? Well, there was a call out to see if artists wanted to participate in a challenge of sorts... 

We were all sent similar packages of bits and baubles and encouraged to use EVERYTHING our kit contained.  It was a fun mix of vintage, handmade and fun finds.  There was even a cool stencil from Stencil Girl!  Thank you to Beacon Adhesives and Amazing Casting Products for contributing to this amazing group of artists and sparking our creativity!

I really had a hard time deciding how to approach this project.  I was going to make a journal page, then I was going to make a mini album, but then I was in a craft store looking for something for another project and came across a small oblong box.  It was begging to be altered!  So alter it I did!

I loved using all the bits in different ways.  First, I painted some with acrylic paints. The resin pieces were especially fun to alter!  I hid the gear piece behind a window.  The flower was painted to give a pop of color!

 Found items like branches, feathers, and old paintbrushes were added to the back of the box.  A collection of sorts... nature and manmade... a marriage of the two!

 A fun item I created for the top of the box!

 I LOVED this Viewmaster piece in the bits sent to me!  Brough back memories of childhood.  I loved incorporating both the envelope and disk!

A close up of some of the nature vs. manmade items.

I have no idea what these were from but I love the look of it overlapping the texture paste stenciled design.  Splattered paint gives another element that provides texture.

A HUGE Thank You to Tina Walker and Susan M. Brown for all your hard work putting this collaborative project together.

Beacon Adhesives, Amazing Casting Products and StencilGirl Products for the items to make our kits so inspiring!

Other items I used:

wooden box (Michaels)

Tim Holtz metal feet and embellishments

Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Whipped Spackle

Golden Paints and Matte Gel Medium

Doily

Other items from my stash

Thanks for visiting my blog!

An InLinkz Link-up

Metallic Textures Mini Book and a winner!

Hi friends!  I promised to post photos of my mini book from last night's Ustream class with Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft!  If you want to see the video again go here!   So sorry to keep you all waiting for me to pick a winner from my Top 10 blog post... I'll announce at the end here!

Journal board cover

 Kraft paper page

 Mixed Media paper

 Cork paper page

Texture cardstock

Hope you enjoyed the class and if you make one, link me up so I can leave you a comment!

Annnnddd... my winner from my Top 10 post is... 

 Emily Ricketts said...

Would love to win!emilyannogle@yahoo.com

Emily, please forgive me for taking so long to post this!  It has been a crazy few weeks!  I'll get your prize out as soon as you let me know your address!

Jen