Creative Dawn

2nd Cutting board painted Until I started blogging and trying to find thrifty items to paint, I never realized that cutting boards were available in so many shapes.  Of course there is the basic paddle board style, but there are also many animal shapes.  This is the second cat one that I have found.  There is a small area in my home that had a black and white theme so like the past cat that was posted this one is also B & W.  The design is a variety of patterns, kind of a signature of my style. Oops!  Thought I posted the first cat, but didn't. Here it is.  1st Cutting board painted

Black and white is a favorite combination of mine.  This is a great fabric that I found a while ago at Hancock Fabrics.  It has a girl power decade motif from the 50's to the 2000's.  From the moment I saw it, it was meant to be!  For a few months now, it has resided in my fabric bin until today when this idea came to mind.  The smaller of the two had almonds in it originally and the taller was just an empty canister bought at the Goodwill.  For the smaller one, I covered it in a circle design fabric and then added the decade black and white motif as a pincushion topper.  The tall canister was first covered in a black and white polka dot print and then I cut out the decade motifs and adhered them to that fabric.  At this point in time the taller canister has no specific purpose other than general storage but the smaller one is my new safety pin holder.  I did add a fun black and yellow taste to the one canister for a bit of interes...

I love this drawing!  Don't you wish you had boots this fun!  Maybe I could be a shoe/boot designer and bring my style to the fashion world.  I think this would look great in red with black accents.  The top could be a faux fur of some sort.  This definately deserves a cool frame.  Looks like I need to start digging around for frames and some more unique embelishments.  Future posts???

Today was another beautiful day and I have tomorrow off.  WOO HOO!  So many things to do and so many projects to work on.  As with any day off my to do list is probably way more than I can accomplish, but I love to keep busy.  Oh yeah, discount Tuesday at the Goodwill, may have to add one more thing to my list! While doodling, this idea came to mind.  It originally was going to be just three or four profiles, but I just kept building on it.  These were all cut out individually and then mounted on the black background.  It's cool because you can look at it as a whole and then look at each face.  I am in no way comparing myself to MC Escher, but it has that kind of optical illusion effect.  It is so exciting to me that after so many years of being an artist that I can still discover new mediums that inspire my creativity.

This is soooo cool!  For a while I have been wanting to make some lampshades and have been looking at my favorite budget stores for a great shade.  A few weeks ago this one caught my eye and it was only a $1.50.  The shade itself is nice and the shape is really cool.  Most people would be happy to have it as is, but not me, I had to tear off the fabric and recreate it to suit my style.  The original idea came from something that jumped into my brain just as I was falling asleep.  It seemed like it would work and in the end the vision in my head matched the final outcome.  My bin O' fabric was calling my name and it was saying black and white of course, then I had to add a bit of red to make it pop.  I started by making small cuts in the fabric that measured about a half an inch and then started to tear it apart.  After all of the strips were torn, I just knotted the fabric to the top of the shade frame and then secured the bot...

Hello!   I think I have a case of the Mondays! Another day, work is work, still looking for a change.  While I know that a dream job is mostly just a dream, a girl can wish right?  On Saturday, I made a trip to my favorite local thrift shop and got some goodies.  This one I debated over but in the end decided that for eighty cents I could figure out a project.  It is amazing how many items are made using a heart theme.  There is never a shortage of them.  This one was simple but the rope was too much for the size of the hearts and with some effort, I tore it off.  Sometimes if an idea doesn't just jump out at me, I paint things in a neutral color like black or white and from there the inspiration grows.  The designs on the hearts are some of my standards, my style.  I really liked the way the original piece had them all in a decending row so I did the same.  Instead of thick rope, a sparling ribbon was attached to...

Some days I get up and have no idea what the blog will be about, that was today.  I went to work, came home, made dinner, checked my email and then thought about what to do.  While I was watching a movie with my husband I was looking through catalogs and trying to get some kind of inspiration.  It wasn't happening.  Finally I grabbed some paper and was going to start doodling when I came across this letterhead with a fish motif.  That was my inspiration!  After drawing a few fish it came to me, what if I drew the fish and then cut out the shape.  After it was finished, I surprised myself.  It is something that a year ago would have never came to me, but since starting this blog, some great ideas have poured out of me.  I got the frame from the Goodwill and painted it.  The saying that was in the frame originally was great so it was set aside for a future project. 

I love frames because there are so many possibilities.  Whether it's for photos or artwork or just for a display there are endless uses for them.  This is a collage frame from the Goodwill.  It was beat up a bit, so I added a new coat of paint in a bright color.  My inspiration for the pictures came from something is saw hanging in an office building.  Those designs were in black and white and were made from circle and rectangle shapes.  My designs as you can see from past work are more free flowing shapes and blobs.  I used scrapbook paper and cut the black one to fit the frame.  I traced the frame opening shapes and started doodling to come up with a look that I liked.  The final drawings were used as templates to trace onto the white paper.  Using a scissor with a fine point, I cut out the designs and mounted them on the black paper, framed it up and there you have it.  It is something that just about anyone can do and with the p...

Goodwill + Tuesdays = Awesome!   I was at the Goodwill of course and found this lamp, I really needed one for my living room.  It was regularly 4.99 with a blue tag, this past Tuesday was 1.49 on ALL blue tags.  I couldn't resist the deal, it was a great size, heavy, simple and basic with potential.  I looked at it for a while until an idea came to me.  The finished design looks like the shape of the spots on a giraffe.  Of course it's black and white, my favorite!  After painting it with a semi-gloss finish, it found a new home in the living room.  Now to find a good lamp shade and it will be perfect.  I do have a cool idea for the shade once I find one that, but that's a future post.  Stay tuned!

I love cats, unfortunately I don't have any right now.  I had some great pets in the past and made a collage of them.  My cats were Purrcilla, Oliver and Mystr.  Purrcilla was all black and the others black and white.  Hm...color theme again?  I took some pictures of them and used a copy machine, not a scanner, to make the collage.  Some images were enlarged to various sizes and because I used a copier instead of a scanner/printer, there are different shades on the pictures.  I laid out the pictures before glueing them and didn't realize until it was finished that it kind of resembled the shape of a cat sitting.  This is a favorite of mine because it reminds me of my beloved pets.  This is also a project that anyone can do, it's a great way for kids to be creative and to also use up old magazines.  You can collage anything from landscapes to portraits.

Another Goodwill find, a cute little pig cutting board.  I know, a pig with a pink motif, but I love it paired with the black and white.  I am really not sure what to do with the finished product because he doesn't fit into my kitchen decor, but I do really like him!  Once again with the blocked design, but, I have always liked things like that.  HELLO!  Not a flower person!  As I look back over the years, I have realized how many times I actually have painted and drawn things in sections or block designs.  Most artist do have a style that they favor, this is mine.  So, here is my block style pink piggy.  Oink oink!

I did a side table with some left over curtains from where I used to live, but a lot of the fabric was still left over.  I decided it would be a great curtain by the front door.  Previously, it had the standard white sheer panel that many people put up.  Well, I need a bit more of a dramatic look, so, I took down the old one, put it on the floor next to my fabric to measure the length and added a few inches on each end for the pocket that fits the curtain rod.  It took all of 30 minutes and now my front door has a look that is me and it was a free project.

  Today, I have a drawing and it is one of three.  The rest will be posted soon.  At this time, I am waiting for the right frames to use for the pictures.  They are going to be proudly  displayed in my kitchen above the cupboards. Kitchen decor can be very boring sometimes.  Pots, pans, giant utensils, fruit and farm animals are just a few of the themes people seem to use.  Well, I love my geometric shapes, so that's what I got for decor.  Below is another part of my Halloween costume.  What could it be?  Only a few more days before I post the completed outfit!