Plein air and a chickie.

First of all, obligatory Chickie. Chickies, as featured in my silly attempt at children's book illustration last winter, are tiny birds that live in the forest and like berries. They do not like bugs, worms, or evil things that eat them, but will use tools to achieve their goals.

~6x8 inches, acrylic on board.

The following two are a result from my first-ever plein air outing with a group of fellow artists. Plein air is scary-- the light keeps moving.  Each is 12x12 inches, acrylic on board.

Polymer clay!

Recently, I've been making polymer clay ornaments with inclusions... Christmas ornaments in June. What else is new? (With that said, I think my picture taking abilities are getting better.)

 There are 18 in the first batch, most with bead, pearl, or semi-precious rough stone inclusions.

 Some will go to relatives and friends as gifts, others will be put up in my Etsy store.

Christmas ornaments in June?

Polymer clay with inclusions.. Thinking of putting these up on Etsy.

On the book front, I've been listening to Fall of Giants, by Ken Follet. Now, I liked the guy's Pillars of the Earth, but when he gets down to writing unabashed soft porn, ones' opinion of him really does go down... Still. Good book, good narration by John Lee.

Kitty mask #2!

Finally finished painting the bugger. Polymer clay with inclusions, painted with acrylic paint. 3X4 inches. Available for sale.

People have asked why I paint polymer clay, rather than use the numerous colors already available. The answer is two-fold: first of all, colored polymer clay is more expensive and I already have the paint on hand. Secondly,  it's hard to disguise seams between parts when you are using differently colored parts to start out with.

Doughnut

A long time ago, El-the-hubby won (actually, lost.. it was a consolation prize) Doughnut the frog in one of the boardwalk games down by Rehoboth, Delaware. Since then, he's been a traveling companion for us.

12x20 inches, acrylic on board, spoken for.

A few quick paintings.

Donkey
12x12 inches, acrylic on board
Spoken for

Arizona landscape
12x12 inches, acrylic on board
Not spoken for (~50)

Potted plants
5x5 inches, polymer clay + quartz and garnet chips, painted with acrylic (Still needs to be inserted into a shadow box)
Not spoken for (~30)

Dream of the Sea Lizard #2

Dream of the Sea Lizard #2. 

24x24 inches, acrylic on board.

Not spoken for (~500)

Stream of consciousness painting is basically a process in which I start with a dark, finger-painted background and add things as they come to mind. Each of the elements have their own stories (Chickory is a travel-flower, for instance.. the strange walking sea-horse is a male that's carrying his offsprings in a pouch.), but I like to think that the image as a whole represents something more. A state of mind over four days or so?