Archive for Completed Works
Change is Good
I can report to you, my friends, that I am having a happy day. Those were harder to come by during all of my turmoil months back in trying to figure things out, but as with any real change and growth there is some fire, some shaking, some opening of the earth. But at some point, that all settles back down and cools and we are left with a new landscape. It’s different than the old one, but that’s not all bad and even exciting sometimes as you have new places to explore.
I wanted to share with you some of the photos from a recent “Senior Portraits” shoot I did in my little home studio. The model is named Kyle, and she is a senior at McDonough High School. She has long loved old movies, so some of her more personality-driven photos included that theme.
I am working on a page with price schedules for portraits, headshots and fantasy collages, like the one at the bottom, I made from Kyle’s shoot. That page will have all of the pricing and scheduling information on it. I will post a link to it as soon as it’s done. Thanks so much for looking at my photos!
I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!
Tracy and I met for “Full Afternoon Tea” at The Royal Tea Room in La Plata on Saturday. It was a lovely, long and relaxing lunch where two high-class ladies spoke of only the road conditions and the weather, as is proper.
Okay, part of that is true. We did go for tea, but we talked about ALL SORTS of stuff! Even stuff ladies aren’t supposed to talk about, especially when they are having a proper tea!
Our server was great. Also very clean and pretty. Recently, at Olive Garden (in Waldorf), I had a waitress who had a filthy shirt on – it was FILTHY – and her hands looked quite dirty as well. NOT HAPPY about that. I was distracted the whole dinner and wanted to get up and leave. If we hadn’t just waited over an hour to be seated and if I’d had anything in the old ice-box at home, we would have bolted. I was worried all evening that one of us would get sick. Also, everybody else was starving and I didn’t want to be the one who said, “WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!” I won’t be eating there again.
Anyway, as for The Royal Tea Room, it’s very neat and clean looking. The owner seemed stressed the day before on the phone, when she asked if I was sure we would be prompt. Then again in the throws of putting together an event that was to start at two, she seemed rather rushed. I guess it’s good they are getting a lot of business, I just hope that she meditates a little before each big event.
You can go there and order regular meals, such as lunch. We opted for tea, though, to get the full tea experience.
Not for vegans, that’s for sure. I gave up my dairy-ban for the day and also ate some chicken and ham for said tea experience. The chicken salad was very good and so was the tiny tuna melt. There was a lemon blueberry triangle of something sweet that I enjoyed. And of course, the little pink cake was the icing on top. I just adore pink icing!
The best thing I ate, and totally worth the dairy ban lift, was the cream of crab soup. Succulent chunks of crab in a creamy sauce of a soup that my arteries will be working on for weeks. It was a dainty cup of soup though, so I didn’t feel too bad about it!
Our lemon, honey and cream was brought out on the dainty tray. We were able to choose our tea cup from a shelving area with various sorts of tea cups and saucers on it. Tracy opted for super-dainty. I liked the teal flowers on mine.
The server (whose name I neglected to request) smiled for the camera along with Tracy.
Below is an image of Tracy – pinkie out. I insisted. We were putting on “airs.” You’d have to be a Spongebob fan to understand.
See the cute pink one on top? YUM!
Me with my pinkie out!
Under My Umbrella
When Jade got into the car this morning she realized she’d forgotten her umbrella. I said, “I wanted to remind you about it, but I felt I’d reached my reminder limit with you.” At 15 she doesn’t like to be reminded not to forget things. Then, she sometimes says, “Why didn’t you remind me?” This particular feature of my little angel is something that must be genetic, because her daddy is the same way. She said, “I hope Courtney didn’t spend too much time on her hair.” This perplexed me since Courtney was not in our vehicle and nor did she even ride the bus home with Jade. It turns out that Jade shares her umbrella before a certain class in which she has a trek from the school to the outside classroom. I say “outside classroom” but they are trailers. I know there probably isn’t a school in America these days that doesn’t have one. Anyway, I thought that was sweet. I imagined her holding the umbrella as she and Courtney walked together to class.
I’m slightly miserable today. Each time I cycle I think it can’t be worse the next time, but sometimes it’s worse. Heating pads and ibuprofen – the badges of a real woman. Oh, and don’t forget the chocolate. I’ve already be-headed a darling dark chocolate Dove bunny. Will also got me these adorable bug truffles. Aren’t they just the cutest?
The bugs actually had little molded faces, which was a kind of neat surprise. They also had little crispy bits inside and it made me wonder if Lindt did that on purpose for a nice light buggy crunch? HAHA!
I am playing Chocolat in the DVD player. It’s in the other room, but turned up so I can hear it. Sometimes it’s too quiet and I am not in the mood for music, but rather just voices. Chocolat has today’s bloggy themes of chocolate and gypsies, which makes it a perfect choice. When it is over, perhaps I will listen to the disks from my “Enchanted” collection I got for my birthday.
I am wishing for sunshine. It’s been raining so much here.
I often wonder about moving to Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona or California. They seem like mostly sunny places with artsy towns here and there. I wonder.
I am wishing for a big tree in the back yard where Will could build his treehouse.
And I’d cherish a pond with a koi. Or, I’d settle for goldfish.
I suppose I should find more delights in what I already have. Indulge in the sumptuousness around me, yes? Well, sometimes with the dog holes gaping at me in the back yard and the pile that needs to go to the dump on the side of the house and the evidence of my woeful gardening abilities are so glaring, they are hard to ignore. So, yes, I find my dainty pleasures where I may, but there is still much to fix and do that sometimes can be a joy suck.
Day before yesterday I lay on the hammock, my head hanging off of the side and marveled at the brilliant clear blue of the shameless sky. It made the perfect backdrop for something I had not even noticed the day before – buds on the trees. The trees beyond the rusty chain-link fence. Oh, if I could only learn to love chain-link. But in my upside down position I could hardly see the chain-link and only the peachy-yellow buds asserting themselves on the branch tips against the backdrop of that crystalline sky. Here is a photo of what I saw. I wish you could have been here – it was lovely.
Other wishes: I am wishing for a lovely gypsy tent in the yard as soon as the weather is dry and balmy for two days in a row, and since I will not soon have my dreamy vardo.
Yes, I still have vardo dreams – in fact, they have spawned a new artsy idea. Though some of my research makes the concept seem overly daunting, I can’t help but be optimistic. With some help from Willo (that is the dreamy name I will call him when I speak of art and gypsies) I think it won’t be too technically overwhelming. All of those things will have to wait though, until the Body Politics installation is, well, installed at Artomatic.
Also, the Baltimore Playwright Festival is looming. Gotta clean up Delia and get her submitted. I might submit my short diner play too. We’ll see.
Look at this band of gypsies, they need a little spot to relax, wouldn’t you say?
Tiles Finished
I picked my finished tiles up from Prince Frederick yesterday. He looked smashing! Just kidding of course – gosh that was corny!
Jade and I headed out to Lusby and picked up the tiles I worked on in my Parran Collery class at Annmarie Garden. I wrote a nice email to the director of AMG and the person in charge of events/classes etc – but never heard back. Weird.
Whilst finishing up my tiles on Tuesday Jade made friends with Uma, who she then scritched some more on Thursday when we picked up the work.
I dare say that the work does look like practice tiles. I am very happy with them, but you can tell I have some time work to do before I master the technique. Especially when it comes to figuring out glaze. At least for working on the look I want from it. I think the purple works fine in the background of the dragonfly piece, but I would have had a more opaque color for the frame part if I had been able to visualize it better. I’m very excited about the progress I’ve made with clay so far and am looking forward to really working more and more with the medium. Can’t wait to finish the garage studio! That will make a big difference in how often I am able to work.
Below are the finished product. Some are in the yard. The dragonfly will stay in the house.
There are two Starry Night tiles because of a fluke really. I made one to cast. Usually the one you make a cast from is destroyed in the process. However, it came off of the cast in one piece so Parran fired it with the stamped one I made from the cast itself. I gave them different glaze colors. I like the blue better. But they both have their charm.
Jade helped me with the sun tile. She colored all the jade inbetween the stars for me – a bit time consuming – while I worked on painting glaze on the other pieces.
Great class. Great experience. I can’t wait to try out all of the stuff I learned!
Fairy Fantasy Photo Fiddling
I have been playing around with Photoshop to see the different sorts of effects I can make on a photo. I have enjoyed playing with the lighting, the color, the layering. The backgrounds are of landscape, sky and plant photos taken by Robert, Will and me. My daughter Jade has taken some pretty teriffic flower photos, I may use some of those too. It’s been fun finally getting to use the images I’ve been amassing for so long!
I am also doing all of this in preperation for for my Snow White photo project I’m planning on. Can’t wait!
This is the original photo that I took in the summer of 2002 when I was just starting out with my little 2 or 3mp camera. Rob and Jackie did a great job as models. I have some great friends who like to play with photography as much as I do! Good times.
“Wake Up Little Fairy”
Below are the various incarnations of me toying with the image. You can click on them to see them larger.
This one has a very "romance novel" look to it. Some people think the purple wings are a bit over-the-top. Maybe I do too a little, but I still think like it! What's wrong with over-the-top sometimes?
This one is duskier in color. I how everything looks like it has a veil over it. It's a bit dreamy.
This one is sort of sepia-toned with a "hand colored" look to parts of it.
I did a hue saturation on this and I LOVE what it did to Jackie's hair. This crazy unreal coloring makes me feel like this really could be in some kind of fairy realm.
Fern of the Dragonflies
I took a class given by artist Tammy Vitale who I also am doing Body Politics with, which we hope to exhibit at Artomatic this year again as we did last year. The class was to learn how to make a clay torso from beginning to end. I am very happy with the way my torso came out. Even as I took photos of her, I realized she’s a whole world unto herself. The photos alone were worth the effort of making the torso. Since we finished our torsos so quickly we also made a tile. I love how that came out too. I especially love the sage green with the slightly rusty color together. My parents had come up for the day to collect my daughter Amber for a visit. They got to the house ahead of me and my mother very much liked both items. I asked her if she wanted the tile and she was very happy to take it home.
Above is my mother holding her new tile.
This is a close up of the tile, which was made mostly with stamps. I love the swirly-ness! I did make the same mistake on both pieces, which Tammy warned me might happen if I wasn’t careful. I missed a few spots where the glaze didn’t fill in. It didn’t look bad really, so I didn’t mind – which is what Tammy said was all that mattered!
Here I am with my girl. I am calling her Fern. I just need to find a place to hang her!
Here is a detailed image of the butterfly that occupies the space that her yoni would be.
Here is a close up image of one of the several dragonfly impressions on the piece.
If you get a chance to take one of Tammy’s classes, I highly recommend it!
Rubber Stamp Victory
I finished the rubber stamp.
Things I learned:
I hope I can find a gouge with a less severe groove pitch – something with a wide u at least.
Be patient – if you rush, you gouge too deep.
Don’t be afraid to modify your design a bit.
The pencil drawing transfers VERY nicely onto the rubber stamp when flipped and rubbed.
I’m still confused about whether or not I need to flip the design when transferring to make it match the drawing. That double-backwards flippy thing is confusing.
I’m pretty happy with the way it came out. I hope that it stamps nicely!
The nice thing about carving your own stamps is that you will have a stamp nobody else has. When you’ve been stamping a while you notice that others tend to have your favorite stamps too because they are great stamps. And its fine to keep using those too – the world is big enough for that. However, it feels nice when you have something distinctive that was created from scratch.
Peace! Love! Create!
More Art Adventures
I am pretty excited that I will be taking the Tammy Vitale torso class I mentioned in a recent entry. That’s starts Saturday.
Today I will be working on uploading some of my work to my galleries right here on my art site.
Here is another image I created from layering photos. The models – Rob and Jackie – were photographed in a friend’s secluded yard about seven years ago. It was one of my first photo sessions and I didn’t know a whole lot about lighting and my camera was only 2 or 3megapixels – which isn’t much better than your average cellphone cam.
Here is the outcome of yesterday’s photo adventure. It was called, “Wake Up Little Fairy” before it was altered. I think maybe it’s now called, “Violet Angel 2″ – to see the first Violet Angel, scroll down the page a little to the previous entry.
The Three Rs – Reading, Writing and Re-organizing.
Heather’s to do list:
Read up on the submission dates and guidelines for play contests.
Write some more notes for my fantasy novel.
Re-organize while I hunt down my tax stuff.
What will I be doing in artwork?
(You can click on any images to enlarge them.)
I will be doing collage works like this mixed media piece titled Purple Passion:
Mixed Media Collage - "Purple Passion"
I will also be doing a lot of work with my photos. I like layering them and applying filters, for texture and an ethereal effect. I’m very happy with this fairy portrait I made of my daughters. The image is many layers of photos taken in my studio or outside and even a moon photo taken by my husband as well as some winter woods photos we snapped. I then layer, erase, diffuse, apply lighting and flares and filters and this is what I got:
I am also very interested in doing fantasy portraits in good old fashioned watercolor. I think I am going to try my hand at them tomorrow if I am able to get my paperwork taken care of!
Here is the first fantasy portrait I ever did for a young woman named Robin. She volunteered to model for me in 2002 when I only had a 2 megapixel point-n-shoot. I can’t seem to find the file with the image I actually used for the painting, but the photo is one from that same shoot:
Update
I want to have an online art store at some point, but it’s very difficult to start up an online store properly – a lot harder than I thought it would be. I also have moved away from retail designs a bit. It’s tough making a living as an artist and try doing it in a recession when art for the most part is a luxury item. My art has become more political in nature.
Currently I have some work that I’ve done a shared exhibit with Tammy Vitale at Artomatic in DC. We’re on the 9th floor if you get to stop by. The exhibit is “Body Politics” – I will have to do major updates to the whole of this site and the art part too once I figure out what direction I am going in. I also want to do work for prints and cards for CornerStudioArtworks.com - that seems like fun.
I am also working on my fantasy novel I started the research and outline for about six months ago. I have integrated my photography, Will’s art and the story all together too – or rather maybe a better way to describe it is I am using each to inspire the other.
I want to take some of the characters in the story and make them “real” – taking photos of models as the characters. Some of the devices and props in the story – Will can make. I’m full of thoughts about the possibilities.
Artomatic closes June 15 – please come by if you can!
An admirer from Belgium
