At work, but getting a little excited!

As I waited for a pile of documents to land on my desk, I decided to take a Facebook break. I ran across a glass sgraffito challenge by a fellow glass artist. How brilliant! A January challenge of 30 pieces in 30 days! I believe this post has been floating around for a while since there is more than 350 participants from around the world and today is New Years Eve, but I signed up for the challenge anyway!  I am getting excited!!!

Check out her Blog at Modern Ancient !

Happy New Year everyone!

Time for a change?

The holidays went beautifully.  I loved having all of my kids at home with us!  I cooked Christmas Eve dinner and had my some of my extended family to come join us.  We talked, we laughed we ate, and just enjoyed being together.

Now the new year is approaching and no matter how I fight the urge to set any resolutions, the wheels in my mind turn.  I am longing for a change. A change in where I live, a change of lifestyle, even a career change..... or not.   My spontaneous nature had been curbed the last 27 years due to my marriage and having children. My children are grown now, and fear of change has set in.  When I was young and spontaneous, I did get into some trouble, but I had fun. Now that I am older I would think I could do some living outside of the office and my home......

hating the suburbs and the cubicle today....

 

Grinches

This weeks been interesting.  I stayed off of Facebook for a whopping 3 days.  Do you know that when you don't log on Facebook they actually send a e-mail telling you have notifications.  I ignored the e-mail, stayed off of Face book until this happened.......

My husband bought a Christmas ball ornament and a small Snoopy decoration for a twig of a tree that we have in our front yard.  We thought it was cute.

Then one evening we noticed the Christmas ball was missing.  We thought it was strange that it was gone, and that that maybe the neighborhood kids may have taken it.  Well, we have cameras and my husband did a re-wind, and low and behold two grown ass women taking a walk through our neighborhood around 7:30 in the evening, cross the street to our house just to go into our yard and lift the Christmas ball.  That pissed me off. I had to do something......

I posted a sign in the yard...."Two girl Grinche's stole my Christmas tree ball.... Smile you are on Camera".

Since I believe these women our my neighbors, I am keeping it up  for a few more days until I replace the ornament.  I think they should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

So I thought this story was Facebook worthy..........

unplugged...just a little

I decided a couple of days ago that I was going to unplug from social media for a while,with the excpetion of this blog. I enjoy writing the occassional blog post and enjoy reading posts from blogs that I do follow. I am however overwhelmed by Facebook. I follow several art groups (with a few thousand members in each group) a few hundered facebook friends, and of course some close friends and family. My time slips away looking at pictures, projects and reading posts.  I need to regroup and use the minutes and hours of my life to living and creating.

I feel the need to take a walk on the beach..........

Thanksgiving

 It wasn't our usual houseful of relatives and friends coming and going all day this year for Thanksgiving, which felt a bit different, but the good part: I didn't have to have the food ready by 11am.

The kids came home for the Thanksgiving break. My brother and his girlfriend cooked the Turkey and stuffing and brought it over. My husband cooked the ham and lamb, on the grill, while I made and a variety of side dishes. Pretty east day for me, it was laid back and quiet, and we all sat down and ate Thanksgiving dinner together.

We enjoyed dinner, talked and then we all relaxed.  Just a pleasant Thanksgiving Day.

Oh yeah,  I finished painting the kitchen chairs Tuesday evening and they  were completely dry by Wednesday. What I didn't take into consideration was the smell when I decided to use spray paint. I left them outside and brought them in Thursday morning, I really lucked out because the smell was very faint by then.

Tonight we decorated for Christmas, the kids decorated the tree, I decorated the mantel, and my husband the outside of the house.   It was a really nice day.

.

Sunday, productive Sunday...

The past few weekends have been busy for me, but not in my studio or in my home.

This weekend  I decided to take care of my house that seems I have neglected for a long while now, and put off studio time for after Thanksgiving. (I really did want to have the stained glass bathroom window finished before Thanksgiving but whatever :)

I decided to freshen the kitchen up a bit, a detail cleaning of the cabinets, new kitchen curtains, and a removal of a vast collection of vases that stood tall on the shelf over my kitchen cabinets.  I don't know how the collection started, but it did. Over the last 20 years my husband and brother would bring me flowers in very special vases. I decided to remove most of them and store the rest. It kind of feels empty, but clean.

I also decided to spruce up the kitchen chairs. The black paint was starting to wear off and I thought it would be nice to brighten them up. I went out and bought spray paints, a different color for each chair.  I have to go back for a second can of each color, but this was the project this evening.

Now the fun begins!

I found the green glass today that I needed for the panel, now all the glass is cut! I always have fun desinging, coloring the design, and cutting the glass. It may only have taken me a few hours to get to this point, but now the real work begins. Grinding, fitting, foiling, framing and finally soldering.  So with that said, it will be several Sundays in the studio to finish it up. I can't wait until it's complete and in the window!

Productive Sunday!

Another fun Sunday morning in the studio!  Went in around nine this morning and finished around noon, just in time for lunch.

My doodle loop design and pastel chalks are always fun to play with. I think that's what makes it feel so easy to create a design like this.  In my minds eye I had imagined a few less colors, but I love color so I used 3 different blues 2 greens and 3 yellows. I am missing 6 pieces of green that I need to cut, but I ran out of green glass. I will be on the hunt for that specific green this week.

doodle this morning

cut glass by noon. 

Jazz music and a creating art always makes for a good Sunday morning!!

Back to the drawing board

Last weekends art show left me with my creative juices flowing.  I wanted so much to get up Monday morning and get working in my studio, but as life has it, I had to venture off to my day job that supports me.  The time change and rainy weather this week didn't help either when I got off from work.  Last night I decided that I would venture out and purchase a few pieces of glass.

For the last few years I had been working (procrasting) on a bathroom window that I wanted to create over the vanity. Needless to say, the design I had created all those years ago of birds and branches, and all the glass that I cut, has now been scrapped. I decided that I am going with what comes naturally easy to me, a loopy abstract design of pale blues, yellows and greens.

So far I've picked my blues and green. Now on the hunt for a pale yellow.

weekend of success

I'm home now, relaxing on the computer....  The Uptown Art Stroll was a HUGE success! My interpretation of success is not only counted by the sales I made, it was a success because a LOT of people showed up at the event! I believe EVERY artist sold something at this show! It was amazing. Even though the majority of the artists at the location I was at were glass artists, it was such an extreme variety of art. There were also other mediums of art that included a polymer clay jewelry artist and metal artist.

I had the smallest display of all the artists, with only one table to show my art, but I was happy with it!  I met wonderful people, was invited to participate in other art shows, and I have the opportunity to (possibly) do a few custom pieces.  However, I do need to mention that my first customer of the day, was my first and favorite drawing teacher from St. Philips College (from a few years back). We didn't recognize each right away, until I heard her voice and recognized her braided hair!  It was a wonderful little reunion!

I forgot to take a picture the first day, so here is my setup from the second day, minus a few items that I had sold :)

This was the 14th annual event of Uptown Art Stroll in Olmos Park in San Antonio. Twenty homes in the area participated, many of them with guest artists.  I hope I can participate in this event next season!

Art and all the stuff I didn't finish

I went on a painting frenzy last night to complete the backgrounds for the shadow boxes and finish painting the ocean scene. I also painted a couple of abstracts that seem more like a background waiting for the main character to show up instead of being finished pieces. (I'll put these to the side until later)

Abstract 1

Abstract 2

When I woke up this morning my ocean painting definitely needed more work on the "sunrise"which turned into a moonlight by the end of tonight!

"Moonlit"

acrylic

The shadow boxes turned out pretty nice, but it seems they do need some type of lighting on the inside.  If they don't sell at the show I will work on that later. I created the drawings using Iron oxide powder and fused it on Tekta Bullseye glass (1250 F).

"Shimmy Flowers"

"Waiting"

I had more ideas in my head that I wanted to create but have run out of time. I'm also a bit disappointed that my brother who was going to collaborate with me to make a wood frame for the "Celestial series of Nine" a is not able to work with me due to a busy schedule. Now I'm thinking about hiring a welder to create a metal frame to allow natural light through the pieces.

"Celestial Series of Nine"

(shown on my light table)

                                                     

sketch book in hand....

The up coming Uptown Art Stroll is around the corner........

Last night I went to the SAGAG meeting (San Antonio glass art guild),  with the slight intention, in the back of my mind, of possibly backing out of the art show.  I am so glad that I went to the meeting!  Not only did I get excited about participating again, I got to meet some great new people!

Yes, this is the last weekend I have to get busy for this show, but I am looking forward to the challenge of completing the work I have in mind.  I pulled out my sketch book during my lunch break today, went outside drew for a while. It was beautiful day for it!

I was also excited today about the shear fact that my brother and I are collaborating on a piece of art again.  He will be creating a frame for the "Celestial series of Nine"!  When we do collaborate, I tell him what I would like to have, and in turn he tells me in great detail what he will create, then asks me "what do you think?"  In my usual response I tell him, "lost you a while back but whatever you said is good with me!"

favorite colors and my loopy design

When I draw out a design for glass, I tend to draw loopy abstracts. I love drawing the loops and then figuring out what colors go where, filling it with blues, purples, greens and fuchsia.  I have created this type of design many times in the past for leaded windows, copper foil panels and a fused glass disk that my candles rest on.

This weekend I designed a 27" x 21" pattern and colored it with chalk pastels (chalk is so much fun to use!).  The design was intended to be split out in in 9,   9"x 7" glass pieces. I am currently in the process of grinding the glass to fit together and hope that once I am done, the firing process goes well and my pieces turn out.

Here is a peak of where I am currently:

                                             Celestial series of Nine

Fall is here, time for art shows!

Last year I posted that I was excited about the fall art shows that I was going to go to as a customer. This year I will participate! I am excited and nervous at the same time!

Renewing my membership with the San Antonio Glass Art Guild has given me some motivation to start participating again. I was seriously on the fence about it but while I was unpacking my Halloween decorations from last year I found the bag of pendants I had made and thought I lost. Originally they were suppose to go onto my Etsy shop which has been dormant since I don't remember when.  I decided that finding the pendants was a sign to participate! I mailed my check out today to reserve a space, and now I need to create some art! I am happy to announce that I will be participating in the Uptown Art Stroll happening the first weekend of November!

If you checkout the Uptown Art Stroll link I will be at the location listed with Louise Craig.

My spot in the world

Whenever I think about the past places I've lived, fond memories of walking on busy streets among all the people coming and going, shopping and talking.  Recently I visited my childhood summer home and realized that of all the places I lived there is ONE spot on this planet, yes a spot, that is my favorite place in the world. Granted, the weather must be good to enjoy this "spot" and mother nature did not disappoint. I stood facing out to the Atlantic with the sun shining down on me, as the waves of refreshing salt water crashed on the shore. It was in that moment, that I realized my favorite place wasnt about the people that lived there or the shops, it was the feeling that this spot gave me. Tranquility, peace, fresh salty air that filled my spirit. It was the sun shining on my face as I stood in the sand with the waves of the atlantic rushing up my legs. It has always been that spot that drew me back each time.

On this trip, I realized a few things. It doesn't matter where you live to pursue your dreams. It takes babysteps no matter where you are.

Experimenting

Last spring I took a silk screen class with Gail Stouffer at her new studio, Roadhouse Art. On the last day of class, Gail introduced a.new a technique called "rusting" using iron oxide and a silk screen. I was intrigued by the the metal and the end  result of the little project we did on paper, so I ordered some and finally did my first experiment.

I mixed the iron oxide with water and painted it on my Tekta glass. I allowed it to dry and tac fused it in the kiln.

The interesting part was that in this experiment, it did not "rust", The color remained black, and with just a tac fuse the texture of iron is still there, solidly there.

I will be running a few more experiments using a solution to "rust" the iron before firing. Then I will see how the tac fuse does capped with a full fuse,. Wondering how many bubbles will there be......

So here is my first experiment with iron oxide and glass. Just to make it more interesting,  I painted a sunset background in acrylic on canvas and added the glass in the shadow box frame. The clear glass is muted because I added clear powder frit over the entire piece of glass before firing.

I picked up 5 sheets of Tekta this past weekend form Helios glass so I am looking forward to many more experiments!!

(I will be working on my drawing skills too!)

Sunday = Studio time!!!

My monster kiln arrived recently, a Skutt GM-1414. I love my new kiln, but it  is really HUGE for my studio.  I couldn't stand being in there for too long, it felt so overwhelmingly cluttered, so I spent the day rearranging, cleaning, and getting rid of unwanted items. Particularly, about 75 pounds worth of scrap stained glass. I love social media, one artists scrap glass turns into another artists beautiful mosaics!

With all this cleaning and rearranging, I now have a dedicated area for painting/drawing/glass etching, a cold working area, my light table for color choices,  and my desk to write and think.  I also designed the back splash for the cold working area!    It's been a very productive day!

                                          back splash design
                                         

Alone time, quality time, adventure

We had a death in the family so my husband and his brother left town to take care of everything. I was left at home alone. This was the first time in many years that I was totally alone.

On Saturday, I had an appointment with the volunteer coordinator at the local emergency children's center to check out the facilities and see if I could volunteer some of my time holding babies.  I  figured the babies need love and I could to provide some love to them. I filled out the application, and now waiting for my final reference to come back so I can send it in.

When I left the appointment it was already lunch time and I thought of Bakery Lorraine. Thank you techy people who created the navigation system in my car! 14 minutes later and I was there!  I ordered a grill pressed sandwich that consisted of spinach, sun dried tomato, Fontina and goat cheese on thick slices of sourdough bread. Yum!!!

Treated myself to a salted caramel macaroon as well. Lunch was absolutely scrumptious!

One of the nice things about eating alone is getting to read. I picked up the Current and scanned for things to do.  I ended up at a Pagan Pride Day festival that afternoon. Never been to one before, so I figured, what the hell, I don't have anything else to do! So off I went and browsed the arts and crafts, candles and baths salts. Not much to the festival, they all kind of reminded me of a crowd of friendly hippies.

Sunday, I spent the afternoon at the McNay art museum. Wandering around, enjoying the new exhibit "Intimate Impressionism". They had a real treat that afternoon, French themed food and a movie. Croissant sandwiches, cheese and crackers, french cookies, fruit and drinks. Everything was so good! The food was followed by the 3pm showing of Je T'aime. One of my absolute favorite movies, or should I say 18 short films in one. I must have seen it at least 5 times before, but thought it would be nice to see on a big screen with a bunch of strangers :)

As I passed one of the drawings in the museum it made me smile so I thought I' share!

                                        "Art Lovers" 1939 by Adolph Dehn (1895-1968)

New found freedom

My most recent adventure outside of San Antonio consisted of moving my youngest son to one city and then the next day moving my daughter to another city. We moved them into their apartments, took them out to dinner and then left for home. Now they will have to fend for themselves, cooking, cleaning and studying.

The house is quite now, and as I reflect on my life, it's been an amazing journey. It has also been a new and strange week for me. Considering that I had my first child just I turned 18, and then had two more children, my entire adult life revolved around raising them.  This is the first week that I have not had to come home directly from work and cook for more than myself and my husband. It feels strange, but in a good way. I am starting to feel a freedom that I never felt before. I even booked a trip in the middle of a school year!

As much as I miss the kids living at home, my new found freedom is going to be my new life adventure!

  

 

Family time

I love relaxing mornings. Sipping coffee with family, talking and enjoying our time together.

Moving on

This summer has gone by so fast, it makes my head spin knowing that we are already in August and my kids are moving out next week. We haven't had a summer vacation, only spending time together  and shopping to prepare them for their move.

So, in a couple of weeks, when reality sinks in, and I will only have to cook for two, I will be forced to move on in the next part of my life. It would have been nice if I could just pick up and leave town for a few days, but it's not that easy. I have three cats and two dogs that I will need to make arrangements for or bring with me. Hmmm. I always thought (in my fantasy), that I would be in a sporty little red, two seat convertible, with the wind blowing through my hair and not a care in the world! NOT! Oh well, at least I can dream.

On the flip side, I will be joining  the San Antonio Glass Guild this month so I can get back in touch with the glass world and see some old friends, maybe even makes some new friends too.
I have also started on a new mosaic project this weekend, and hope to have it complete very soon.

Meanwhile, the high heat hasn't discouraged the flowers from blooming in my garden.

Motivation

Sometimes in life I need a little motivation to get started.  This weekend was no different. Luckily for me, my daughter needed a new journal so we headed for the bookstore. While she was on the hunt for the perfect journal, I came across a book by Julia Cameron, "the Artist's Way Every Day". As I flipped through this daily guide book, I realized this was written for writers but could easily be applied to any type of artist. Each daily entry was a paragraph, so I figured I can handle reading with my morning coffee.  The entry for August 3rd, was about the willingness to be open as a student to learn. I love to learn new things, but I didn't expect to learn anything on a Sunday morning. I was wrong. I was going through the blogs I follow, and there was a post with a free Saturday online glass class from AAE Glass. Well, it turned out that it was free for 72 hours so I watched it and learned 3 new techniques. I was pretty excited about it!

It's a new day

I spent Sunday morning listing to jazz as I worked on the frame, filling, sanding and finally staining. My brother did a beautiful job building the frame with red oak.  I decided to go with a cherry wood  stain, just lightly covering the wood to enhance the color.  I was very pleased with the outcome of the piece as a whole.

While the frame was drying, and after I cleaned my studio a bit, I decided to paint.  Painting is a forgiving art form, if you don't like what is on the canvas, just paint over it. In the end, I was happy with my tiny piece of artwork, which I made into a card to go along with the stained glass panel. (remember, the panel is a gift)
By the time I was done painting, my stomach reminded my that I had skipped lunch and now it was dinner time. I really have no sense of time when I work on my art, and before I know it the day is gone,  I honestly prefer my days to go like this.

Today was the day the the art piece arrived to it's new home, and the recipients loved it, which made me the happier person!

Going to it's new home on this new day!

Treats

After almost six weeks at the framers, my fawn stained glass panel was not ready nor would it be.  They told me the panel was too big and too heavy for the type of wood framing they use.  Talk about being disappointed, I cried. I immediately called my brother, and as luck would have it he was in town. He usually is at work about three hours away.  He bought the material and finished putting together a frame for me in ONE day! He's a pretty good carpenter! Now, I just need to sand it a bit and stain it.   Then it will be ready to be delivered to it's new home.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, my youngest son picked up my newly purchased cook book by Julia Child and was baking away last night! He really does have a knack for cooking really good food!
I stayed up late waiting for the apple tart with apricot sauce to be ready. It smelled like Christmas in my house!  What a late night treat!

Adventure Time!

I decided for my first adventure that I need to go to places in San Antonio that I have never been before. I got a pleasant surprise as my daughter decided she wanted to tag along!

Even though I started off around noon today, we decided to skip lunch and have cappuccino along with a couple of delicious chocolate macaroons and a fruit tart at Bakery Lorraine. The quaint little bakery was inviting and the atmosphere was great! Everything was delicious and I think I will be putting this place on my list of " definitely going back!"

After having our treat, we headed to Art Space located downtown.  It was an interesting exhibit, but it wasn't our cup tea.  Since my daughter had never been to Blue Star, I decided this would count on my adventure.  I knew something would excite us at Blue Star, and sure enough we both fell in love with the installation Plexus No. 26 by Gabriel Dawe. The installation was big, colorful, beautiful and the lines were PERFECT! Standing in the middle of the room between the two installations was a pleasurable experience!

We capped off the night by picking up my youngest son, and the three of us a had a really good dinner out together!

It was a very nice Saturday adventure.

(Picture taken by my best friend Patti- Banana River)

Plans

I have decided that since I will be an official "empty-nester" this fall and will be free on the weekends to do whatever I please (for the most part), I am planning....

I plan to take day trips.  I'll start with small towns within a two hour radius of my house, each weekend. Then I may venture out a little further.  Since Texas is SO big, I won't be driving out of the state on a day trip.. which is a bit disappointing.

One of the first trip I'd like to take is out of Austin. It's a train ride and depending on which one I take, it could be a murder mystery, a shopping day or a wine trip.

I am up for the adventure of travel, even if I have to stay withing the state.

"I long for the cool summer breeze off the Atlantic,as I suffocate in the humidity" - Drita

Sunday

Sunday, my favorite day of the week. Listening to jazz in my studio and helping myself overcome the negative little voice in my head.  I LOVE the internet! I went to Google, entered "artists doubts" and BAM!, my fears and doubts were posted right there, and how to over come them! I just needed one quote this morning to get me started "Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing" -Salvador Dali. That's all it took and I was on my way again. Like it or not, here it is......