Girls with Cake

Ahh being back home from our Art Is You trip has us filled with mixed emotions. We're missing our friends, missing the artsy energy and environment…just so many creative folks under one roof…you can take a walk to get some coffee and you'll pass rooms that are humming with art…anything from soldering, sewing, painting, sculpting…all in a 5 minute walk. We're missing getting and giving hugs all throughout the day, and seeing friends we have known for years online. 

But even though the event is over, the great energy is still with us. We're home, all of our stuff is unpacked, we're thrilled to be eating home cooked food, and work-wise we're back in the swing of things...and feeling more inspired than ever. Being at Art Is You reminds us to make more time for making personal artwork. We make art daily, but 95% of it is our WORK. Which, don't get me wrong, we love our work. But we need to make more of the art that speaks directly to our souls. Way more Art Journaling has to happen, and we have to take more time for fun and exploring new mediums and techniques. : )

Today while a bunch of orders dried, we did just that. I had started this canvas a long time ago and put it away. I had been meaning to pull it out and rework it, and finish it...and today that happened! 

Maybe my favorite detail is the simplest part…it has this fantastic crackle textured background. And of course it was loads of fun working on these sweet gals. 

And painting cakes is certainly on my list of favorite things. I love the texture on this one…it's my signature frosting technique...molding paste mixed with paint. 

I also love re-painting vintage wallpaper bits and cutting and pasting them into paintings. 

I shared some of the fantastic old photos I had purchased at Art Is You in my recap post. Well I had also picked up some vintage newspaper, which is perfect to use in our mixed media projects and art journals. We hadn't opened up the paper pack until today, and ohhh boy! This particular publication cracked us up. It's a 1975 edition of The Daily Express from the UK. And oh my gosh the headlines are insanity! All Doom and Gloom! 

And I heard from a UK friend that The Daily Express isn't any different today in 2014! ha!

Aaron got a big kick out of this article on the sports page. Apparently there was some controversy over some soccer players who were sore losers and kicked a hole in the door in the opposing team's locker room.

Well the gist of the story is that the team blamed a mouse for the hole in the door…saying that either the mouse chewed the hole, or possibly a player was scared of the mouse and tried to kick it but partially missed and ended up kicking a hole in the door. They said to be on the lookout for a limping Coventry mouse with broken feet or teeth. ha! 

We used some of the more subtle pages of the paper on the edges of our canvases. I love how old newspapers are so perfectly yellowed! 

And check out that corner of the canvas. This is what I call a "sweet spot". I love the distressed floral cluster, and the way the wash settles into the crackle…and I die for that faint aqua glow.

Here is my finished canvas. Don't these girls look sooo psyched about their cakes?! ha! Maybe they are in a sugar coma? I honestly love turn of the century portraits of children...they are rarely smiling. I find that so interesting.  

I really love how this piece turned out. I'm so glad that these girls are no longer on a shelf in the closet!  I'm really looking forward to painting lots more in this series. 

Wait until you see the piece Aaron worked on today!! It is sooo good! I nearly died! Ok not really… but almost. 

Hope your week is off to a great start! Thanks bunches for popping in! 

xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi!

When the mood strikes...paint!

Hey Happy Tuesday! We intended to pop in and say hi yesterday but we really lost track of time. We were completely immersed in several projects and we simply couldn't get ourselves to stop. As usual we were jumping from task to task, balancing work stuff, house stuff, studio stuff, life stuff. Some cleaning happened, some organizing happened, some more trim was painted, walls were patched and sanded, furniture got rearranged...yeah one of those days. And on top of that we were going over ideas and lesson plans for our upcoming classes that we are teaching at Art Is You in May! We are so excited  about them! We blogged about them here, and we'd love for you to take the time to check out all the details...and by all means...sign up and join us if you can! 

I'm not a gal who self promotes a whole lot, but when it comes to these classes, I have no problem shouting it from as many mountain tops as I can. Because I KNOW that you guys will absolutely love your experience. I KNOW that you'll learn a lot and laugh a lot. I KNOW that you'll whole heartedly impress yourself and unearth talents you didn't know you had. Come on down to Dixie to get your hands messy, expand your creative repertoire, and make some fabulous artwork in the process!

Artwork that's similar to what you're seeing in this post. You'll explore the many facets of mixed media...you'll learn all about layers and shading...experience first hand how to render cute girls' faces...create fun and fabulous backgrounds. It's an in-depth course...and "in-depth" doesn't mean that it will be hard. Nope, just the opposite. "In-depth" means that you'll get to take the time to really figure out what works for you. We won't ever quickly skim past the details. We'll stop, slow down, and offer you every bit of our 20 years of professional experience.   

Ok, end of sermon...lets get back to yesterday's fun project! 

We love combining our cute girls with textured and layered backgrounds. When it comes to creating backgrounds and layers, you'll notice that most artists have their go-to colors and textures. We're no different...we work within our own little comfort zone, we've got our special "tool box", our specific color palette that works for us. Very often we'll collage our backgrounds because we just love the extra bit of texture that patterned papers will bring to a piece. But yesterday's piece was all about paint. 

I honestly didn't have anything planned. I just let it all happen. Maybe the only thing I knew for sure was that there was going to be some black. Just like in our decor and my wardrobe. Black is necessary. Black balances our candy colors and sweet pastels.  

So...this piece was a lot of fun to work on. I rendered the girl all on her own...as you can see in the first pic at the top of this post. And as you can see, this girl has come a long way from that first photo. She started out as just a pencil sketch on water color paper and initially her coloring was very subtle. I had painted the canvas with a vague idea of how much space she'd occupy and approximately where she'd be positioned. I brought the background and the girl to a certain level of completion, and when the time was right I brought them together so that they could be completed as one cohesive piece of artwork. Doing it this way is a lot of fun. It's kinda exciting when you combine the two elements and see that you've got this whole new piece of artwork. After I adhered the gal to the canvas it was like starting all over...which really was fun. I added more texture, layered on some mediums, splashes of paint, sketchy pencil work...lots of stuff. 

Here she is hanging up. I like how it looks almost as if that is a window behind her...a glimpse of night sky. 

After painting this piece yesterday we got so excited about our upcoming classes. One of our classes focuses on abstract painting. And the other will feature portraits like this. We'll spend an entire day teaching all the techniques, tips, and tricks, so that in the end each student will have at the very least a go-to set of skills...a head start for future paintings. 

And once you've got your go-to "artist tool box" the sky is the limit! Whenever in the mood, you can paint a pretty girl, create a vibe, conjure up a dream world, and make fabulous artwork. 

Here is another painting that I worked on recently. A perfect example of what will be covered in our Abstractions class. I can't describe the joy I experience, starting with a blank canvas and building layers, creating movement, expressing a specific mood. I'm telling you...it's addictive, 

I really like how soft this piece turned out. Aaron says its his new favorite painting of mine. But seriously, he says that about each new one I do. He likes to point out his favorite areas of my paintings. What we refer to as "the sweet spot".

And now that the house is coming together we are able to hang art. It has been so long and we are really excited about it. Here are some of our personal favorites. Some are mine and some are Aaron's. Can you tell them a part? The two of us stay within our shared color palette which matches our home decor. But if you look closely you may be able to tell the difference between our respective paintings. We work in completely different styles, and in our classes we will both be teaching our personal methods..our favorite techniques and styles. It's fun to see how students drift toward either Aaron or myself based on the commonalities they sense in their own style. With abstracts it's all about two things...method & color. You wouldn't believe what a world of difference color makes. Imagine the above abstracts rendered in jewel tones, or earth tones even...with each student there are endless brand new possibilities. And this excites us so much!

It's not too late to sign up! Come for both classes or just one! Stay over night or just make a day trip of it if you are local enough! We can't say enough good things about Art Is You Art Retreats. Any fears you may have...seriously, throw them out the window! These are full day classes...One on One instructions! Plenty of time to learn, practice, create, and chat. You will leave confident, armed with new skills, and ready to create.

And we are offering a special discount! If you use a limited time promo code you can get $60.00 off your Art is Dixie purchase price!  When you register for either of our classes enter HOLIDAY (all caps) into the Event Code box on page 2 beside the package of days selection, and you will get $60 off your total registration.

Hope your week is off to a great start! Thanks so much for popping in! 

Love from NJ!

xo Jenny...and Aaron says hi!

Mixed Media Cute Girl Ornaments Tutorial

Hey friends! Hoping your week is off to a great start. Yesterday I did my best to keep a handful of things all going at once...orders, house stuff, and a little Springtime or anytime project. I've been in love with feather trees for as long as I can remember. Im' sure that any Folk Art collectors reading this share my love. Feather trees were created in Germany in the 1880's and were originally made with dyed goose feathers attached to wire branches. These days they are available in all different colors and sizes. There are multi-colored, Valentine trees, Easter trees, even black Halloween trees. I had a black one, which I sadly lost to hurricane Sandy, but we are keeping this a happy post! 

This tree here isn't a traditional feather tree, but for me it works just the same...it's actually made of paper! The branches are festooned with a fringe of super vintagey looking book pages. I love how sepia looking it is, and it is the perfect backdrop base for all holidays. In keeping with the Everyday is a Holiday palette, tan works as instant age, toning down candy colors. I found this tree on ebay a few months back and I was thrilled. I had seen the same one go for around a hundred dollars, which I could never ever do. I got this one for a great deal! I love this tree. And inspiration for making ornaments comes a bit easier to you when you've got a great place to hang them.

It was a grey day yesterday, and the house was really quiet, so after I checked some work off our checklist, I gathered up some supplies for the purpose of making ornaments for my Spring tree. I'm really happy with these sweet little girl ornaments. They are on egg shaped wood disks. So they can pull off an Eastery feel if paired with Springy things, and if not, they're perfect for year round display.

I gathered up some supplies without really knowing what I was going to do. Papers, paint, ink, string, and some favorite stamp sets. This part of the project is always the most fun.

One of my favorite artists is Ashley G. She is so incredibly talented! We were so happy to finally meet her in person at CHA where she debuted her line of stamps based on her original drawings. By far, our favorite thing at CHA! Above are the two sets I used for this project. You can find them in Ashley's etsy shop. 

I started out by painting the "eggs" with acrylic craft paint. 

Next, a Jenny trademark here...speckling! It's so hard for me not to speckle...it just makes everything I create feel right. To speckle these all I did was water down the left over paint on my palette, and then I dipped my brush into the color wash and tapped the front end of the brush with my finger, spattering each egg. The speckling is totally fitting being that real eggs are actually speckled.

 I really wanted these to have a very "loose" and whimsical feel. I didn't want them to be perfect...just perfectly imperfect. Of course if you are a neat freak, you could stamp your girls and color them in clean and neat with Copic markers. But what I did here is soft and casual, and I think really goes well with Ashley's loose drawings. I just traced the basic outline of each girl on white card stock and with  my finger tip or brush I blocked in the areas. I did this knowing that when finally stamped, the colors would be outside of the lines in some spots or not perfectly filling the lines in others.

You can see what I mean here, how the color just seems to almost accidentally fall into place. I stamped right over the dry paint using black StazOn ink. 

Next I speckled some red paint to take the whimsy and fun further. Anything but perfect.

I did graphics for each of the "eggs" and cut them out, then paired them with whichever egg contrasted best. 

I adhered each graphic using matte finish mod podge. I then stamped some hearts over some color that I brushed onto card stock. 

I cut out the hearts and added them to each ornament. After that I made sure to apply a topcoat of the Mod Podge to seal them and let dry. I used a blow dryer to speed things up. Next, using a brown paint that I watered down, I applied an antiquing wash. I just brushed it loosely around my girl and hearts. Then, with a piece of clean dry paper towel I blotted the wash away, just leaving a bit around the girls and hearts.

You can see how much of the wash I left here. It just adds another layer. You can also see that I added little pink cheeks to each girl. 

Next with my finger tip, I just rubbed a bit of paint in contrasting colors around the edges of each ornament. again, my whole point is to be imperfect and uneven. 

Next, I roughly cut a backing paper for each egg, and lengths of striped bakers twine. I found this adorable aqua twine in the dollar bins at Target around Christmas time.

I brushed an even coat of Mod Podge over the back, then laid the ends of the strings down, then laid the paper over, sandwiching the ends of string between the wood disk and the paper. At this point you should wait before brushing a topcoat of the Mod Podge over the paper. Give it a minute to adhere while using your fingertips to press out any air bubbles. Make sure to pay attention to the top where the string is sandwiched between. At this part press hard and make sure the string is sealed between. Then let dry. Once dry then trim the excess paper from the edges. Our trick is to sand the extra paper off with a piece of sandpaper or a sanding block...you could even use a emory board. It's super fast and easy. Now seal the back with a light even coat of mod podge and let dry.

Now to finish the ornaments, add some of your antiquing wash to the backs. Brush it on and blot it off using dry paper towel same way you did earlier. And that's it! They are ready to hang! 

This little gal kills me! She has a kitten in her pocket!

I love how "sketchy" this gal is! And her shirt is so fun! yellow with pink speckles! 

This may be my favorite. hmm

How sweet are these little friends?

This girl is so Mod looking.

And our sweet little kitty! Meow!

It was a fun little afternoon project. And there are so many possibilities! I love them for Spring, but I'm pretty sure they will be on display all year! They'd also be adorable tied to gifts. 

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial! Now if Spring would just hurry it up and get here! Thanks for popping in!

xo Jenny...and Aaron says hi!