R U Looking 4 Unique Valentines? Check These...

Looking for something more than a card? Something a little different from the routine box of candy?

Here are a few ideas for little gifts for that special person...a thoughtful original!

Etsy Buy Handmade leepierce

SPRING QUEST

The latest quest that the members of DAWG have been working on has been 'spring'. Spring astronomically begins about March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere, begins March 1st according to your local weatherman, and who knows when according to the fuzzy woodland critter that shows up searching for his shadow in early February. With the frigid temperature, heavy snowfall and exceptionally harsh cold spell that many states are currently experiencing , I believe that the Spring quest has been a welcome subject for everyone to fabricate. I personally would rather draw butterflies, flowers and warm sunshiney colors, while I am looking out at a freezing white glaze covering the landscape. I think I feel a warm spell coming on already.

Here are some of my Valentine and spring aceo cards. Thanks for looking and stay warm.






And here is the reality of the weather:

Ice Storms

Snow and ice cover almost everything...it is so cold that the animals are all hidden away. The scene is set for lots of cuddling and bundling in front of a nice fire with a great book, or my favorite, a new sketch pad!

There are lots of inspirations on wintry days and nights. One only has to look at the etchings on the window panes to start seeing patterns dancing across the surface. The trees hold onto their charm year round by playing Mother Nature's canvas. On this coldest of winter days the trees seem to turn gray in preparation for the frosty coating that will no doubt be in place come morning.

So get those sketch pads out ladies and start rendering nature in her frozen stillness and ignore the numbness in your fingers! Be inspired anew by the bitter cold to paint a scene of perfect suspension and resist the urge to complain.

Yes, it is frightfully cold. But even ice has it's beauty. And if those lights go off, use that as the trigger to try something new.

When you are creating by candle light, hopefully by choice, try a new medium...wax. It has been used to grace envelopes for centuries, but it is beautiful on it's own as well.

Buy a cheap pack of crayons and a lighter. Get a blank art card or any size you like and start melting the crayons in patterns or designs all over the surface. Use old paper clips and rubber stamps to add texture or words before it hardens.

Let your creativity soar and feel the heat as the weather lets loose with it's worse. i hope you are inspired and show off what you have discovered!

Crystal Belle

Winter Time and Snowflakes

Oh how I Love to watch the snow fallen, it gives me such peace. To see those beautiful soft white flakes floating to the ground, landing ever so gently atop the previous one. They finally all make such a wonderland scene of white. Did you ever watch the Christmas Story with the Red Rider B B Gun, "You'll shoot your eye out" :) Oh that is one of my favorite movies, the part when they wake up and look at the window on Christmas Morning to find a winter wonderland of snow, and they say WOW! That is where the tiny little bit of the kids needs to stay in our hearts!! I guess that is where I get the love and the longing for the beautiful snowfalls. Another one of my favorite movies, is the lst Walton show, The Christmas Story, snow, snow and more snow everywhere!

When I was growing up we would go for weeks with no school because there would be so much snow, now my kids all nearly grown, except for Seth 11th grader, still hopes for that snow!! We get a patch here or there, but nothing like when I grew up. I sure miss those big snows, and when we do get them, I am out in them taking photos! Yes snow can be a pain to drive in, and cause other problems, but oh what a precious gift God gave us with the beauty of those snowflakes. So the next time a snowflake starts to fall, Tell God Thanks for all his beauty!!

Check out my Etsy Store and Bonanzle store for all my photos and Aceo Cards

www.bonanzle.com/booths/papermoondelights
Artbylisak on Etsy

Grapes and Ginger Jar Still LIfe in Oils

I set this up in my studio a few years ago and painted it on a stretched canvas. It is being offered here at a sale price. It would be perfect for your home. Available here for you
Please check out my blog and web site for lovely art .
Thanks so much
Barbara

A New Year Has Begun

Good Morning,

The New Year is well underway and I think I am finally catching my breath. It has been busy with commitments to family and friends without much time for art. This year I have been presented with the opportunity to do some self study in Classical Painting and work in a new medium. I have purchased some water-soluble oil paints and I am almost ready to begin learning the fine art of oil painting.

To get warmed up to oils (which I haven't begun to use yet) I have been doing some specific challenges related to classical painting. The first challenge was in sketching portraits, below is my attempt at sketching our new president elect Barrack Obama:

My second lesson was to do a landscape using only two complimentary colors and white:

The last challenge I worked on was to do my interpretation of one of the “Old Masters”. I chose to do Monet’s “Landscape #3”:

It will be fun to share my journey with you, stay tuned next month I should have my next two challenges done. I will be doing a still life in the pointillism technique, and then a painting of one of Remington’s Horse Statues, done in the style of Vallejo. Should be interesting.

Moving into t-shirts, tank tops, sweatshirts, tote bags, tiles and more at Susan Alison Art

Well, I thought - it's a New Year - time for some New Stuff!

So now I've got t-shirts and other garments with my designs on, and tote bags with my designs on and all in all, Border Collies are taking over the world! Yeah!

Here's Deep sea Dawg on a tie dyed t-shirt:



Click here for ebay auctions and Buy it Now items

And here's 'Her best baker boy hat' (remember those???) on a frost pink tank top......




Click here for collieish present ideas at Cafepress

Oh, okay - this creature below on his tote bag might not be a Border Collie - but he IS a Border Collie's friend...

 
 


And here for my shop on Etsy


The t-shirts are really comfortable, 100% cotton and you can have any of my designs on them. Below is 'Forget me not'.



New Year - New Stuff!!! Watch this space for more New Stuff! (hopefully a new novel, too, this year...)

Find me on MySpace and be my friend!

And have I mentioned my novel - a few hours of escapist froth for your entertainment??: Click here for Susan's novel

Thanks so much for looking…..

Susan