It's been quite a while hasn't it?

I'd blame the kindle for my absence but I've just been all over the place lately and haven't really felt like updating this blog despite the fact that I have actually been creative in my time away.

Currently I'm suffering from round 2 of a cold that came, went and came back 5 days later. I've been told that means it's actually a whole other cold but I never get 2 colds back to back like that and the timing is really crazy.

I'm currently taking a class at the yearly Missiquoi Community School. It's great thing really, 10 weeks of classes (1 1/2 hour a week) for 10 bucks (for the whole 10 week season not per class) and the final class is a showing from all the different classes. I actually made them a little youtube commercial of sorts, I've been going every year since I was old enough to go (don't tell anyone but I snuck in a year early lol) except the years I was away at college. The past two years I've been taking scrapbooking but this year I'm back in painting and having a blast!

So far I have 2 paintings, 1 complete, one very near complete (just a couple of minor tweaks left) and 2 projects I want to do but haven't started so I'm gonna try and pull at least one of them off in time for next weeks final show. I have a final class tomorrow (Thursday) to complete tweaks and start a new piece and hopefully finish the rest at home.
The one I've been working on all through classes is a portrait of my cat Toby who went to rainbow bridge 2 years ago.
It's not finished in this photo, I've done more work since (including all the fur details, eyelashes, eye changes and more color) but you can get a gist of what it looks like until I get a newer photo off my camera.




















The second is my take on fate trying to destroy love by taking away the object of that love but love itself being immortal...it involves the greek mythology about the fates, with the threads that are lives, snipping them randomly ending lives but that the gods had golden threads that could not be clipped. The heart will be surrounded by a golden string (not added at the time this photo was taken and the string shown are not the final placement). Basically the heart is torn and damaged by fate, by death but the love lives forever, much like the golden threads. A fate is literally ripping through this heart made of eggshells




















My third project was gonna be another Blu Kat painting, but I did so well painting a space scene (for the first time too!) on Toby's painting that now I wanna try a little Doctor Who fan art, so if I have time that will be my final project for class.

I've also made some Christmas cards for DeviantART's Holiday Card Project. Something I love participating  when they have it, but for the last two years they had stopped doing for unknown reasons. Bacially artists from all over the world make cards and send them to deviantart. On Christmas, volunteers take the cards and hand them out to folks who are spending the holidays in a hospital bed instead of in their homes.

Sad to report my earlier claim to try to write a Novel for NaNoWriMo isn't gonna happen. Maybe I'll pick another month later on, I should of just done it when I announced it, as waiting killed off my motivation and my painting classses ended up conflicting with NaNoWriMo anyway.
Haven't started on the peekaboo box yet nor has there been any progress with the clean up but once classes are done things should be less hectic and once the cold is gone, lifting boxes won't have me gasping like a fish out of water.

Patches is currently sleeping on my computer chair's pillow, again, which means things in this chair sans pillow are getting a bit uncomfortable. Time for some nyqill and a nice stuffed couch to relax on.

I really do need to get to the 'pawsense' part of this blog at some point lol
Cheers!

The kindle is my new computer

...and by 'my new computer' I mean the time sucking device I can't seem to get away from, or in the kindle's case...put down.

I love reading. I'm reading more now than  I have in the last 5 years, if you don't count fanfiction.
I look at books in my room taking up space and wish I could trade them in for kindle versions.
I download 10 free books a day and wish I could read faster to keep up with all my new books before I fill up all the memory on the kindle.

A while back, I saved up (yes this is what the garage sale money went towards) and got myself a kindle.
While it has stood somewhat in the way of some artistic projects, mostly it's been stopping me from finishing up the epic spring/summer/whenever I finish it clean up; like a well paid bodyguard protecting a rich celebrity.

But there is an upside.
Obviously I'm not talking about the fact that I'm doing something that is at least constructive, though lets toss that into the 'pro' side anyways. I'm talking about the self help books about getting rid of clutter and organizing that I've gotten my hands on.

I'll admit it right now on this blog. My name is Tanya, and I'm a Messie.
And after reading part of one of their books 'Winning the Clutter War" I packed up 3 more boxes of stuff that I missed in the first purge.
I had to stop because I ran out of boxes to fill. :D
Strangely enough, even though I'm not done reading, it is helping.

Patches on the other hand only cares about when she will be able to once again explore under the crafting  desk, one of her favorite hiding spots that I've blocked off with stuff. The concept of a mess to her is something I'm supposed to pick up whether she or I made it.

In other news I got hit by another streak of creativity, but seeing as half my supplies are put away in some new bins till organized, I decided to boil some water and rip some pages out of a music book I bought just to deface, and do a little tea staining in anticipation for an art project I am planning right now.

It's called a Peek-A-Boo box (well that's what I'm callling it). It's based on a shoebox sculpture I did in my college sculpture class. We each had to take a shoe box, and make it into a self portrait.

I was the only one in class to not have an open box, mine was closed and had small peeking holes in it so one could see only what I wanted them to see. People aren't open boxes you can just look into.

Many in the class didn't get it, I'd occasionally spot them taking off the closed cover and staring in confusion.
The teacher however did, and loved it.
My final mark for the class was derived entirely from that box.
The original idea was rushed, I had little to no supplies, just lots of paper and cardboard.

I've been thinking of redoing it for years but didn't really want to repeat myself either, but a person changes a lot in ten years, and the things that were found in the old box really don't reflect me anymore, so maybe it is time for a new box.

I already have some basic plans like the tea stained music paper.

Seeing as I don't have any images from this project to share just yet, I'll leave you with a recent photo I took.

It's been a while

Well, it's pretty obvious I have trouble getting to this blog each week. The last two times it was 15 or so days, this time a whole month passed me by.
I think at this point I just have to accept that I'll blog when I can, and not stress when I can't. It's not like anyone is actually reading this except Patches, just kidding!

I've been busier than usual of late, and it is starting to show on my waist line!
Normally I'm a sluggish girl, shuffling zombie when risen, taking half an hour to an hour at times to fully wake up (I'm not a coffee drinker FYI) and I have had the tendency in the past to be, quite frankly down right lazy at times, low energy/motivation at others, kind of tumbling through my day unless on a wicked inspiration streak or cleaning (and I'm not a big cleaner until the massive craft organization project of 2012 came along and dumped me on my butt so to speak, which by the way still isn't finished).
Life just isn't letting me get away with my cat like lifestyle anymore.

I did however manage to make my yearly trip out to Montreal and visit both my favorite bookstore and craft supply store. I managed to get lots of goodies including a book about art journalling I'm excited about, a large container of liquidtex gel medium, a handful of punches and some jewelry fittings I had been looking for, for sometime (ring blanks and bales for using scrabble tiles/any tiles as pendants).

I also got a book called The Nighttime Novelist. It is chock full of exercises to help me flesh out a story instead of having 50 story ideas scribbled down on post it notes. ;)

Hopefully, with the help of this book, I am going to participate in an event I've always wanted to be a part of, but was scared off from.
This November, I'm going to try to write a novel in 30 days with NaNoWriMo.

And because I have been away for so long, I thought, why not bombard you with some of my more recent photos.

 My photography teacher used to say, never shoot a backlit subject.

I'd say, How else do you get a lovely sillouette.

 A self portrait, of sorts.

  

 Angels of stone smile in happiness.

 Welcome to sunset street, connecting with the yellow brick road.

Now this, is cattitude.

More than 10 days later

Last post was 10 days after the one before it and I had hoped it wouldn't be another 10 before I posted again.
And I wasn't. I was 15 days away from the blog this time.
But I do have a good excuse. Back to back weekends selling at a yard sale.
I even got my rear out of bed at 7 am on my own birthday to get out there and sell.

I didn't get rid of as much junk as I'd hoped, but I made a whopping $30 (approx) which doesn't sound like all that much, but I didn't have any big ticket items to sell like my uncle who had a lawn full of furniture he sold so cheap it nearly made me cry. Most of which was bought by a returning shopper who just kept coming back each day of the first weekend (Sat-Mon) and returned again the following weekend on our last day (Sunday) to scoop up the left overs.
Actually I made most of my money from her as well.

I haven't posted because 2 back to back weekends selling in the hot sun made me feel unwell for the bulk of last week. I got sunburned, blisters on my feet and eczema which for some reason really hated the sun and flared up and made my hands look like I had somehow traveled in time to catch smallpox.
I felt overall drained and spent time between the two weekends taking it easy and hanging out with Patches.

But here I am, back to the creative adventure. And I made some progress on a carved Styrofoam project I started during the massive room cleanup a month or so back.

This is how the project started out. I Love working with found objects, and this started out as a piece of protective foam in a box for a breakable lighthouse decoration for the garden.
I drew out the design, one of my Blu Kats (I create all kinds of things with these blu kat designs of mine, from paintings, to jewelry to this!), carved out a layer of the foam to create a raised design. Then I covered the entire surface of the foam first with glue (much of it was loose at this point, I was finding pieces all over the floor just touching the carved parts) then with mod podge (because I ran out of gloss medium and was given a jar of mod podge by my grandmother months back) which hardened the styrofoam and allowed me to stick down extra pieces in the back where the foam was a bit thin and reinforce it all).
Then I coated the carved parts again in mod podge, and sprinkled on some silver gravel (another gift from my grandmother...she was cleaning out her old supplies at the time lol).
I stopped working on it when I went through most of the mod podge and it sat for weeks untouched (and in need of another layer of gravel as well as the sides are still bare) when I found a thick piece of felt, which I split into two thinner pieces and used the loose fibers from that to give my kitty the furry blue texture you see below.

There's still much to do with it (including something I want to try with the eyes) but it is looking much better nowadays.
And it seems blogging time is up for today, seeing as Patches has crawled into my arms as I sit here typing and is preventing me from typing much more.
Until next time...I make no promises as to when as it seems fate has other ideas. ;)

It's been a long 10 days.

It's been ten days since my last post.
My body's gone and done a strange thing, it set me back into a daylight cycle...meaning normally when I'm up nights crafting, cleaning and doing online things like this blog, I've been off to dreamland because Mr Sandman accidentally sprinkled sleep on me early.

I can't spend much time online during days due to having dialup and needing the phone line open, nor have I felt like doing anything creative so I've been spending some time outside during the new warm spring weather before the neighbors start carving their wooden stakes lol.
I've also been helping my grandmother sort and clear out some of her stuff for this coming weekend's garage sale seeing as I no longer had any place to move things after setting a tornado lose on my crafting room closet.

Tomorrow is our regular trip to the weekly rummage sale hunting for buried treasure among masses of junk people gave away.
I know, it's ironic isn't it?

But I'm looking for costume jewelry, crafting supplies if they're any good and storage solutions (or to find more for my not so secret obsession, collecting neopets merchandise lol). Then I come back and can finally start making a dent on cleaning that craft desk off.
Yes, it's true, I now have room to move as everything I got ready to sell/get rid of is now out the door and being stored at the garagesale's location. I'm hoping I can manage a few more boxes before the sale, however we will be at another location the following week for anything that is found after or did not sell the first time. Then we'll be having another in late summer/early fall for that final clean sweep.

I almost forgot. I did do a little something creative in the last 10 days.
I made these.


Excuse the low res/high grain photo...my camera's battery is currently out of juice and is being charged so my old webcam was my only option right now. Photo slightly larger than actual size.

If you're wondering what the blue box is...I'm a big 'Doctor Who' fan. These blue police boxes are what is referred to as the TARDIS (time and relative dimension in space) on the tv show. These will either become magnets, pins, pendants or even scrapbooking embellishments. They are on thin plastic tiles ( I found a bag of them) from at last weeks sale (best find in a long time). I printed out the photos, covered them with the sticky plastic you find on a laminating pouch (the kind where you don't need the machine) to prevent the ink running then I applied my favorite product Mod Podge Dimensional magic which creates a glassy finish.
I have enough of these tiles to make many more, not just of the TARDIS but of anything like Patches the cat or a Pawprint.

Until next time, which hopefully will be a lot sooner than 10 days. ;)  >^._.^<

National Scrapbooking Day FAIL

I was hoping to have my crafting desk cleaned by now so I could work on new pages for today, but as it is still quite full of unorganized mess, I guess this will have to do.



This is my current page in progress.

I was thinking of a white border around the photo of Patches and some journaling below the photo. I have two more blue birds (you can see them on the right hand side) that I can also use .
I'm thinking it needs more variety in color, and something else I can't put my finger on. It's looking pretty plain right now to me but I'm fighting a spot of un-inspiration right now (page/art block?) so am less creative today.

Any suggestions?
I've never really used this type of paper before (lace paper) so I'm not quite sure if you're supposed to put color blocks or photos behind it or what.

On a side note, I've started a piece of fiction the other day. I'm not going to say what it is about, because every time I tell someone about a writing project in the works, I end up unable to finish it but I will say it's both set in the past and current time...and involves an impossible situation (from what we know of science).

On a second side note Patches has decided to steal my computer chair pillow so sitting here typing on this blog, isn't the most comfortable situation. I'd take it back but she's fast asleep and if any of you have cats, you know how hard it is to disturb them when they are not only quiet but not getting into trouble. ;)

Past projects, new cleaning.

Patches and Nutamu: An Adventure in Creativity and Pawsense is coming to you from 2 locations now!

If you're reading this from my blogger page at then to you I say, Welcome! Put up your feet, make yourself comfortable and enjoy the show. ;)

If you're reading this from CreatingTheHive.com - Arts & Crafts Community then to you I say...well pretty much the same thing...but you're doing it from the comfort of a blogging hub, so there are probably more chairs and a lot more channels on ;) Here, have some popcorn. lol

For those who have been following along, I finally finished clearing out my computer/crafting room closet and started moving my frames, ready to go canvases and larger finished pieces inside. I have to round up a few stragglers trapped behind the crafting desk and from then on be able to find a canvas quickly when inspiration strikes at 3:00 am or whatever the time.

Also looking into getting a couple small clear bins and a set of clear plastic drawers to put on the upper, now cleared shelf.
I need to be better organized with this stuff or months go by without much of anything happening creatively-wise.

Tomorrow I tackle the very much abused crafting desk and bring a little order to my chaos. Patches plans on crawling under said desk as soon as I start moving things (it's her favorite hiding spot)


In the meantime, why not share a couple of past projects with whomever comes across this post?


Seeing as Mother's Day is just around the corner, I thought I'd share something I made my mom a couple years back using Polymer Clay (blue and translucent), a foam stamp and pearlex iridescent powder. I've since done another version of this without the braided border but with the butterfly looking like it was set glass using mod podge dimensional magic to fill in the stamped area.


And seeing as it's very nearly National Scrapbooking Day, and my planned page is currently on the previously mentioned cluttered crafting desk (under a foam carving lol) I'll share something I did last year.
This is a page for...who else, Patches.
I'd just gotten a hold of a jar of buttons a day before I did this and was inspired to use some of them right away. Added some felted cat embellishments I'd found to create a simple, but elegant page without much of the embellishment clutter I usually have in my pages (my first year scrapping I was told I my pages were to busy...my second year I toned it down a little, I'm currently in my third year btw).
I happen to also consider myself a budget scrapper. The most money I spent on any one thing for scrapbooking was $25 for a flip and cut paper trimmer from Royal that has chopping action on one side and a slideing trimmer with adjustable blades on the other. Probably would of bought 2 of them they are quite awesome and well worth it (just the sliding ones cost up to that much for the same size and I really wanted the chopping/guillotine type cutter) but it was the only one they have ever had in stock (I got it the day it hit the shelves lol).
For the most part I buy discount embellishments at dollarsotres (when not making my own) and buy my papers in bulk rather than 10-25 sheets in a pack you see in stores. I'm all about saving money nad using materials creativly (like flattened stamped clay for embellishments or using paper glaze and glue to make my own stickers) when it comes to scrapping.

Oooh nearly time to feed Patches, I'd better be off for now. ;)

Jack of all trades, master of none.

I've always sort of considered myself a jack of all trades...I may not have tried everything yet but I've got my hands in as many things as I possibly can at any given moment.
I started off crafting: some clothes pin angels, moved on to dream catchers, from there painting on slate because I didn't have canvas.
I positively loved those little kits you could get at the store with everything you needed inside.
Even now I don't like coming across a project I just have to try but don't have the materials for.

I moved on to college and a supplementary sculpture class taught me about working with clays and chicken wire (which really hurts when the teacher doesn't tell you to get wire tools ahead of time). I loved working with clay, though when the class ended I had over half a bag of red clay I never got around to using during class, and could no longer use without my suddenly revoked kiln access. Not that I didn't make a few extra pieces that were never fired, and would have probably broken by now if not sealed in thick acrylic paint.

Eventually an introduction to the internet showed me things I'd never even dreamt of, showed me tools and materials I'd never seen before. I was introduced to the art of leather mask making (that one is still on my someday when I get the materials list), shown stained glass effects without cutting up glass, leaned how to make unique jewelry without having to search forever for what I wanted in a store. And the photography! I'd always been a bit of a shutterbug but was frustrated to no end with cheap disposable cameras and a film point and shoot that could not focus. I've only had what I consider a good camera (still a point and shoot but digital with focus and zoom; a definite step up) for the past 6 or 7 years.

I've recently gotten into the papercraft side of things, quilling, making stickers and embellishments, scrapbooking. I've also gone back to painting, but this time adding more texture, using materials I didn't have available to me before and more notably, painting on actual canvas. I really love the dollarstore for coming to town with their affordable materials. I've also gathered the materials to start trying felting, I'm always on the hunt for more things to try.

Maybe, someday I'll even post a bit of my writing here, though I'm more critical and nervous about that than most of the things I create. But if there's one thing you can expect from this blog, is that no two days are ever the same, and neither are the posts.

Patches says hello by the way. ;)

Miss fix it won't save Humpty Dumpty.

Trying not to fall asleep sitting up. You'd think it impossible, until you get just tired enough to suddenly wake up sitting up. ;)
Patches on the other hand has no issue sleeping on one of my hands while I try to type this.

Had a bit of a late night early morning late morning?
What do you call it when you normally stay up till  7:00 AM (nighttime is the right time to create for me), feed the cats and go to bed, then suddenly find yourself needing to stay up till 1:00PM?

Anyway, I ditched the big clean up today to fix something I found yesterday while going through those unpacked boxes. It had chinese writing on the tiny display box, and inside were two tiny gold colored turtles. Obviously something heavy had been sitting on the box they were kept in. They're not meant to leave the tiny display case I found them in, but the glass fell out, both were unstuck from their spots and one of them had gotten decapitated, the tiny wires holding his bobbing limbs broken.

The display box itself is dented in, torn in places and that pesky glass is too loose to keep in right now.

What can I say? I love fixing things, restoring things to their former glory. So today I painstakingly put in new tiny wires to reconnect the turtle's head. Also re-glued the other turtle back to his original spot.

Tomorrow, if my previous handiwork holds, I'll reglue down the previously decapitated turtle, put back the glass and fix the tears in the box making the glass loose.

I also spent time boiling some of the 4 dozen eggs we have at the moment, taking off the hardened broken shells and cleaning them up (the shells lol the eggs were eaten), drying them out and putting them in storage containers for an eggshell textured painting I've been wanting to do this summer.

Wondering what that's all about?
Well, it wasn't my idea. Just another experiment, but this time inspired by the work of a favorite artist Cr3ativity who I met on a social art site and who has many colorful eggshell textured paintings I loved immediately. He even helped those of us who wanted to try the technique.

Here's my first attempt/experiment at putting eggshells to canvas. I'm not sure yet if it is truly finished.


.
I may end up taking a course in the fall that has to do with recycling found objects and junk into artwork. I wonder, if I take the course, what they'll have to say about this? :)

First Day, First entry

First day on the new blog.
Patches could care less.

In the middle of a massive spring cleaning that was brought on by not having any more room for my art supplies. I have a crafting desk several layers deep with finished pieces, in progress pieces, newly bought materials, and probably a few lost tools. I even have the stuff I bought to organize the mess under it all. Lot of good it's doing. ;)
I decided to clean out the computer/crafting room closet that was packed to the ceiling with unpacked boxes  (from a move 8 years ago lol) & other assorted things.  Trying to attempt some kind of organization in there for supplies, and my larger canvases and frames. So far it's going pretty good, even if I've overrun my original set timeline by a week now without having actually touched the crafting desk.

What can I say? Not only am I an amateur artist, I'm a total packrat.
It may look a little crazy to see rolls of wrapping paper, tissue paper and bubble wrap stuffed behind my door but they already have projects in mind for them (mostly texture) and anything I find that I don't remember what it was bought for is going in a massive garage sale in three weeks (thus why the timeline and why overshooting right now is not a good thing) so that someone else can find a use for it.

At the moment Patches is gathering inspiration for our next project by watching nearby birds bounce around in front of the window.

Patches doesn't do a lot of the artwork mind you, she's basically a muse in fur who occasionally likes to accidentally knock over a canister or brushes or step in paint and track it across the floor (or a canvas if i get lucky one of these days).

I think I'll leave this first entry with an image of an already completed project, just so you have something to look forward to next time.


This is a portrait I did a couple years back of Patches and her three brothers, Ducky, Bambi and Teddy Bear in acrylic on canvas.