Hello again!

Well, if anyone is still checking this blog after almost a year of no posts then you are an amazing optimist and I am awed and impressed!  I am using this summer to dive back into blogging and tweak my Etsy shop, so look forward to more posts about my escapades in art making, cooking and whatever else comes up.

For now, I wanted to share the new line of necklaces I am working on.  I decided to use my drawings as inspirations, so I made a intricate purple necklace and a greenish, turquoise paisley necklace:

After that I decided to try and make large necklaces that were either parts of my drawings or mini versions of them.  Here is how they turned out:

 black and white checkered background with swirls and yellow daisies 

colorful circles/mini mandalas 

funky hanging balls on a streaky pink background

I think I like the purple doodle necklace best, so I am going to try a few more in that style and see how they turn out.  Look for all of them in my Etsy shop this summer! 

In case you are interested in what I'm cooking these days, yesterday I made chocolate banana bread that is wonderfully delicious!  

Yay Pinterest!

I have to share something cool I found through Pinterest.  My friend pinned a beautiful leaf drawing from this website: http://www.art-is-fun.com/search-this-site.html.  I loved the picture, so I looked through the website a bit to see what it was all about.  It is a site that gives you drawing and painting lessons.  While browsing through the pages I found some things about Prismacolor colored pencils (which are my favorite drawing materials).  The site recommended that when sharpening Prismacolors you should hold the pencil and turn the sharpener instead of the other way around.  I had never done it that way so I started giving it a try.  It has worked so much better! The lead breaks much less frequently and seems to give a nicer, sharpened tip.  So yay for Pinterest and yay for the Art is Fun website!

Sporadic

Apparently, I am a sporadic blogger.  To anyone who still checks and reads this blog, thank you!  I have intentions of posting more often, but it does not seem to happen yet.  I will continue to try and get better!

I worked on a drawing this weekend and was not pleased with it, until I realized that I wanted a more zoomed in version of it.  So here is how it turned out:

And this is a zoomed in photo which is more like what I had in mind:

I guess I will have to try again and experiment with the background some more.  I also have been meaning to share a photo of the new necklaces I have made.  They are not baked yet, but I really like them and I want to make some more in this style:

I am kind of into paisleys right now.  They seem to be showing up in my drawings so I figured I would see how they looked in necklace form.  I have to say I am pretty pleased with the results!

New Drawings

In the little bit of spare time I have been able to find, I have been trying out a new design I came up with.  It is based on a photo of woven bowls hanging on a wall that I saw in a magazine.  I really liked how colorful the bowls looked on the green wall and how each bowl had a different design.  With that in mind, I tried out a few designs:

I don't think I have found the perfect one yet, so I will try a few more.  I think I want to try it in my large sketchbook, but that may require buying some new pencils.  It is a good thing I am going home in a month - some of pencils are getting pretty short! 

Hello Again

Ah my poor neglected blog!  I am still adjusting to being back at work and it is exhausting!  But I am endeavoring to make more time for my blog and my art.  I have been thinking about wintery and Christmas necklaces, but have not sat down to make any yet.  However, I have been doing a little bit of drawing when I can find the time.  I finished the two mandalas I started this summer (my mandala after school club is a lot of fun in case you were wondering!).

Back to School...

My summer is over.  Sigh.  Now it is busy, busy, busy with lesson planning, photo copying, furniture rearranging, and waking up early.  Part of me is excited to be back at work and see my students again.  But the other part of me looks at my paints and my sketchbook and my fimo and wonders how long it will be before I get to play with them again.  I was planning an afterschool activity around the creation of mandalas and decided to make one of my own.  Here is the work in progress (photos of the finished product to follow):