The New Fall Floral Collection

I’m so excited to be showing my new Fall Floral Collection at High Point Coffee in Oxford, MS.

This mixed media collection was created with vintage papers, plaster, paint and more.

The process for these pieces started with uplifting, positive words journaled out on the canvas, lots of intuitive mark making, then covered up with gesso and paint, once dried, vintage papers and plaster were added for the planters and finally the plants were painted and final touches were added. The process of these paintings brought positivity and joy that will carry through to their new owners.

If your in Oxford, MS and looking for a lovely piece to hang in your space, come down to High Point Coffee and take a look!

Let's Make Art Mark Heart Banners!!

This quick and simple little project is perfect for Valentine’s Day, you can make them on your own or do them with the kids or grandkids. Hang them up in a guest bedroom, in a window, or anywhere else in the house, they make a sweet Valentine gift as well!

Supplies Needed:

• Mark Making Tools (paint brushes, sticks, pine needles, etc)

• Watercolor paint in the color of your choice (I used Paynes Gray) & Water

• Tru-Ray construction paper or cardstock

• Scissors, Hole Punch, String

Start by making some marks on your papers, have fun with it!! Swirls, lines, dots, etc.

Next cut out your heart shapes, you can make them all the same size, or try all different sizes if you prefer!!

And now it’s time to punch your holes and string your hearts. I found it best to punch two holes in each heart, one on either side, to help the banner hang flat! And thats it!! Your done, you have created a sweet little heart banner!!

The Dirty Truth...

It’s about your laundry! So, what is the dirty truth? Well, the dirty truth is that most store bought laundry products are full of nasty chemicals and toxic fragrances! Yep, even the fragrances they use are often toxic!! These toxic chemicals are released during the washing and drying cycle and your clothes, sheets and towels get coated in them and then you rub them all over your skin, these toxins can be absorbed into your blood stream through your laundry! YUK!

I recently fought the battle of cancer, Triple Negative Breast Cancer! It’s a rare type of cancer that makes up only 12% of all breast cancers and while they still don’t know exactly what causes Triple Negative Breast Cancer, some medical professionals believe it could be from environmental toxins! We already know toxic chemicals play a large role in many different types of cancers! I wish I had realized this long before my diagnosis, the switch from toxic products in the home is so easy, I could have been doing this all along, but I just didn’t know!! Well, I know now!! And I’m making the switch with just about everything inside our home from cleaning products, laundry, make up, well being and more, as much as I can control! And the biggest one to start with is LAUNDRY!!!

So….I did lots of research and lots of trial and error with mixing different products to get the best results. One of the main ingredients in a nontoxic laundry detergent is Castile Soap, but not all Castile soaps are created equal!! Some don’t work as well! I found a few brands I really like and came up with a formula that I love! Two formulas I love actually! One is a creamy white and the other comes out clear, both work great and so I switch back and forth.

Some of the Castile soaps will leave you with a laundry soap that separates {especially in colder months} leaving the bottom of your bottle clear and the top white and a little chunky…but this is totally normal, just give it a little shake and it will turn creamy white again. While I’m no scientist, I believe this is from the lye that some Castile soaps contain in their ingredients. There are some Castile soaps that have a Glycerin base and these will come out clear and won’t separate.

Currently you can find the laundry products I make and use at “THE FARM” store in Abbeville, MS. You can choose from prepackaged items or grab a glass jar of your choice and fill your own at our refilling station!

If your local or visiting Oxford, MS, it’s about 12 minutes outside of Oxford and a lovely little store!! You can find fresh clean meats, dairy, sodas, fresh grown produce, staples like organic rice, coffee, dried herbs, spices, and more. They have great events going on throughout the year and lots of fun gift shopping as well, such as handmade crochet items, hand made charcuterie board wooden utensils, handmade wooden cutting boards and so much more!!

We don’t currently ship our laundry products, but we hope to in the very near future. We are currently sourcing the best packaging to allow us to ship out to you in the best and most cost effective ways. Stay tuned!!

Southern Floral Series

I’m so excited for this new floral series, it’s so bright and cheery and definitely inspired by all the colors of the South!!

You can find several of the pieces on our website and more are coming soon. We also have several pieces on display at a local coffee shop here in Mississippi, High Point Coffee in Oxford.

If your interested in any of the pieces on display (you can see them below) please get in touch, we can ship anywhere in the US and payment can be made with Venmo for these pieces.

WRAP IT UP IN LEATHER PLEASE!

For those of you who don’t already know, my husband is extremely talented in woodworking and leather crafting. His craftsmanship comes from a long line of Norwegian viking blood!! His Norwegian grandfather was a carpenter/cabinet maker and made everything by hand, no factory cut cabinets would ever be found in the homes he built cabinets for!!

Our recent move to Mississippi was based on the idea that we could find a better (and cheaper) way of life outside of California so that Mark could leave the stressful corporate world of security integration and focus on his true calling and what makes his heart happy (and doesn’t cause intense daily stress)….being the “Maker” he was always meant to be! He loves “making” with both wood and leather. He has made leather interior seats for a vintage truck, seat tops and backs for work stools and counter and bar stools for inside the home. Wallets, gun holsters, knife sheaths, tool rolls and wraps, jacket patches, hat brims, cell phone cases and more.

When it comes to wood, it’s all second nature, passed down the bloodline you could say! He has made furniture, jewelry boxes, turned amazing wood vessels, trinket boxes, mirrors and more. His current wood project is building totally custom 3 wall workbench style tables for my art studio! I can’t wait for the completion!

If you have a wood or leather project that your interested in, whether it be small or large, he would love to hear all about it and discuss it with you!

Visit our Leather and Wood section of the website to see some samples of his work and check back often for updates of new projects!

What's Under Your Painting?

What’s an underpainting you ask? In my work, the underpainting is where I express myself and warm up when beginning a painting. It’s often done with big bold words that express how I’m feeling, mark making, journaling, color exploration and more.

When I look at other artists work, I wonder, what secrets lie underneath that masterpiece they have created…is there nothing underneath but a blank white space, did they take notes while on a phone call?, could there be an entire other painting underneath? I will never know, but I love to think about it.

Often in my work you can find small bits of the underpainting showing through, other times, it just disappears into the back of the painting never to be seen again. Either way, you can know there is alway something hiding behind my final pieces.

In this piece, the underpainting start with color exploration, you can see bits of it showing through, then a layer of white and some marks scratched into the paint before lots of big bold words positive were added. This piece was created just shortly after I finished my last cancer treatment and I was feeling these words.

Once the underpainting is done, the background colors are applied (they often change later) and the sketch is drawn out so the painting can begin transforming itself.

Sketchbook Portraits

I love starting a new sketchbook! I am a little bit particular about my sketchbooks, so this one was designated mostly for portraits. I started out by making the sketchbook with white TruRay construction paper. I love the texture and weight of it for a sketchbook and it’s very inexpensive. I simply fold the pages in 1/2 and tie the centers together with book binding cord.

The next thing I typically do is paint backgrounds on all the pages (well, I leave a few blank and just gesso them) but I love to play with hand made stamps, collage, paint (the cheap craft paint is best for these sketchbooks because it leaves the pages a bit dry and chalky feelings and they take the gouache much better) If you use high quality acrylic paints for the backgrounds, they dry more shiny and have kind of a plastic feel and doesn’t take the gouache very well. Just have fun, use a brayer, stamps, a little collage here and there, whatever grabs you to create your backgrounds! This really helps when creating your portraits as your not staring at a blank white page and often the backgrounds help with the theme of your portrait….and if your backgrounds not working, you can always just paint a new one!

Next it’s time to start sketching portraits and painting them! You can see below the difference between the portraits painted on a blank white background and the ones that I painted a background first.

Sketch from reference image.

Russia. For this piece I used Acryla Gouache by Holbein.

In this piece I used a Lyra water soluable graphite stick to sketch out the piece.

Ethiopia. The finished piece was created with gouache.

Vietnam. Painted with Acryla Gouache by Holbein.

Monoprinting Portraits

Do you have a Gelli Plate? I happen to love mine, I often use it to make collage papers that I use later in other art, but I LOVE to use it to make fun loose portraits!! It’s a great way to loosen up in your art as you really don’t have as much control as in traditional painting so the final outcome is always fun!!

One thing to remember in making mono print portraits is that you kind of have to paint backwards, so rather than filling in the flesh color of the face first, you need to work on the details first….the black of the eyes, the iris, the eye kids, nose and mouth, then the flesh color of the face around or on top of that, then hair and clothes etc…..

Experiment, have fun and get lost in the process!! At the end, at a little detail with colored pastels pencils or a black stabilo pencil! You will love the funny portraits that come out, send them to friends, frame them up and hang them in the hallway or just collect them!!

Creating Background Papers

I love collage and one of the things I use often in my work is papers with writing, marks or stamps that can be cut up later and incorporated into collage work or used as backgrounds for paintings. Sometimes this process is almost more fun than making the actual final piece! I spent the morning making these and I just love them!

Papers stained with Walnut Ink and Water, then Written on top with Watercolor Marker, Lyra Graphite and Golden Fluid Acrylic Paint. I prefer TruRay Construction Paper for this, it’s thin enough to collage later and durable enough to take wet medium and I love how it gets all crunchy once it dries!

For this stamped page, I used handmade stamped that I carved in Moo Carve Carving Blocks.

Examples of the papers all cut up and ready to use in a painted floral :)

Practice Everyday...

One of my favorite ways to keep myself inspired and motivated is to start my day out with a routine practice, it might be tiny collages one week and papers filled with mark making the next, but it’s always good to have a little routine to start your creative process. Lately for me it has been contour drawings, I love them, sometimes they are really good, sometimes they are horrible and other times they are just funny, but they really get my creativity flowing and they are just plain fun!! I love contour drawing portraits, but you can do animals, plants, architecture, whatever you like, it’s a great warm up!!

Just Have Fun and Play!

I love teeny-tiny art and moving fast through each piece so as not to overthink it too much. These little tiny pieces were so fun to make! Cut up some watercolor paper and set it all out and go! Work on one little piece at a time or all of them at the same time, you can even work on one large abstract and then cut it into tiny pieces once it’s finished!!

SPRING IS HERE!

The weather has been amazing the past few days in California, we can smell all the orange blossoms from our trees and the roses from the rose gardens. We can feel the sun shining through and it’s inspiring some really bright and pretty florals just in time for Spring and Summer!

We’re in Full Bloom

Spring bouquets and florals are working their way into our shop!! We invite you to come see the original paintings just released this morning!!