VALENTINE TOTE BAGS on Etsy Site

My artwork will be featured on the etsy.com VALENTINE SHOWCASE on Thursday January 31 from 12:00 noon for 24 hours. Check it out on their main page.

When my daughter was home from college winter break we got onto a sewing binge. These bags are the result of my efforts and I intend to make more bags, purses and clutches. I wanted them to fit into the look I have created for my artwork and I believe they do, in color, feeling and design. The bags are fully lined and they have a layer of interfacing as well. The hearts are appliqued. The fabric is high quality 100% cotton. A handmade shrink art LOVE charm graces the top of the bags above the heart.

NOTE CARDS now available on Etsy Site

I've just added blank note cards of some of my favorite art prints to my Etsy Store website. They are sold in sets of 8 cards with 8 envelopes. The cards are suitable for framing if one so chooses and are a great way to communicate happiness to friends and loved ones.

Periwinkle Dreams 8x10 inch print

Just added to my etsy site: "Fly on Periwinkle Dreams; you were born with wings." This print is available on 8 1/2 x 11 inch archival paper and printed with archival digital inks to last for generations. The original painting/collage was done with layers of acrylic paints, fabric for the dress and hat, a stamp for the face painted over with acrylics, copper wire, a handmade shrink plastic charm (LOVE tag), buttons, dimensional paint, hand stamped and painted fabric for the design in the upper left corner. Some metallic paint was used.

Attention all art lovers! See my artwork featured on Etsy Jan. 16th.

Etsy.com is a website that features artists' handmade products for sale. I am one of the thousands, yes that's thousands, of artists who have products listed on that site. On January 16th, Wednesday, I will be one of the featured artists in the Storque Showcase for a 24 hour period starting at 12:00 noon. All you have to do to see the showcase is to click on: http://www.etsy.com/showcase.php?showcase_id=5 and view the featured artists' works. It's a beautiful website for browsing. All products are made by the hands of artists from all over the world. Etsy also inspires us to buy handmade whenever possible in order to offset dependence on the mass production of goods, and the lack of person to person experience in the marketplace today. I hope you will take the time to visit and I thank you for letting me share my artistic life with you.

Pink Polka Dot Dreams

Who could be more happy with himself than this royal cat? Pleased with his polka dots, and glowing in his orange suit, he poses proudly against a bejeweled turquoise sky.

I guess you've noticed a recent cat fixation. I do have two adorable roundish sort of cats that inspire my artwork, but I promise to show more people, plants and animals of a different order. But for now please endure one more cute kitty.

This picture is a detail of a much larger painting, but I love the simplicity of this little corner, not to mention the adorable character depicted. I used a stretched canvas, Arches watercolor paper for the cat body, acrylic paint, and dimensional paint for the outlining and stars.

The cat's body was painted pink, then covered with circle stickers and painted over with orange. The circles act as a resist, and when peeled off, reveal polka dots. The cat stands out dramatically from the background because the orange and blue are complimentary colors (opposites on the color wheel). The blue I use most frequently is pthalo blue. I love the intensity of it. I do tone it down with the addition of white and perhaps some pthalo green to make that gorgeous turquoise.

Silver Heart Collage

This collage was created on a stretched canvas using lots of heavy gel medium for the background texture. Layers of acrylic paints came next followed by a strip of fabric, my handwriting on paper adhered with matte medium and two polymer clay items. The heart shape was made from a mold of a metal heart that I made from polymer clay. I baked the mold, then used it to make more hearts. I painted it with a silver metallic acrylic paint. I painted over the silver with black and them rubbed it off immediately with a paper towel to reveal the pattern of holes in the heart. The bottom polymer piece was stamped with two of my handmade stamps. The tag that says "breathe" was made from shrink plastic, a versatile and fun medium that shrinks and thickens when you bake it.