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.

Flighty Feline

Flying through shadow and light, the farmyard feline believes he has always had wings. A noble canine howls at the honeyed moon. All is right in this northern village somewhere beyond the the frenzy of city life.

Painted in acrylic on stretched canvas, employing as the predominant color pthalo blue, this work is one of a series of paintings that feature winged creatures. Flying, the ultimate freedom in our physical world, is a frequent theme in my paintings.

1940's Retro Mixed Media Collage

The newest addition to my Etsy internet store is a retro style painting/collage of a 1940's high school girl. "They said she was too young to be in love," reads the caption in old fashioned typewriter lettering which was stamped by hand. The background was painted in acrylic paints. Print papers, hand stamped and hand drawn charms add to the layered effect, as does the gold dimensional paint. This painting is available as a print. Just click on the links on the upper right of this page to get to the sales site.

I'll let you in on a little secret: the young woman is my mother at age 18.

My Etsy Store is Open

My new store on Etsy.com is now open for business. You may purchase prints of some of the artwork you have seen in these pages. I will continually be adding more prints, note cards and greeting cards, big buttons, and jewelry so stay posted. Click on the links at the top right side of this blog to go straight to the shop. Many thanks for your continued viewing of these pages.

A is for Art

Here is another example of one of my favorite techniques of collage art. Claudine Hellmuth is one of the most prominent artists using this technique today. It consists of gathering vintage photos and using part of that photo, usually the face of a relative or in the case of the above art piece, oneself. Yes that is a photo of me in one of the cute little hats my mother made for me. The face is mine as well as the hands. The rest of the piece is drawn, painted and collaged. I started with a heavy application of white gesso onto an 8"x10" stretched canvas to provide the texture, then added the blue for the sky with Liquitex acrylic paint, a dark turquoise green for the ground with a lighter, more neutral green brushed lightly on top to reveal the darker green underneath. The purpose of the different layers and the texture is to create more interest than just one solid smooth color could do.

The band across the top was created by layering different papers and distressing them with Distress Ink Pads. I used a commercial rubber stamp for the letter "A", and outlined it with dimenional Scribble Paint in gold. I hand lettered the word "Art". The word "Love" was hand stamped onto a sheet of shrink plastic and heated in the toaster oven until it thickened and shrank in length and width to about 30% its original size. Again, I outlined the shape with dimensional paint in gold.

Simple shapes were drawn and cut from decorative papers for the dress and feet. A little bit of line drawing was done with a waterproof fine tipped felt pen for the shoes and socks and the number on the dress was stamped onto paper and outlined with the gold dimensional paint. All collage elements were adhered using either Liquitex acrylic matte medium or gel matte medium depending on the heaviness of the material. As I went along I coated all collage elements with the matte medium as I adhered them and brushed on the medium over the entire canvas when I finished the piece. The number 12 refers to the date of my birth in case you didn't guess. And I don't mean 1912. I mean the day of the month. That's all I'll say.

I would be glad to answer any questions about the techniques used in creating this piece. Just leave me a note in the comments section for this post.

Handcrafted Jewelry

These two photos show examples of my handcrafted jewelry. The top picture is of a necklace made of polymer clay beads and copper wire. Polymer clay has to be conditioned before it can be shaped. Then the bits of colored clay are mixed to create the desired pallette and through various techniques of combining the colors and shapes, and baking them, incredible designs are created. Inclusions, and embossing powders can be added. Designs can be stamped into the clay. Sanding, polishing and sealing complete the process.

The bottom photo shows a shrink plastic necklace. A special plastic sheet is stamped with my original handcrafted rubber stamps, then color is added with inks or chalks. I cut the designs apart and heat them. They shrink to about 30 % of their original size. It's really fun to watch the pieces transform in the shrinking process. They curl up and look like they're about to die, but just when they're on the brink, they straighten out like a yogi in shavasana and just lie there in the toaster oven until you come to retrieve them. The design and colors intensify. More color may be added after heating. Sometimes I use sanding to distress the finish and fixative to preserve the piece if the materials used warrant it.

Strength Courage Peace

This small collage/painting was created on a stretched canvas with acrylic paints, hand carved rubber stamps on polymer clay, shrink plastic sheets, and fabric; copper wire, paper, glass beads, linen chord and metallic paints complete the piece. I've always liked the practice of breaking out of the borders and off the surface of a work.

My Etsy Shop is somewhat delayed in its opening due to the setting up of PayPal which should be finished by next week.

Believe In Love

These photos are details of a painting/collage done in acrylic, with a foundation of torn paper and accents of shrink plastic, fabric, rubber stamped letters, and dimmensional acrylic paints. They actually work as two separate pictures, but they add up to one. You'll have to wait to see the whole thing. How's that for a tease? Today I received my shipment of 100% cotton rag paper for making archival digital prints of my artwork. I will have prints, blank note cards, jewelry, and buttons for sale in my shop on Etsy. There will be a link from this blog to the shop. The buttons, shown below, are great for adding pizzaz to all the fun knitted items that so many are creating. Art quilters will appreciate them as well.

The buttons are coming! The buttons are coming!

Yes, they are finally here after years in the making. Polymer clay buttons you can really sink your teeth into.......NOT! Seriously, these are one of a kind original designs made by moi, having worked on my polymer clay techniques for many years. You actually use a pasta machine as part of the process for creating these little works of art. Colored clays must be mixed and conditioned by kneading, rolling and generally abusing the clay until it is soft and pliable. That's where the pasta machine comes in. You must laboriously roll sheets of the mixed stuff through the machine about 20 times. You do this for each color you are creating. Then you are ready to start putting the colors together in various shapes and combinations to create logs of clay that you can slice into geometric patterns that dazzle the eye. You can also stamp, paint, carve and sand the clay to allow endless design variations. I also make jewelry out of this clay which I will show in another post. I will in the next couple of weeks be posting my paintings, prints, jewelry, buttons and note cards on ETSY, an internet website for artists to sell their handmade wares.

Cindy's Buttons Little Works of Art

"LOVE" acrylic and collage 9" x 12"

I've been working on a series of paintings for the last week. This is one of my favorites. It was created with a foundation layer of gesso and torn paper to create the texture that you see. I concentrated on using a different color palette from my usual dark blue night skies. This time I used Golden acrylics as opposed to my usual Liquitex acrylics. The colors and their combinations are very different from any I've used before. To achieve a unified look for the painting I used only a few colors and mixed them together to create compatible colors. This way even though the colors are bold and bright, they are not gaudy and they don't clash with one another because they're made of the same "stuff".

Sally Struthers Buys Edith!

Yes, it's true, Edith has just been purchased from the Art and Soul Gallery in Ogunquit, Maine by Sally Struthers. For those of you who don't remember Sally, she played Gloria in the ground-breaking sitcom All in the Family back in the 70's. Sally was recently in Ogunquit for an encore presentation of The Full Monty at the Ogunquit Playhouse. I saw her in this musical with my family in June and she was hilarious, as was the play. Part of the appeal of my painting for Sally was perhaps that Edith was the name of one of the characters in the sitcom. The gallery owner, Whitney Ott, said that Sally was "thrilled" with her purchase. I couldn't be happier myself. SOLD

Be All You Can Be

All images copyright Cindy Silverstein. Cannot be reproduced for any reason without written permission of the artist.

Click on pictures for larger detailed versions.


This small painting/collage (9x12) was just completed and is about letting go of the fear that keeps us from celebrating life to its fullest. I used acrylic paints and mediums with layers of texture, type, paper, fabric, ink, dimmensional paint and charms that I made with shrink plastic, stamps and inks.

I just finished a wonderful book called When Fear Falls Away by Jan Frazier, the story of her spiritual awakening. She helps us to believe that it is possible for us to reach a place where our lives are not ruled by fear. When fear falls away it leaves a huge space where love rushes in to fill the the emptiness. We already own this state of fearlessness and just need to remind ourselves that we already are that being of infinite love.

The Fiddler and his friends wait.

This most recent painting is waiting for its story, the words that make it come to life. I'm sure they will soon arrive. They are percolating beneath the level of consciousness and will soon bubble up.

Muffins just came into his trust fund.

Muffins just came into his trust fund.

I love cats. Especially large round ones. That's because I have two large round British Shorthair cats, Matisse and Monet. They are a big influence in my paintings. You know how superior cats can be if you are a cat lover. This painting captures that attitude. This painting has been sold.

Fly on periwinkle dreams of a world wrapped in velvet. You were born with wings.
Winged creatures, human and not, are featured in a lot of my work. I think flying appeals to all of us because of our unconscious desire to be free. Free from the fears that hold us back, and the false notions of who we think we are.

Edith knew she was out of control
I like to use photos of family members. Old photos are the best. I use the head,(that sounds worse than it is) and draw, paint and collage the rest of the person. Creating a story about the resulting character is the best part, and can be quite amusing. This painting has been sold.

I float dreamlike through the heavenly spheres and worlds misty with the voice of hope.
If you enlarge this image you can read the beautiful and inspiring words Katie wrote. The "love" tag is made from shrink plastic. The piece that is part of the word triangle at the top is made of polymer clay. The collage includes fabric, buttons and dimensional paint as well.