Tessandore Creative

Still "Nesting"

Happy Friday!  This is my painting from Mati Rose's class today.  It's on a 12x12" canvas and it's called Art is My Happy Place since I had that phrase in my head from yesterday's blog post.  Coincidentally, Mati happened to say the exact same thing during her introduction this morning in describing what art is for her.  So I guess many of us feel that way.   :o)
The little girl in the painting is a section of vintage birthday wrapping paper.  Thought that was appropriate since I'm celebrating my 40th birthday here.  I imagined she was picnicking under the tree with her tiny cake. 

Tonight is an art sale & I have my eye on a wonderful creation by one of the other attendees.  So much talent here!  We only have one more day, which is sad but probably the limit of everyone's creative energy.  I'm having so much fun. 

This experience is setting the bar pretty high for the rest of my 40th year, but I just have a good feeling about my art future and life in general.   ♥

And later that day...

My results from today's class.  :o)  I'm really happy with how they came out & had such a great time spending the whole day art-making!  I'm exhausted, but in the best way. 

The group of us are off to dinner in town now, then back & probably right to sleep so we can get up and do it all again tomorrow.  {Yay!}  I couldn't be more content ~ art is my happy place.  ♥

Greetings from ArtNest!

I'm nestled in the hills of Utah with 29 wonderful, warm, artsy, lovely women.  This is the view we'll be enjoying as we dive into our first class today with Kelly Rae Roberts.  Can't wait! 

I'm off to find the coffee now, but just had to post this photo of the little friends that have been keeping us company.
Since we have wireless here...more to come soon!   ♥

Takin' a Break

I have a few paintings and other projects on my work table, but I think I'm going to take a bit of a blog break now until the first week in March.  By then I'll be back from Art Nest and will have a couple weeks to settle back in & share that experience with you before my next trip.  (Baltimore, here I come!) 

If you're going to Art Nest too...see you in a couple days!   ♥

Words, in a new way.

For awhile now I've been mulling the problem of how to use text as a background.  I didn't want it to be easily readable.  For me, words on paintings can be distracting and make the work too specific.  I like for things to be left open to interpretation.  Plus, I can never decide on what word (or words) to use.  But I love the look of text as a graphic element. 

Today, I finally came up with using strips of book pages woven into a little mat.  I'm sure it's been done before, but it was a new idea to me.  With the text broken up and going in all directions, it worked just right!
Combining that background with some cut-outs of my recent watercolors is making me pretty happy.

After all the layers dry over night, I'm going to coat each canvas with a light layer of bees wax to seal everything.  Right now the edges of each section are too distinct.  (Don't know if you can see it well in the photo below, but those heart edges are bugging me.)  The wax always integrates the work in a pleasing way + it's so yummy smelling & fun to paint with.  Can't wait to do that step.  :o)
This technique is spurring a ton of ideas for me.  Between that and what I learn at Art Nest next week, I'm going to be a busy girl!   ♥

Inspiration sneaks in...

I think this girl was unconsciously inspired by Coraline!   No button eyes or anything, so I guess it's the blue color pallet that reminds of me of her.  And the mouth looks kind of dolly-fied.  But with that bat necklace, maybe she's more a cross between something Coraline & the Munsters.

Here she is part way done where her eyes do look a bit button-y.  Kinda creepy, right?
So much better with the marker-detail filled in!  Eyelashes can make all the difference on a girl.  Oh, and pupils too.  :)

   ♥

Smile

Lately, I've been thinking that the girls I draw or paint look a little...serious.  I always intend for them to look quietly happy.  But if I'm not looking at them close up, they lose their spark.  So my new plan is to work on a more obviously happy expression & this is my first attempt in that direction.  What do you think, does she have that happy spark?   ♥

Blurb

Aside from being a fun word to say, Blurb is a wonderful little (big?) book company where you can print your own book.  I had heard of them years ago, but it was only recently that I found out they had developed software to convert a blog into book format.  So of course...
I now have a "hard copy" record of the first year of my blog!  So fun! 

I feel so official now that I'm in print.  :o)  If you have a blog, I really encourage you to get one of these.  You can buy just the one, or purchase many copies.  But I just think it's a great idea to have as back up to all that work that goes into your online presence.  Now, if I ever decided to stop paying typepad or don't want to keep up with it anymore - I still have a journal of all my artsy/craftsy adventures.   ♥

Happy Valentine's Day!

I found a couple Basswood Country Rounds today at Value Village and thought one of them would make a great background for a lovely Valentines-y girl in a pretty pink dress.  (+$3 bucks each and still in the package...who could resist?)  I started with covering the area I wanted to work with in gesso, of course.

Then like yesterday's project, I sketched out the basic shape & chose to use my watercolor crayons again for the color.

After adding water to the crayon areas, the skirt was so pretty & floaty I almost wanted to leave it like this.

But I finally decided it needed some defining to look more like a dress, and less like a big, rosy blanket.

 ♥ ♥ ♥ Hope you had a Romantically Wonderful Valentine's Day! ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Best. Day. Ever.

I'm not going to elaborate on that.  You'll just have to take my word for it.  ♥  But really...it was an unexpectedly great Valentine's Eve!

What I can tell you is that I made a couple new paintings today.  I'm still really enjoying these tiny watercolor papers.
After finishing this little blue dress, I had an idea for using a left-over candy heart box for a canvas.  I started by just covering the top with gesso, then drawing a cute girl...
She was colored in with my watercolor crayons.
Some details & outlines were added with a fine point marker.
And some background color to finish her up!

Oh, and I also added a nice coordinating ribbon around the edge.
A post from Carla Sonheim started me thinking about using recycled materials for painting.  Check out this great three part tutorial on her blog.  She's using a recycled cereal box as a canvas...neat!  ♥

Valentine's Candy

I ♥ Necco hearts.  Especially the yellow & white ones.  But for some real decadence, check out these creations by Vosges Haut Chocolat. 
I'm actually not a big chocolate fan, but these are very different.  +I'm a sucker for everything they do with their packaging.  Isn't that purple heart wonderful?  They publish a great catalog too. 

My very favorite truffle is called the Rooster, which is the pointy one in their Italiano collection.

This is the description from their site: "The Rooster truffle is a mélange of Taleggio cheese, organic walnuts and Tahitian vanilla beans draped in bittersweet dark chocolate. A bit salty, slightly tannic and rich in mouth-feel with an undercurrent of sweetness."

My description:  Eye-rollingly good!  ♥
 

Valentine's Cookies

First, let me say how much I love this Pearl Dust!  After the background icing is set up & before you start with the other details, just take a soft paint brush and dust it all over the cookie.  It gives them this lovely sheen.

This is my favorite house ~ the little heart shingles are so sweet!

Here's the rest of the village...
The snowflake cookies were made with this amazing cookie cutter from Fancy Flours.  When I ordered it, I thought it was about 3 or 4" across....it's actually 8"!  Mega cookie.



Royal Icing good things:  Sets up fast so you can package and travel easily with the cookies.  You can do amazing detail work with it.  Drawbacks:  Not so tasty {to me} and makes for a too-crunchy cookie.

My preference is for the taste of a softer frosting like we use on the Thanksgiving cookies.  After much trial & error, my favorite is Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy Frosting in Cream Cheese flavor with an extra blended-in 8 oz package of cream cheese & some powdered sugar.  The extra cream cheese = yummier flavor.  The extra powdered sugar = faster drying time and a little more "body" to the soft frosting.

That said, I don't think I've ever made cookies prettier than these!  I'm so happy and proud of how they turned out.  :o) 

♥♥♥

2/3 of the way...

My friend Meg & I had a great time at a cookie decorating class a few days ago.  We learned that when using Royal Icing, fancy cookies are a 3 day process. 

Day 1) bake the cookies
Day 2) "run out" the background frosting on each cookie & finally...
Day 3) the fun detail decorating!  
This is where I left the cookies last night, so this evening I get to start with the sprinkles & sparkle dust. 

All the prep-work reminds me of house painting.  By the time you do all the taping & hole patching, it's so nice to get on with the part you really wanted to do. 

Can't wait to show you the finished cookies!  ♥

Art Night

This last weekend was the first Art Night get together!  I should have taken a "before" of the table, but here it is while we were right in the middle of our needle-felting fun.  Note the band aids & chocolate kisses - we were set for all eventualities! 

Penny made this cute brown hedgehog...
And Meg made a replica of their Volvo for her fiance.  It's even got a roof rack!
Pam made a sweet little nest with eggs & also a heart shape with a pin-back sewn on - wearable art!  My mom tweaked a couple projects she already had in the works ~ an easy chair for a critter to relax in and a teddy bear that needed a bit more padding in the rump.  (Didn't get a photo of everybody's work before we packed up...too busy chatting!) 

My daughter made some eggs in a frying pan, cooking over a camp fire.  She clearly has more patience than I do for details!  :)
Everyone went home with some needle felting supplies & ideas for new projects.  We're all looking forward to the next gathering in March ~ thanks girls!

#8 from my list ~ check!  ♥

Marshmallows are back, yes they are.

This time it's Raspberry Vanilla Marshmallows!  I'm staring to get the hang of these, so I decided to branch out with the flavors.  They're scrumptious & so pretty pink.
Also gettin' fancy with the shapes...

I think I'll be sad when February leaves.  {It really is my favorite.}  Only 6 days 'till Valentine's!   ♥

Box People take over!

For almost 8 months I made what felt like a zillion of these little folks.  Most of them sold at a juried art show at the Anchorage Museum.  It was so fun to see the different reactions from people!  Some just really didn't know what to make of them.  I still have the notebook page where I scribbled down the best comments.  That was the first time (since I was a kid) that I had sold my work.

Before they all left home though, I managed to photograph most of them and made a little self-published book to remember them by.  Here are a few of my favorites, starting with Froggy who was caught in mid-riiiibbbiit.
Then came my little Troll Man.  {click on some of these images to see a larger version}
 A Patron of the Arts.
I did a few elements ~ here's Fire.
 And a Chicken that happily went to live with a good friend of mine.  It was so hard to part with these, but especially when they went with total strangers!
 Bear with me....almost done!  Next came a Bee, buzzin over a garden.
 And the last one I'll show is my Dormouse.  He also found a home with a friend and I think he looks pretty content with that.
Phew!  That's it.  Thanks for hanging in for this very long post.  I never did make any more of these folks, but I'm so glad they found their way into the world.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programing!  ♥

In which the floodgates opened...

Still with me?  If you're just jumping in, we're looking back at some work I made about 7 years ago.  After the first couple, I just had too many ideas to stop!  Over the summer my world became well populated with all kinds of Box People.  {Click the images below to see them a bit larger/more detail.}

Ok, tomorrow we'll wrap up this little tour.  Then on Sunday its back to present day where I'll have some fun new things to show you.  :)

Happy Friday!  ♥

Coffee Man

Soon after the success of my garden girl, my thoughts turned to coffee.  As my thoughts often do.  :)  And so was born Mighty, Mighty Coffee Man!
He can curl two cups on those copper wire arms, and all with a happy smile and a head full o' beans.
A metal shaving {salvaged from the scrap box of a local machine shop} turned out to be perfect for a curl of steam. 
My business back in the day was called Pipin' Hot Creations.  Tag line:  They're good...and good for ya!  ♥