Holiday Sale - FREE Shipping and other Great Deals in my Fine Art on Etsy Shop!

This weekend is the official beginning of cyber-shopping for the Holidays! Visit my Etsy shop and get FREE SHIPPING on any purchase containing ORIGINAL ART totalling $100 or more.

Beautiful Figure Drawings, Paintings, Mixed Media art and More!

Need to add a little something extra to reach $100? May I suggest these gorgeous Angel greeting cards! They are blank inside and ready for your personal message.  Beautiful cards for the Holidays, Weddings, in Sympathy, etc.  GREAT cards for anyone from your Church!

Two New Pastel Drawings of the Female Nude

Lovely, lovely model last night for our figure drawing group! Long limbs, elegant poses...wonderful "stage presence".  I was still a bit under the weather, but stayed long enough to do two drawings. 

The first is on Wallis paper.  I started with watercolor pencils and washed them with a wet brush, letting the paint drip a little.  I blotted lightly with a towel, and built up several layers of color - brown, blue, red and sap green (for no particular reason other than I liked those colors!)  I then switched to pastels and added some oranges, peaches, and prussian blue.  The face is a little hard to read in the photo, but in the drawing it has just enough info to indicate eyes, nose and lips.

The second drawing was a lot quicker, just a quick study using red, cream, and a couple light blues on mint pastel paper.  I've always loved the combination of red and mint green.

One Lovely Model drawn Three Different Ways

Like many  many people I know, I have been fighting a bad cold for the last few days.  But, you know me, it takes a LOT for me to miss out on an opportunity to draw from the live model, and it would take even more to stop me from drawing the lovely model posing at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art this past Saturday.

The artists present agreed to three long poses.  I started out with charcoal pencil on white drawing paper, very simple, building up the values in the figure and the background.  I was trying to keep her elbow and the cast shadow the point of focus, so i did not push the features on her face or develop the drapery any further. 

The next drawing I used a mint green piece of textured pastel paper, and I loosely blocked in the areas of light and shadow, then I defined her form with a charcoal line..  I am not thrilled with the face right now - I erased her upper lip and now it looks like there is a hole there.  But I like the majority of her torso, the shadows and hilights on her chest, and the gestures of her hands.

Our last lounging pose was lovely from both sides (we were seated "in the round" and most of the artists picked up their supplies and moved to the front views of the pose - there was some wonderful light on her face and chest, but I thought the back was also beautiful!)

When I first started the drawing, I didn't like it, and almost put the cranberry away and started fresh.  But I "rallied the troops" so to speak and kept pushing myself to fix it.  I'm glad I did.   I really like the warm reflective light on her back and her legs, and the bright light on the pillow. 

I feel like I should add more, but I am still a little sick, so feel free to add your comments..tell me what to fix, etc.  :)

Pastel Drawing of an Elegant Nude Model...with LOTS of teal!

Last night our figure drawing group met in our usual lovely studio in Downtown Woodstock and set up a lounging pose for our very popular model....we were her third group of the day!  She brought this yummy shiny teal fabric that created beautiful reflective light on her figure and some wonderful hilights and shadows.

I wish I had my camera so that I could show you pictures of my pastel drawing in progress...we worked for over two hour on this pose, and I utilized ever second.  But I had a pretty serious issue develop as we approached our final drawing time - I had yet to establish a clear "point of focus" in my drawing, and althought it had a nice "feeling" overall, it was just one of those "well.  That's...nice" kind of things. 

I started to focus on the atmosphere, toning down the pillow on the left which was a lot brighter at first - competing with the figure in size and value.  While that helped a little, it still didn't help the viewer find a focal point.

So right now, it is in limbo...do I define one spot further, or soften elsewhere? Do I darken the pillow more, or remove it completely? I am open to suggestions!

By the way...this is pastel on Wallis paper, 12" x 18".

Best Gift Bag Idea I've Seen Yet! Eco-friendly and functional.

I LOVE getting "Kraft Foods" magazine in the mail.  I have shared a few of my favorite recipes on my blog, including a fabulous crowd-pleasing dessert - the ultimate chocolate cake! 

Kraftfoods included a few handy tips in their latest issue to encourage "going green" and saving a few pennies.

I think that this is THE best gift bag idea I have seen in a LONG time.  Buying the re-usable grocery bags instead of the fancy paper kind.

Last time I took notice, most of the re-usable grocery bags were between $.99 and $1.99 - making them much more reasonable price-wise for paper gift bags of the same size, which are usually $3 or more. 

If anyone knows a great place to look for the re-usable grocery bags, or you know of certain stores that are using recycled materials or green mathods to make their bags, please share that info here!

Also...any tips on covering the logos would be great.  I was thinking about buying a couple and experimenting with painting over the printed images.  But maybe iron-ons? Sewing? etc.?

Goody barrettes. A trip down memory lane. And a really embarassing flashback!

Yesterday I was shopping and passed by the hair accessories and of course had to stop and admire all the pretty bows for litte girl's hair! Ari's hair is getting so long and I really need to put it up every day.

Well  I saw a package of these Goody Barrettes and HAD to buy them (of course, I am a penny pincher and the $1.50 price tag thrilled me) but more than the cost-effectiveness...I remembered these EXACT same barrettes from when I was a kid in the 70's (that's all the info you get on my age).  OMG there's the duck! I remember the duck!

And the kitty cat!  The three flowers in a row - that's the one I always wanted to wear, and always had to battle with my two sisters to be the one who got it first.  Then there's that wierd one that looks like a miniature egg carton - the little dots in a row.  What IS that?

And then I got them home and Ari and I were playing with them.  She kept handing me the next barrette to put in her hair "This one. This one. This one" until she had all the colors and designs on her long ponytail!  And then the flashbacks really started to kick in...

I remembered making long chains of barrettes, connecting one to another, so Ari and I were making necklaces for each other.  Then we experimented making shapes - squares, trianlges, etc. (this is an important lesson in how to create even an odd sided shapes! See - math!)

OK and then other flashbacks REALLY started to kick in...chewed barrettes! Now, I'm not saying I did it, I have 5 siblings to blame for this...but it seemed like all of our plastic barrettes had been chewed.  Like a piece of gum.  The worst part was - we still wore these gnarly hairpieces!  You had to really WORK to close the tab in the chewed-up clasp.  And then - when you had to remove them from your hair - yikes! All the little teeth grooves would catch in your hair!

OK and here's where you should stop reading if you EVER want to speak to me again.  I mean, this is embarrassing, but I'm going to say it anyway. 

I remember that these made excellent ear cleaners.  The plastic wasn't sharp, but the perfect shape to remove that elusive ear wax that q-tips tend to miss. 

And...um...I'm pretty sure they still got put in SOMEBODY's hair after they were used in an ear wax removal endeavor.

I'm so glad I found these barrettes again.  I just hope my daughter isn't as interest in ear maintenance as I was.

Just so you don't leave on that thought...one more cute shot of my little girl :)

Artists who Tweet. The new Art communtiy on Twitter.

In case you haven't noticed, Twitter has been getting a lot of attention these last few months.  Oprah.  Larry King.  Basically any celebrity, A-list, B-list, TV personality, or otherwise has a Twitter account.  They sell their CD's, they promote their shows, they spill way to much info about their personal lives. 

But their are also those of us who are finding Twitter to be a wonderful way to connect with a huge array of people with similar interests, hobbies, or other common characteristics.  One of my favorite groups to connect with is fellow artists.

Artists, like myself, are finding Twitter to be a great way to share new work, discuss techniques, get feedback on on-line selling venues, find out about shows and competitions, and in general connect with other artists who are doing their best to share their work with the world.

Twitter has, however, been starting to become over-loaded with spammers and computer robots that fill the otherwise friendly banter with virus links and other land-mines.  It's becoming more difficult to find REAL people on Twitter to connect with.  So I'm inviting anyone who is on Twitter - REAL people who are on Twitter - who are interested in Art, Galleries, Museums, or similarly minded topics to post here.  I would love to get to know you on Twitter!

And hopefully, you will join in the conversation with others who post here, too!

I am http://twitter.com/krystyna81

PS...I monitor comments, so don't panic if it doesn't show up right away - thanks :)