It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it. ~ Baltasar Gracian

While I have been waiting to hear from the university, I have been keeping myself busy with more exploration, and some other more familiar paths. I dreamt an abstract painting - well, at least I dreamt the main components of it. The size, and basic colours, and the basic look, with one corner of the painting standing out in the dream. How fortuitous that I'd been in the art store, and seen the exact colour I would be needing for this painting. Pthalo Blue is not an easy colour to find in a pouring paint!

Here then, is the series of paintings I did with Ptahlo Blue mixed directly into the plaster. The first of these is the one I dreamt, and the others were more playing with it after I'd done the first. I just love all the tones and shades with Pthalo Blue!

Midnight Splash - 24" x 24" Mixed media acrylic

Untitled for the moment - 16" x 20"

Untitled for the moment - 11" x 14"

Untitled for the moment - 10" x 10"

Untitled for the moment - 12" x 12"

Another thing I have been doing is working with Pan Pastels. After eyeing the set for a year and a half, my partner gifted me with them, and I have enthusiastically embraced them.

6" x 8"

Salkantay - 12" x 18"

Yet another medium that I purchased, and started working with is Scratchbord. These are made with archival quality board and clay, and finally painted with black  india ink, so that when you scratch through, the white clay is exposed underneath. You can then use the coloured india inks to colour in where you have scratched. You can re-scratch after applying colour, and colour again, allowing you to layer the colouring. This medium is reminiscent of etching, and really lends itself to wonderful textures!

The first one I tried was very basic, and allowed me to simply get the feel of the tools on the board.

Purple Aura 5" x 7" Scratchbord and ink

Next up, I wanted to do something much more challenging. Considering I haven't done any animals in any medium (other than one abstract a few months ago), I figured this would do, as far as challenging myself.

5" x 7" Scratchbord and ink

I have also entered a couple of art contests...next week, I'll post some of those entries, and show you the first self portraits I have done in about 28 years!

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. - Thomas Merton

This has been a busy, and difficult few weeks for me. After the Toronto CGTA gift show,  a show at which wholesalers display, and hopefully sell their products to the stores, I have a few orders to be filled for some of my jewellery designs. I started to plug away at that, figuring that I would get quickly done, and return here to continue the blog, and show you a painting I did on my last class in the summer semester of which I am quite proud.

However, an unexpected diagnosis from some tests, turned my life upside down.  I have spent the better part of the past 12 days grieving, being brave, then grieving again,  on the phone to family, to friends, planning, on the phone to doctors, convincing myself that a second opinion would be different, then convincing myself that that the recommended course of action is the correct one. Well maybe not convincing myself, but allowing myself to see and feel the truth in it. In general, coming to acceptance of what has to happen to save my life, while NOT allowing myself to "accept" being part of the group of people that has cancer.  It's a tricky balance, because I need to keep positive and keep thinking that it's already beat,  to accept the recommended course of action, so that I can help the doctors to help me to beat it, yet at the same time I mustn't accept being part of "that group", if you know what I mean.

I need to keep being grateful for the silver linings, and for the positive aspects of this - and, yes there really are some. I am grateful that this was caught so early, that it is a stage where it can almost be considered pre-cancerous. Almost, but not quite. Stage zero, is about as early as it can be caught. I am grateful that our healthcare system will pay for the reconstruction afterwards. Not only that, but they will, ummm, do both sides, so that they'll match afterwards, and I'll get to be "perky" again. I am even grateful that this is on my... less sensitive side (gasp, I said it!) I am grateful that it can be treated "easily", though I have to say that the thought of losing a breast is no fun at all. I am also grateful that they have told me the prognosis for me is the best one they can give a patient, and that they do not expect for me to need either chemotherapy or radiation afterward.

Lastly, I am grateful that I have worked so damned hard at being aware over the past years, because in the last 12 days or so, it has really helped me see some important things about myself, which need to be addressed in all this. One of the big ones is allowing myself to really express myself, my feelings, with no apologies, and with no particular hold on the outcome of that.

Interestingly, the last painting I had done in my class, before I had the diagnosis, can be seen to have something to do with that. At the time, and even now, I really think of this one as being all about emergence. When I displayed this painting at my show this weekend I had a variety of opinions. Some people thought the poor guy was trapped behind the burlap, but I feel he is on the verge of breaking out, he is about to emerge, and this is almost like a birthing process. Which I think is exactly where I am in my painting, in my verbalization of my thoughts and feelings, and hopefully in my being.

"I had this idea, and it just had to get out"

10 x 12, acrylic and plaster on canvas.

Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all. ~ Mark Twain

I am not much in a writing mood, so just an update on the latest designs, and the reaction to them.

Here are some more ART TO GO Series 2. Sized the same as the last ones, with the square ones being 2.5 cm square, and the larger rectangular ones being  2.5 cm x 3 cm, not including the bail heights.

This past week, I purchased a few more enamel colours. I got myself some bright pink, some deep chocolaty brown, some violet and some copper. The copper has not been too successful, as it doesn't show well on the sterling. Too bad, I thought it had great potential. Just above, all the rainbow colours with a little bit of the pink to "punch" it up.

Here I introduced the brown, with gold copper and green.

Here the brown with the black and gold was quite effective. I had the black before, but had shied away from using it. No more. I think it works very well.

here I used some of the white which I'd had as well. Used in small bits to contrast with other colours, it can work, but is more effective when overlaid on another colour.

Above and just below - loving the pink with the other colours!

I finally took the plunge, and did a completely black background with a few bright colours overlaying it. I love the result.

The ART TO GO Series 1 and Series 2 have been very well received, as have been the Tree of Life designs. This past week at the gift show, I took orders for quite a lot of the Tree of Life pendants. 

The ART TO GO Series 1 was not shown at that show, however. I have sold a couple of them and people are loving the uniqueness of the designs. In person they show extremely well. Some better photographs may help, but mostly I think the 3-D nature of them is not captured well enough in the photos, and it's a shame.

As for the ART TO GO Series 2, everyone loves them. I have a sold a couple in retail sales, but so far no wholesale orders, in spite of the fact that everyone who sees them says they are gorgeous, they love them, and they think they have huge potential. Go figure. When I see an idea of which I think those kinds of thoughts, I jump on ordering them. Maybe it's just a matter of time, and the orders will come. Currently, none of them are in my Artfire store, as the entire display has taken a trip to Edmonton, where they will be on display at the Alberta Gift Show from Sunday the 15th of August to Wednesday the 18th of August. If you are there, check them out in the ShantiOm booth: Hall E, booth #2235

If you would like to order one of the ones pictured, drop me a line, and I'll reserve it for you, and ship when the displays are returned from Edmonton.

Meantime, I have now been applying the ART TO GO Series 1 technique to rings, and it looks fabulous! Can't wait to get those ones cast, and show them to you. New paintings too when I next update.

One essential ingredient for being an original in the day of copies is courageous vision. ~ Charles Swindoll

So, last week I promised to show you ART TO GO Series 2.  I am very excited about this line, and when I had them at my show this past weekend, they got great reviews!

ART TO GO Series 2 is all about having a miniature, abstract painting on sterling (and maybe eventually on gold as well), which you can wear on the go. One-of-a-kind pieces again, so that no two will ever be the same. 

I started out with 2 pieces of leftover sheet sterling, and experimented to see if the enamels would behave the way that I wanted, and if I would be able to achieve what I had in mind. Hence, they are strangely shaped, which is artsy and I think effective. However, in the effort of keeping the prices low, I have, for the time being, opted to go with more traditional square and rectangular pieces, more similar to canvases. The labour on creating oddly shaped pieces would triple, and therefore the price would increase significantly. Having said that, if someone would like a custom piece, I am more than happy to oblige, and will create oddly shaped pieces for those customers.

Piece #1 is about half an inch wide and with the bail included the height is 2.25 inches.

Piece #2 is about half an inch wide and with the bail included the height is a little more than 1.75 inches.

Pieces 3 through 8 (above) are 2.5 cm x 3 cm, not including the bail height.

Pieces 9 through 17 (above) are all 2.5 cm x 2.5 cm, again, not including the bail height.

I love the way some of these have great texture with the enamel, and the way it has swirled and mixed.  They'll be added to my Artfire studio soon. Please let me know what you think of them, I'd love your feedback!

Jewelry takes people's minds off your wrinkles. ~ Sonja Henie

Inspired by my recent rash of abstract paintings, I thought of an idea that would allow me to apply the same type of unpredictability to jewellery. I came up with several ideas for One-of-a-Kind pieces. I am calling them ART TO GO Series 1 and Series 2. I now have  a total of fourteen pieces for Series 1, and am working on Series 2. here are some first examples from Series 1. They are called ART TO GO, because it is art you can wear on the go!

These are literally designed "in the air", and no two will ever be the same. Plus, they cannot be moulded due to the way they are made. In buying one of these, you truly will own a one-of-a-kind piece!  

Some, like the one above, have several places that they can be hung by. In those cases, I have used a sterling snap-on bail, so that the purchaser can hang the piece how they most prefer it.

Some like the one directly above this writing, don't even need a bail, but if a person wants one, it will be provided. Again, this piece has numerous places from which to hang it, allowing you to completely change the look of the piece. 

There are a few that have built in bails, which I did while in the midst of designing them, like the one directly above.

And finally, some have soldered on bails, like the one directly above, and the next three pieces below.

The one directly above, and the next few have got the snap-on bails.

This one is flatter and less 3D than the others.

Coming soon: the same One-of-a-Kind concept applied to Tree of Life Pendants, and Series 2 of the ART TO GO sterling pendants.

Of course all of these are available at my Artfire store:

Please click here to see these on Artfire.