Springtime Inspired

Last ATC of 2009

2009-12-31T15:24:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I sent on its way the last ATC I did on 2009. It features a white cyclamen flower for Rapa at iATCs as part of the monthly partner trade, I used markers and primacolor colored pencils in this one.

These gorgeous flowers come in different shades from white to pink to dark purple and as I just found out the flower is not only edible, but can also be used in tea.

I'm ready to start working on the first ATCs of 2010, Happy New Year!

About time...

2009-12-29T17:46:00.007-06:00

Yeah, it's about time I posted something in my blog; unfortunately I haven't been creating much other than Christmas gifts for my family and for my 2 Secret Santa partners at iATCs and couldn't post any of it online; so here's a quick recap of what I've been keeping myself busy with.

The triptych above is my Mom's Christmas gift -it comes to join the other 38 Nativity scenes we already have -, the background and the faces are all done with acrylics -how easy is it to hate acrylics, ugh....- the clothes come from pieces of patterned paper and I added some bronze dimensional paint for the details.

This is a bird mobile for Annie, one of my Secret Santa's partners. The birds have a word on one side and found poetry on the other side, the hoop was made of some wire and I added large translucent sequins to it. This has been one of those projects I have hated to see go but at the same time loved working on it -I might have to work on one just for my bedroom.

Here's a closeup of the detail in one of the birdies.

Here's Annie's other part of the gift; an altered tote and two -larger than inchies- Alice frames.

Unfortunately I was rushing for posting everything on time and I forgot to take pics of the gifts I sent my other Secret Santa...
Here with the most *terrible* pictures I've ever taken are the totes I painted for my nieces. These ended up pretty cute and not too time consuming; I just printed the letters with a nice cutesy font from the pc, traced them to the fabric and painted them with some fabric paint, I added the flowers and fastened them with an eyelet. The pink tote doesn't look that bad in the pic...the other one is a whole mess, there wasn't any purple in that tote at all it was light-blue with white and yellow flowers. I'll try to take better daylight pictures soon (oh yeah, that shot also includes a close-up of my beloved and battered craft table)

The best part about making all the gifts came 3 days before Christmas when I got the stomach bug from hell...that led to me finishing gifts on Christmas Eve, forgetting to take pics of all the other gifts and not finishing the one above in time to get framed; well there's the holidays for you. Hope you've had a quiet time with your loved ones :)

Cold and Rainy Day

2009-11-02T21:33:00.003-06:00

I know better than to believe the weather reports, but today was just too much; I can deal with cold weather in November...but when it rains all day long it can get annoying.
I came home in the afternoon and the bed was just too tempting to pass up, so I decided to take a nap. As it turns out it was a short one because a phone call woke me up. I decided not to waste the rest of the afternoon and I came up with these three ATCs. They are all done with watercolors, the two in the top will be on their way to another house tomorrow; the poinsettia will have to wait for a bit longer.

Deck Project: Week 4

2009-10-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

I'm finally caught up with my themes. This is the week 4 card finished in the actual week 4, by the way this is not all I've been creating; but the other things are Christmas presents for my Secret Santas and I cannot show them...I haven't even photographed them yet so I won't be tempted to show them ahead of time.

I could not really find a good match for this week's theme which was "ethereal"; so I used "Light" instead. This one is inspired by "Little Daylight" which is a Scottish fairy tale; from Wikipedia: "A king and queen gain a daughter, whom they name Daylight. They invite all the fairies who live in the woods by their palace, except one, newly arrived, who lives in the swamp and has everyone convinced she is a witch.

The fairy arrives anyway, and demands the baby's name. On hearing it is "Little Daylight" she says it shall be little daylight, as the princess would sleep all day. Another fairy gives her the gift of waking all night, but the swamp-fairy insists that she wasn't done with the curse, and that Daylight shall wax and wane with the moon. A second fairy says that the curse shall be broken when a prince kisses her without knowing it, and the swamp-fairy can not pretend again that she was not done.

As the princess grows up, she is beautiful and full of high spirits at the full moon, and as it wanes, turns wan and withered, as if sickly. The older she grows the more extreme the contrast becomes.

A nearby prince has to flee a revolt in his country and comes to the woods. He meets a fairy who is very cryptic with him, and then comes across Daylight dancing in the woods by moonlight. He sees her three nights in a row, as the moon is waxing to full, and falls in love. The third night, they have a conversation in which the princess tells him she has never seen the sun. He meets the fairy again and talks with her, but the fairy can not tell him the full curse.

The swamp-fairy discovers his presence and prevents him from finding her again until the moon is more than half gone; then, she thinks the withered princess will not attract him, so she relaxes her guard.

The prince finds Daylight again when the moon is new, and she is so withered and feeble that he spends the night trying to minister to her, and when carrying her to help, kisses her.

Dawn arrives, Daylight is restored to her full beauty, and she asks the prince whether the sun is coming."

Mixed Media. Watercolors, scrapbook paper, paint chips, music sheet, acrylics, tissue paper, metallic acrylic paints

Deck Project: Week 3

2009-10-23T09:27:00.003-05:00

Last week was really hectic because students at school were completing their final evaluations for the year and on Friday we had the end of year show with the kids all singing and dancing to Disney movie songs. Everything worked out just great -if you take away the fact that there was a huge car accident that same morning and we had to start 30 minutes later because not all the kids were able to make it to school on time-. It was exhausting though and when it was all over I didn't have time -nor inspiration- to work on anything creative at all; I even skipped my Saturday class and chose to sleep in.

Now that kids are at home with their parents I can get some creative time each morning and I manage to get up to date with my deck project. This was the theme for last week "Darkness". This one is inspired by an Italian tale called "The Story of Bensurdatu"; a great king had 3 daughters who went on a picnic one day and got engulfed by a dark cloud where they disappeared. Bensurdatu who was the king's most loyal servant went out to search for them and rescued them from 2 giants and a serpent with seven heads. Bensurdatu married the youngest of the princess after returning to the kingdom.

Postcard size, with watercolors, tissue paper, mixed papers, acrylics, metallic acrylics and inks.

Deck Project: Week 2

2009-10-14T22:21:00.003-05:00

The theme for week 2 was "Secret"; I did a bit of research to get inspired and I found an old Japanese tale called "The Crane Wife".

From Wikipedia: "The Crane Wife is an old Japanese tale. While there are many variations of the tale, a common version is that a poor man finds an injured crane on his doorstep (or outside with an arrow in it), takes it in and nurses it back to health. After he releases the crane, a woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries. Because they need money, his wife offers to weave wondrous clothes out of silk that they can sell at the market, but only if he agrees never to watch her making them. They begin to sell them and live a comfortable life, but he soon makes her weave them more and more. Oblivious to his wife's diminishing health, his greed increases. He eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is a crane plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into the loom. The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns."

This is postcard size and it is mixed media; the face is done with watercolors, I used music sheet and white tissue paper for the feathers in the hair and in the neck with silver metallic acrylics and black ink on top. The background was done with orange tissue paper, aqua mulberry paper, watercolors, inks, and rub-on letters.

Saturday's Class

2009-10-12T23:40:00.002-05:00

Saturday's life drawing class.
Watercolors.
13" x 10"

Classes are coming to an end pretty fast, we're having the exhibition in November -not sure of the date yet- and then there's a long break until February. I'm dropping this one off to get framed tomorrow afternoon.

Deck Project: Week 1

2009-10-06T19:28:00.002-05:00

Ok, so here's a new idea to wrap my head around... Shelly at Illustrated ATCs gave us the challenge of creating one piece of art a week for 52 weeks -a whole year!- and keeping it instead of trading it. I'm crazy about the whole concept for some basic reasons:
*All my art (large and small) is going to others all the time, it'll be nice to keep some of it for myself.
*Keeping the art for myself means I don't have to stress over other people liking it, AND I can experiment with different techniques
*She gave us a great list of topics to get inspired.

I have some guidelines I set for myself for this project -we'll see how long they last-
*I'm using postcards instead of playing cards as my base - I have trouble fitting mixed media and collage into an ATC.
*My deck will be inspired by the characters of fairy tales (will probably have to branch out to myths/legends with some of the tougher words).

This is my piece for the first week; the topic was pretend and I chose the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood as my first character. The wolf was painted with watercolors, the blanket/cap were done with patterned paper, and the background has collage pictures and papers, acrylics and watercolors, a rub-on letter and some black ink for the text.

Hosting my First Swap

2009-09-28T11:38:00.006-05:00

I just finished hosting my first swap at ATCs for All, and it was a lot of fun; I had the opportunity to see some really extraordinary art -and keep some of it for myself ;)

Here are some of the amazing cards I got from some extraordinary artists; you can visit their blogs or their galleries here:

*Seeking for Art
*Jean
*Amyfaerie
*Ahtree
*Nowzem
*Genxster
*Katilady
*Gina-B
*Siren

Passion Flower

2009-09-17T05:00:00.000-05:00

This is a shot from my house's terrace; the purple flower is called a Passion Flower and it grows wildly on a vine that covers the whole front part of the house.
There's something so pretty about the Passion Flower, the petals have a waxy feeling and there are so many other little details in it; to top things off it seems as caterpillars enjoy being here because we have had a super abundance of butterflies since we planted it.

I used the pic above as reference for 2 ATCs I traded at ATCsforAll, I used watercolors and ink in these two.

Talk to the Hand

2009-09-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

I joined a very cool mail art swap over at iATCs. I usually try to stick with trading ATCs because postage for anything larger than a regular size envelope can get pretty expensive, but there are some themes that I just cannot say no to.

These are actual outlines of my hands -which I've always considered to be too small...- we were asked to add a hand related quote to each one; these are not actual quotes but phrases of what hands can do for others.
I cut out the hands out of cardboard and added different paper, stamps, and postage stamps as a first layer. I then wrinkled a piece of purple tissue paper and added it on top. It was stencils and green paints over that and finished them with metallic acrylics and ink for the quotes.
I embellished the hands with different elements. I added some large sequins and beads to the bottom of the first hand in this post; the second one had some plastic stars added on top and I used 2 fabric flowers in the bottom; the third card has some fibers wrapped around the bottom and a string of beads along the fibers; the last one has some funky piece of ribbon which I attached with white eyelets and a wire beaded ring on the finger.

I See You...

2009-09-11T20:35:00.000-05:00

I used wax crayons, gesso and acrylics in the background. I stenciled the stars and the dots with acrylics and added a transparency on top, I drew over the transparency with white ink to make the details stand out.

Iconic Madonna

2009-09-08T20:20:00.003-05:00

ATC for Martha at iATCs for the August Monthly trade. I like the design, so I'll probably use it again for a swap :)

Wild...

2009-09-03T16:25:00.002-05:00

Coyote ATC for a Pick-a-Theme Swap at iATCs

Mixed media background -wax crayons, gesso, acrylics, stamps, inks-
Hand drawn and painted with acrylics and inks coyote.

Monochromatic Women

2009-08-27T07:00:00.003-05:00

It's going to be two years this September that I first learned about ATCs and how has time passed. I have a great collection of art including ATCs, bookmarks, chunkies, inchies, matrioshka dolls, altered houses, art dolls... and there are still lots of things I haven't even tried yet, I'm still looking forward to trading rolos, journals, and pendants!

One of the things I had not tried before either was hosting my own swap and I finally decided to give it a try, I chose "Monochromatic Women" as my theme and I was extremely lucky because an amazing group of artists joined and the art I have already received is just marvelous.

These are my first 2 cards for the swap, the red one has an image of a sunflower which I altered, some sunflower stamps and a packing tape transparency with white ink. The blue card has an acrylic background with an air mail sticker and a packing tape transparency with white ink. I still have to work on 1 more card to add 3 to the swap. I want to take pics of all the cards I get so I can share them with you :)

Vintage Experiment

2009-08-27T07:00:00.002-05:00

Ok, I don't really do vintage; I don't have anything against it but the fact is that I use stuff that is easier to get over here, and vintage images do not fall into that category. I had this little girl in my paper stash since last year, she came to me as an extra with a trade I did and I finally put her to good use. I started with some text in the background, it has some oil pastels and acrylics on top, there is a piece of torn tissue paper on top -the paper already had the text on it- I splashed some white ink over it and added the little girl, she has some metallic acrylics on top and white ink for the details.

Rain, rain, go away...

2009-08-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

Winter is back here, which means rain every day.
I hate when it rains in the city; traffic gets completely crazy; my commute goes from 40 minutes to an hour and a half; and the lack of sunshine really makes me feel blue. On the other hand I know rain was desperately needed all over Guatemala, drought had really affected the harvests and this is not good for any of us.

This is an ATC for a 1:1 trade at AFA. The background has tissue paper, black and white ink. The girl is an altered image from a magazine, I added gesso and painted with acrylics on top.

Ballerina

2009-08-22T20:18:00.002-05:00

Second painting from my life drawing class.
Watercolors.
16"x20"
I was sitting in a weird place because she was leaning forward and I completely misjudged the size of her head, it looks too small.
I got an issue with the shape of the blanket, a friend asked me if she was the "frog ballerina" because she was sitting on a lilly pad...

Inspiration Tags

2009-08-19T15:59:00.003-05:00

I created this tags for a swap at AFA where our amazing hostess is putting the tags of 12 artists into a tag book. The main theme of the book will be art and inspiration.

The top picture is the front of my tags; I started with some watercolors, next I wrote some words I feel a strong attraction to : dream, hope, enjoy, create, life, art; I splattered some gold acrylic paint and ended with the image of the woman's face with black marker.

This is the back of the cards, it's pretty much the same as the front minus the woman's face and the phrase Art is Life written with white ink and shadowed with black marker. I cannot wait to get this amazing book back!

Mermaid Redo...

2009-08-10T07:00:00.001-05:00

I have found out that a lot of time when I don't like a piece of art it'll get more interest than a piece I'm particularly proud of. Point in case, the mermaid fiasco I wrote about two weeks ago here...I didn't like what the end product turned out like and I decided not to include it for the Pick-a-Theme swap @ iATCs. Well, you can color me surprised when it got asked in a trade not 10 minutes after I posted...and even more surprised when after I agreed to trade it I got positive comments on it...Anyhow, it was too late to back off the trade and I had to create a new mermaid card for the PAT.

I used collaged papers, acrylics, a mermaid transparency and black and white drawing ink on this one. I'm done with the mixed media cards for the PAT, I have to work in the hand-drawn cards now.

Orchids

2009-08-07T19:26:00.002-05:00

Mom's birthday today! I have been working on this for the last week.

20" x 17"

Watercolor on watercolor paper.

Pink Rose

2009-08-05T07:23:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been in a creative mood, I woke up this morning with a great desire for painting something. I'm way behind in lots of ATC trades, but I felt the need to work on a larger scale.

I browsed through my garden pics and I found this rose; the colors are completely different as the real rose was a darker pink and white.

This is going as an extra gift in a package I sent on Monday, I hope the person who gets it likes it as much as I do :)

Ballerina Watercolor

2009-08-02T17:59:00.004-05:00

This is the latest painting I've finished on Saturday classes, it is a 11"x15" watercolor.
I started the drawing last weekend, worked on the first layer of paint during the week, and finished it during class yesterday morning.

There are still some things that are a bit wonky and I need to fix on the basic shape:
*the arms should have had more of a curve in them.
*the back is too wide, she was a really skinny girl in real life.
*the forehead should be larger, I drew the hairline too low in that part.

All things considered, I'm pretty satisfied with this one, especially with the way the colors turned out. Since the other students in the class are working with oils, we'll keep working the same pose for the next two classes; I'll have to choose a different position to create a different piece.

Alice...

2009-07-29T21:22:00.002-05:00

One of the first cards I received when I started trading ATCs was with an Alice in Wonderland theme, and it is one of my favorite themes so far. This one is for Amerasu over at iATCs for the July partner swap.

I'm thinking I should take a pic of my Alice collection and show it off, there are really amazing things in it :)

Home and Heart

2009-07-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

Ok, last piece for the Mixed Media PAT over at iATCs - well at least until I get done with Mermaid #2- This one is for Shelly, and her theme was "Home is where the Heart is". I went with a whimsical style for this one, trying to make it fun and colorful.

*I started with a piece of fabric, the light blue with color circles on top, I read somewhere that you can add some sealer over the fabric to make it stiff and to avoid fraying. I had it already prepared and it saved me time.

*I sketched the shape of the house on top and added a couple of hands of gesso.

*I used my acrylics to paint the walls with bright yellow and the roof with a combination of red/orange/yellow.

*I outlined the house, roof and the shape of the heart with black ink.

*I added bronze dimensional paint inside the heart...I dropped the card face down on the floor when I was cleaning up, picked it up again and waited for it to dry before I can fix the boo boo.

*I added some white acrylic around the color circles in the background.

I'm still considering on adding a border with the same dimensional paint around the card...not quite sure yet.

Mermaid Fiasco

2009-07-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I told you about how sometimes when I play with collage and mixed media I'm in for a bit of a gamble...sometimes it pays off, and sometimes you get this:

Meet the Mermaid Fiasco... This poor card started its life as a paper cut, which I was quite happy to try. I searched high and low for a piece of black paper and couldn't find any in my whole stash, quite brilliantly -yeah, right...- I decided to use a piece of blue paper.

I then started to work on cutting the design, which turned out to be quite time consuming and difficult at times.

I finally finished and started on the background, scrunged up white paper over cardstock and covered with blue metallic paint. I added the paper cut and it got completely lost over the background, I thought that I could outline it a bit and started adding white and black ink until I got to a point where I just had to step away and admit that this time I was way over my head... I'll have to start from scratch for this little beauty...ugh...

Portrait of a Fairy

2009-07-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

Ok, so this is what I picture the portrait of a fairy looks like ;)
This one is for Deb.

*I started with a vintage playing card that had a character from one of Jane Austen's books -I cannot remember which character though-.

*I gessoed over the image, added light peach and purple squares of tissue paper all over the rest of the card, and finally rubbed a bit of metallic blue paint over it.

*I painted over the original image with my acrylics and added two butterfly wings from a rub-on I had lying around (I think I need to seal them though, so I can make sure it doesn't peel off)

*I ended it with acrylic blue squares and rectangles outlined with black and white ink and some pieces of metallic paper on top.

I like to play with collage and mixed media a lot, granted it does not always comes out as I had earlier planned...check in tomorrow to see what I mean.

Mixed Media Butterflies

2009-07-25T18:57:00.004-05:00

One of these is going to Anita in iATCs, for the Summer PAT. She is in my Mixed Media group and she asked for butterflies, so I started working on one and ended up with two :)

Here's a short walk through of how I made these:
*I used some watercolor paper as my base, and did a quick wash with yellow and red watercolors.
*I altered the images from a greeting card, it was a blue butterfly with the 2 yellow smaller butterflies on the corners. The image was too large so instead of wasting half the image I did 2 ATCs from it.
*I first added a watered down gesso coat over the images- I just wanted to give some tooth to the paper so I could add color on top.
*Next was a very translucent coat of metallic paint -blue and yellow- over the entire butterflies' bodies.
*I added the inside details with acrylics, white ink, and black ink.
*I finished it up with a transparency -text on one and music sheet on the other.

I worked on more ATCs during the weekend, and a larger project from my figure drawing class. I'll post them later on during the week.

Queens!

2009-07-16T23:30:00.005-05:00

These are my latest ATCs for the Flower Queens/Fairies Swap at iATCs. I had to work fast on these ones because they are due on August 3rd, I need to get them out of here by Monday to make sure they'll arrive on time.
These are done in watercolor paper, I applied a first layer of marker, went over it with my Prismacolor colored pencils and finished with white drawing ink.

A New Addiction

2009-07-05T17:35:00.003-05:00

After a couple of weeks of constant rain the sun finally decided to make an appearance, we have had two wonderful days of sunshine and they have been greatly appreciated. I finally had a chance of taking pics of the latest blooms in my Mom's garden and they are just fantastic. Our pomegranate tree is full of fruit which soon will be ripe enough to eat and all the rose bushes are blooming.
Take a look at my new addiction ;)

I have always had this attraction to knitting and sewing, but for the life of me I cannot knit nor sew a button.
A couple of weeks ago comes my Mom with a new hobby she is going to try, using a knitting board. I instantly jumped on the idea but had to wait for her to complete her project first, a salmon scarf which she finished but then work got in the way and my project was pushed in the back burner.
I finally decided I wanted to give it a try so I looked online for instructions on how to use a knitting board and started trying it out with the yarn I had recycled from an old sweater. It is not the most beautiful scarf ever; to be true I'm not sure I'll ever wear it, but it let me get a feeling for the knitting board. After finishing that one, I got this brown yarn and started working on a complete piece which I finished last weekend.

My favorite part is getting different effects by using different stitches, this one is a ribbing stitch and it made the scarf quite warm and full. It was quite a fun and fast project to work on and I can see more scarves and different stitches coming during the following months.

P.S. The latest issue of Art Trader Magazine is out and is full of great stuff, click on the cover and enjoy all the cool articles and art in this edition.

Markers

2009-06-30T22:25:00.004-05:00

Ok, this one was a bit of a challenge, for this swap over at iATCs I could only use markers. I hadn't joined but I was doodling on some blank pieces of card while waiting for some webpages to upload -my internet has been ssssslllllooooooowwwwww lately- and I came up with a couple of ladies.

I decided to try my hand at markers and started coloring the details, the hair, the backgrounds....and then I realized that in my big box of El Cheapo markers there weren't any markers suitable enough for coloring the skin, I wasn't going to let this stop me for joining this swap so I used a trick I picked up from another fabulous blogger (who I have lost in cyber space...cannot find her anywhere), I colored over an empty plastic bag trying to get a nice puddle of ink and then I used a brush and some water to pick up the color like watercolors and applied it to the card.

A couple of things to think about:

* Make sure that your previous colored areas don't get wet because the water might leave a mark on it.

* My paper was not fit for watercolors...so I had a hard time telling the right amount of water to use -the paper soaked too much water and looked darker before it dried completely. I highly suggest using watercolor paper.

* This will obviously not work with permanent markers -so put those Sharpies away! they need to be water based for the technique to work.

Sparkling Butterflies

2009-06-26T18:54:00.005-05:00

Here are a couple of ATCs I made during the weekend for two artists. The top one is for a trade over at Atcs for All and the bottom one is for Anita over at iATCs -who by the way does extremely lovely jewelry, go drool over some of her beauties in her blog.
I'm getting some awesome heart ATCs in exchange for these :)

I used watercolors on both of these and added some sparkle using my metallic acrylic paints. The top one was outlined with silver metallic paint and the bottom one was outlined with black ink.
I just love butterflies and how easy it is to make them look whimsical and fanciful.

13 Minutes

2009-06-26T17:51:00.002-05:00

There is this very cool swap over at iATCs called the 13 minute swap. You need to create your cards in 13 minutes or less, that 13 minute part is the one that really freaked me out...but I still decided to give it a shot.
All my cards were done with watercolors and finished with black ink for the details and I quite like the results. It was difficult to stop fidgeting with the cards, I wanted to keep adding more and more details! The really positive of this swap is the fact that I did not stress over it; I decided to give it a try, work on my cards and sign up when they were done.
I chose landscapes because it's an easy enough theme to put in paper, I just drew some very basic reference lines and did the rest with the watercolors. Try it out, you might surprise yourself with the results you get!

Love Hate

2009-06-15T22:17:00.010-05:00

I realized last week that I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed with stuff lately and that this has been draining my energy to create art. I decided I needed to change that, so now I try to have positive thoughts and just focus on having fun with my art.

I worked on these CDs during the weekend, they are old CDs where I added canvas paper on top and used my acrylics there...

Acrylics and I have a love/hate relationship, whenever I start painting with acrylics I start doubting myself and feeling like throwing everything away because I don't like how things are looking; it's always difficult to switch from media to media and change the techniques I need to use to apply with each project...that's the hate part. The love part comes when I finally remember how to work and things start shaping the way I want them to :)

To finish these ones I added a couple of magnets in the back and they'll be around my fridge until I'm ready to send them.

Boxes

2009-06-08T19:28:00.012-05:00

One of my best friends has this obsession with boxes; she owns a lot of them in different colors, styles, and materials and has a very hard time saying no to a box when she sees one. I worked on 2 boxes last weekend with different techniques and materials and they will be hard to let go when I post them on their way.

This one is a wooden box measuring 8"x6" and done with acrylics and inks. There is a very nice blue metallic shine in the sky, but of course the camera couldn't pick that up. The inside has 3 compartments and the bottom of them were covered with some oriental fabric I got in a trade.
This box is metal and I worked on pastel paper and soft pastels to create this scene of the entrance of Antigua Guatemala. I sealed it with spray, but since I know the lid will be constantly manipulated I added 2 layers of clear varnish on top...I was SCARED to death while doing this, because I thought the colors would smudge, but luckily they held up and the lid has a lovely shine to it.

I spent all day yesterday working with old CDs to create fridge magnets. I managed to finish 3, I'll have to complete the last one later today and then I'll post the pics.

Graphite Kick

2009-06-08T16:00:00.004-05:00

It seems I got stuck in a graphite loop the last couple of days. Here are 4 ATCs I made for a Pick-a-Theme swap over at iATCs. I absolutely love PAT swaps because I get to do different cards and I get my choice of cards in return; this time I ended up with a group that had requested animal theme cards and I'm getting butterflies in return. It was a nice change to go back to graphite for a while, but at the end I was pretty tired of the grayscale... I did work in 3 different projects yesterday afternoon, but they are part of a trade and I cannot post them until my partners get them so the surprise isn't spoiled :)

Strong Women, Strong Ideas

2009-06-03T21:08:00.007-05:00

I got hit by a ton of stuff the last couple of days which drained my energy a big way...

It all started a week ago when I COULD NOT get any sleep because of the toothache from hell...really, I took 3 different pills and they did not do a darn thing, I managed to fall asleep at 4 am and I had to get up and go to work just 2 hours later.

The next night I was obviously dead tired and went to sleep pretty early just to be awaken by my bed shaking at 2 am; at first I thought it was my dog jumping into my bed, but then I realized that this wasn't that simple...it turned out to be the effects of the Honduras earthquake which made the earth shake for more than 40 seconds. Try to get some sleep after that...

I got a return visit from the toothache on Friday morning and as much as I dislike visiting the dentist I finally accepted that this was not going away and spent my Friday afternoon, Saturday afternoon, and Tuesday afternoon going through a root canal procedure...on top of that, there's the added bonust that I had no extra cash lying around for this...

Ok, I'll stop the complaints now... Here are 2 cards I made when I felt the need of some relaxing. They have some text in the background, different acrylics textures and a magazine transparency done with some clear tape, and ink.

The Color of Flowers

2009-05-19T23:25:00.006-05:00

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to post any art...mostly because I haven't had time to create new art. On top of all I had a weird stomach bug that made me feel wretched all day Monday, luckily it is now behind and I'm finally playing catch up with all the trades and swaps I have pending.

As you know by now I'm a huge fan of nature, particularly flowers; and I'm blessed to live in a country where it's always Spring, we do get our winter -we are actually going through winter now, lots of daily rain...-but it doesn't affect us in a major way, there's always something blooming wherever you look. I've been actually waiting for a sunny afternoon to take pics of my Mom's flowers so you could see for yourself.

In the meantime I'll leave you with some flowers I made for a swap over at iATCs, these are all done with graphite, I'll let you imagine the colors on these on your own :)

Saturday Classes

2009-05-03T12:14:00.009-05:00

I have been taking figure drawing classes on Saturdays... this is the first time I have tried figure drawing and it's been challenging because the group I joined has been working on this for 2 years while I just have had a couple of sessions and to top it all off there are a couple of REALLY fantastic artists in the group which can be enough to intimidate anyone!

It's also a challenge because the class is pretty fast-paced, yesterday's class included 3 10-minute portrait sketches, 4 10-minute full body sketches, the rest of the class -about 40 minutes were used to complete the watercolor piece. This one actually took me 2 classes to complete and I finished the background at home later in the evening.

The graphite one was done during the first 2 classes I attended.

Some things I still have to work on:

*A LOT on faces...I'm having quite a difficult time getting the features and the proportions just right.

*The overall size of the art, I have this tendency to draw everything a tad too large and very frequently I find that the image doesn't fit in the paper, I finally improved that a bit in my quick sketches yesterday by drawing an inside frame very lightly with pencil and trying to work in that area alone.

I'll try to find some decent looking quick sketches to post here (most of them are NEVER going to see the light of day!)

Candle Screen Project

2009-04-19T21:04:00.016-05:00

I had to come up with a project for my students to do as a Mother's Day present, it needed to be something relatively simple for the 3 year old bunch, and at the same time something that the kids in 3rd grade could show more creativity with. I used a sponging and a dry brush technique for this model...obviously the 3 year old kids will use a more simple technique.

Here's what I used for this project:
*A medium size clay candle screen, this one measures 8 1/2" by 6"(there are tons of clay objects for sale in the crafts market here)
*White acrylic paint (leftover from the last time we painted the house)
*Student grade acrylic paint (is what the students will have available in school)
*A couple of brushes (they need to have stiff bristles for the dry-brush technique)
*A piece of sponge
*Metallic acrylic paint ( I used some copper)
*Clear adhesive
*Small dry flowers (These are very common here, and come in a variety of colors)
*A styrofoam tray or a plastic plate (To use as a palette)

Ok, I began this project painting all the surfaces with a coat of white acrylic paint, the reason for this is that the clay can be pretty absorbent and if it's left unsealed it can take too many layers of color to get good coverage, the color of the clay also affects the final colors in the project.
I added black paint to the areas where I will use the dry brush technique; the black will affect the colors I add on top as it will show a bit through the streaks in the top layers, the areas that are left white will be worked with a sponge in different colors to give texture.
I added a layer of yellow on top of the white and started working in red with some more yellow on top. I don't mind too much if I get paint on top of the black, this will all be covered up later with more paint.
Here's my sponge and palette so you get a better idea of how I use them; I take a bit of the three colors in the sponge and pat the sponge a bit on the side of the palette so the colors fuse together a bit, when I'm happy with the mix of colors I have I start working on my piece. It's always better to work on light layers to avoid getting splotches of strong color.
Here are the walls all done after several layers of red/yellow/white paint. This particular house is done in a colonial style which is very common in Antigua Guatemala; some of the main characteristics of these houses are the bold colors of the walls and the Spanish tile roof.
Here's the first layer of red being applied with the dry brush technique, I picked up some color with the brush and used a sponge to take off as much paint as possible. You can use some paper napkins instead of the sponge, but I prefer the sponge because it absorbs more paint and when I'm finished I just need to rinse it off and leave it to dry.
Here's the roof after several layers of red and some yellow added, the important thing about using the dry brush technique is to add very light layers of color to give an interesting texture and to use a contrasting color in the background to give it more depth. I added yellow around the top where the flowers will be added.
Green was added on top of the yellow and white was added to the bottom of the house -not really happy with how the white looks...
I added some darker green to the area around the top and some white to the roof...which you'll soon discover will disappear... the green was just added in patches while the white was added with the dry brush technique.
These are dried up natural flowers (don't know really what plant they come from) which are very common in Guatemala, they are covered with different color acrylic paint and sold by the bundles in the crafts market; I cut them up individually and added them to the top part with some clear adhesive (If you look closely you'll see my cherished Coke vintage glass on the left and the tv playing in the background-my two addictions).
I had my nephew print his hand on the bottom of the dish with red paint, added his name and the date 10-Mayo-2009. Mother's Day in Guatemala is celebrated on May 10th, and all Mother's get the day off. What's nice about this project is that it doesn't matter too much if my boss approves it or not, I made a neat keepsake involving my nephew and I'll always cherish it. By the way, if you look closely the white in the bottom was toned out with some yellow, and a metallic copper tone was added to the roof and the bricks (the camera didn't really picked this up)using the same dry brush technique.
Here's the final product...I'm still debating whether to paint the inside with white paint since the windows are pretty large and you can see right through it.

Chunkies Minus the Chunk

2009-04-18T10:56:00.006-05:00

When I first learned about ATCs, the whole concept of Mail Art was a bit overwhelming and it took me a while to learn about all the different kinds of trades that existed. One that caught my attention from the start were the chunky books, these are 4"x4" and they are called chunky because they are usually done with a very sturdy base and they have fibers and dangling bits on the edge. However...mailing these turned out to be way too expensive, so I have traded some of these for regular ATCs or I have found projects where the chunky part is not asked for, which makes the mailing cheaper. These chunkies in particular were created for Sarah's son (Tlouey @ iATCs) who makes chunky books to teach him about colors (green froggie) and numbers (one sweet giraffe). I think this is a one-of-a-kind project and I loved taking part in it. These two chunkies in particular were done with watercolors and some white drawing ink in the froggie.

...but....I don't like watercolors...

2009-04-08T14:11:00.007-05:00

I've been sick since last Friday and I think the combination of a hacking cough, stuffy nose, back pain, and meds completely messed with my sleeping hours; so while laying awake at 2 am I got this idea for a post (WARNING: I'm still under the influence of a very strong antibiotic and cough syrup, so you'll have to forgive me if this makes little sense). One of the earliest memories of art I have is of a metal box of watercolor cakes that belonged to one of my brothers, it was about 120 different colors in this huge-or so I thought- box which I desperately wanted to get my hands on...and which my brother guarded with his life. Now, don't think I was going to be careless with his precious watercolor box -he didn't even use them-, it was that ever so present feeling of "You cannot have it because it's mine"...brothers.... I had to wait a while to use them and when I did I felt completely cheated of the whole experience...the pages of my coloring book warped under the water and since I had no one to show me how to use the cakes correctly there was more water than color in them, apart from the obvious color drops I managed to get in all the wrong places. So ended my fantasy of the huge metal box and watercolors. Years passed and I started working in larger formats, after a year and a half of painting with oils I was absolutely certain that this was the medium for me; whenever someone tried to lead me to watercolors I would start claiming all the "evils" of such medium, how difficult it was and how unforgiving of ones mistakes. It turns out I couldn't escape from watercolors forever and they finally caught up with me last year when I changed my art class schedule and I landed with a new teacher who just happened to love watercolors....oh, the difference a good teacher makes. Although we didn't spend much time working with watercolors I completely fell in love with the subtleties they possess and the wonderful effects you can achieve with them. He inspired me to continue experimenting outside of the class and to have to ask myself now who was that person not so long ago that used to say "I don't like watercolors". So have you tried something new recently??
These are all done for 2 different swaps over at iATCs.

Looking for a Little Time

2009-03-15T22:28:00.008-05:00

I've been missing the last couple of weeks, but life REALLY got on the way...long story short, I changed jobs and I'm still trying to get used to the new schedule. This affects not having enough time to play around with any type of Art,
blogging, nor visiting my favorite blogs; I hope to get used to the new schedule soon enough and have time to start creating again.
These are the cards I created today for Annie's Design-a-Cat Swap over at ATCs for All, she made the fun outline of a cat and asked us to design our own cat based on her image; the cats that have been posted so far look absolutely fantastic and I cannot wait to see what kind of returns I get from this one :)

Acrylics

2009-02-20T16:45:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, I was waiting for an appointment and I was suddenly inspired by the art in the reception area, there were 4 different paintings approx. 18"x18" done with acrylics and I loved the technique of wide, bold brushstrokes with the colors marking the overall design, so I decided to play with this a bit today. I ended up with 7 cards I owe from 2 trades over at ATCs for All and I had quite an interesting morning. I ended up adding some black outlines to some of the cards (hearts are a personal favorite of mine), but the ones I did following the original inspiration -the eye and the calla lily- are definitely my favorites.
I know by now you are just green with envy over my most luxurious and elegant palette, but to tell you the truth I find that's practically impossible for me to keep a palette for acrylics or oils in good condition. I just don't have enough patience to spend my time rubbing old painting away and have lost a couple of actually good palettes in the process, so I have resorted to keeping a stash of plastic plates ( I usually rescue a couple of cake plates from family reunions, wash them and stash them).
You can get a closer look to the ATCs in my Flickr, but beware...they did not scan well at all :(

Gerbera Daisy

2009-02-14T19:00:00.009-06:00

After sunflowers gerbera daisies are my most favorite flowers ever. There's something so nice and cheerful when it comes to their colors. Unfortunately our daisies have been a bit under the weather with all the constant temperature changes and this one was the one that looked the most "cheerful" part when I went hunting into the garden this afternoon with my camera, but it will do just fine to wish you a fun Vanletine's day :)
Moving into the art part now... I worked today in these small watercolor paintings of gerberas, they are 2"x2" (twinchies!) and they took a loooonnnnngggg time to get ready, it's so difficult to get details into such a tiny canvas. I have one of this for sale on my Etsy, I'm thinking I want to hold on to the other one for a while; I used Ranger's memory glass and frames to make the pendants and I quite like how they turned out. I still have more frames and glass so I'm hoping to make others soon, any requests??

PS. I cannot write this post without thanking Lisa at yourATCstore.com, I bought the frames over at her store and I received extraordinary service and a fair price-particularly considering I'm international and all other stores had really ridiculous shipping costs for these tiny frames, not to mention the great freebies she sent along.

OWOH WINNER

2009-02-12T00:26:00.002-06:00

I'm just surprised at the incredible response from the One World One Heart event, over 900 bloggers from all around the world joined this year and the comments received were just extraordinary. So...coming to the winner now:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

Timestamp: 2009-02-12 06:21:41 UTC

And the comment matches Shelly Rae Wood:

ShellyRaeWood said... 168

Oh these poppies bring back memories. When I was growing up there was the sweetest older man, Lively. He always had a smile and a piece of candy in his pockets for the kids. He also grew the prettiest poppies. My Dad still has some of Lively's stock of poppies growing at his house!! :::smiles::: Thanks so much for the memory!! Your watercolor is gorgeous!! Shelly OWOH # 825
www.shellyraewood.blogspot.com

February 2, 2009 11:11 PM

I hope you also lucked out and got a little surprise coming your way!

PS. The pic has nothing to do with the post...but I don't want to have a post without some eye candy ;)

Classes, classes, classes!!!

2009-02-09T20:36:00.008-06:00

I started giving lessons again today (I work as an English teacher) and it's the one thing I love as much as creating. I get such a thrill of helping someone learn English and the great satisfaction they have when they learn a new language. To top the day off I took my first art lesson of the year in the afternoon, this year is all about drawing the human figure and faces; and as you can see from my poor ATC above I need BIG help when it comes to this. The ATC above is supposed to be my rendition of Luna Lovegood- I used watercolors, acryllic metallic paints, black ink, and white ink. This one is for Melanie over at AFA, she is one AWESOME artist, you can visit her blog here.
Back to my art classes, I have them scheduled for Mondays 2-6 and it was a total surprise when I showed up today because it turns out we get to work with a live model. I have never tried human figure drawing before, not to mention with a live model! but it was a really nice experience. The first part of the class was spent by doing a series of exercises where she changed poses every 5 or 7 minutes...for the first ones I was freaking out a bit because of the time limit, but it turns out that when you are just trying to get the basic body shapes where they belong 5 minutes is a long time.
Here are the first poses, my personal favorite is the one where she is lying on her side -although she looks way chubby, I think I kind of over did the curves a bit.This one has a sketch of my teacher on the right - he was showing me the whole 8 heads of proportion rule.

This one is the last one of the session, she held the pose for 30 minutes, she was sort of slumped over a chair with her legs stretched out towards me -which was a whole load of trouble I might add- Oh, and let's not get into the whole hand/feet issue; it was my first class after all ; )
I'd love to hear some feedback from you, I'm WAY out of my comfort zone with this topic but I'm really interested in learning from this.

Now, for some awesome classes YOU can take on line! A group of extraordinary artists -Annie Melione, Dana Driscoll, Tracie Rozario and Sal Scheibe- are just getting ready to launch a Whimsy Art Workshop:
"The workshop is designed to help artists who are seeking to improve their artistic skills or working to develop a unique style. The workshop is designed for the novice, so it’s not necessary that you know anything about drawing, color, or composition. We will cover all of the basics and some advanced techniques and then help you to find your own, unique style of whimsical art. Our approach to learning about drawing is light-hearted and fun and filled with exercises and inspiration to help you grow as an artist." Read more about it here.

Antigua Guatemala

2009-01-31T16:09:00.007-06:00

Antigua Guatemala used to be the capital of the city until the earthquakes of 1773 destroyed a big part of the city, back then it was known as Santiago de los Caballeros. When the new capital was settled, it received the name of Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción -which in turned made Santiago the "Antigua Guatemala"-.
Antigua is pretty close to today's capital, so close that I can get there from my house after a short 30 minutes ride! I'm absolutely in love with the city -which by the way is a Unesco World Heritage Site- because it has a wonderful colonial style, with amazing streets and extraordinary houses, surrounded by amazing hills and volcanoes. We went for lunch with some friends last December, and while walking around we stopped by the Hotel Posada de Don Rodrigo and took some awesome pictures in one of the courtyards. I used these for my inspiration for a swap over at iATCs, the only requirement in this one was to use only colored pencils; so all of these are done just with my beloved Prismacolor colored pencils!
I highly recommend visiting La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo where Rudy Girón has been posting a daily photo from Antigua since 2006, his photos are really extraordinary as well as his posts and you will get a true feel of what life is like in this beautiful city.

One World-One Heart

2009-01-27T21:48:00.004-06:00

Thanks for all the comments! It was so much fun coming here everyday and reading such wonderful notes about amazing people all over the world. I hope you also had fun and found other extraordinary blogs!

Ok, being a new blogger I have several new things to learn. I just discovered about this one and I think it's truly fantastic. One World-One Heart was started two years ago by Lisa Swifka, it's an amazing way to get to know other bloggers and on top of that to have the opportunity to get amazing gifts back! Besides, after reading Lisa's intro I couldn't resist joining:

I planted a seed and hoped for a bloom....the first year there was a flower, the second year it became a garden and now this year.....well this year...it's as if I planted magic seeds. There are beautiful wild flowers everywhere and the magic from those seeds is still spreading like the down on a dandelion. I am filled with joy people, pure joy!!!

After an afternoon of hopping from blog to blog and finding out new amazing people out there I decided to join the caravan and the fun! I'll be giving away this original framed painting of poppies done in watercolors, black and white ink, and acrylic metallics backgrounds. The painting comes in a black wooden easel-style frame with metal legs measuring 6"x10".
Just leave me a comment in this post (if you don't have a blog be sure to leave me an email address I can use to get in contact with you if you win). I'll close comments on Feb. 11 at midnight (My time!) and I'll anounce the winner on the 12th.
Make sure you go browse the other amazing blogs taking part in this great movement!

Busy Work

2009-01-26T14:36:00.003-06:00

As a teacher I've come in contact with students often being assigned "busy work", which is basically an assignment given to them to keep busy, there's no real objective and it can go from drawing and painting whatever you want to a last minute "projects". It happens quite often when there is an absent teacher or when teachers just don't prepare their classes and cannot figure what to do to end up their scheduled time. Well...I had some busy work of my own this weekend, I had no inspiration whatsoever and didn't even feel like picking up a pencil since last Friday, but I still felt the need to "make" something so the weekend would not end up as a big bust. So, I looked for an old turqouise knit sweater that had not seen the light of day for years and I started unraveling it and getting these amazing looking balls of yarn. Now the question is, What to do with all this yarn? Some of it might end up in chunkies or in bookmarks, I'm planning on crocheting some small bags for another project -that with my crocheting skills might take up a couple of months to get completed!-, and some other bits might end up traveling with my future swaps and trades. For the first time I'll have to say "Yay for busy work!" even if the yarn ends up lasting for years who can complain of the beauty of all of these balls put together.

Alice in Wonderland

2009-01-22T19:25:00.009-06:00

Ok, it's the turn of the Mixed Media Alice in Wonderland Swap. Funny thing about Alice...it's not one of my favorite reads ever (it gets way too crazy for my taste from time to time), but I find the characters to be fascinating. I chose my 3 most favorite characters for this swap over at AFA, and here they are with a description of the mediums used.
Alice's background is made with two scrunched up pieces of tissue paper (aqua and light blue on top) since I added lots of sealer on them the wrinkles are still there as well as a mix of the colors, I added some small dots of pink glitter on top of that. The area around the card is made with a different piece of cardboard on which I added more torn/wrinkled tissue paper and added lots of acrylic paint on top. Alice was drawn on a different piece of paper and colored with different mediums, the hair has markers, prismacolor crayons, black and white ink; the face is done with prismacolor crayons, the blouse is done with blue wax crayon and the dress with a small piece of Asian paper
Now for the cat...the background is a piece of some music sheet with green, yellow, and some brown oil pastels on top; I added some gesso on top, added some clean water and wiped most of the gesso away (this way I can mute most of the oil pastels). The branches are done just like the frame around Alice; cardboard, wrinkled tissue paper and acrylics. The flowers are dried flowers we can buy over here for crafts with lots of sealer on top so they won't flake. The cat is done on a scrap of patterned paper, shaded with wax crayon and I added some details with white and black ink on top.

Finally, my favorite character, the Mad Hatter. The background is a page from an old dictionary with yellow and red circles and gesso on top, and some white ink dots to finish it. The frame is just like the previous two cards and the Mad Hatter has an embossed paper shirt with patterned paper bowtie and had and Prismacolor colored pencils for the face.

Pastels and Orchids

2009-01-20T14:31:00.006-06:00

This is an orchid from the ones my Mom has in our front garden; the beauty of these orchids is the fact that they can take years to bloom and sometimes bloom only once in their lifetime. I know you have probably seen tons of gorgeous orchids in nurseries or if you are here in malls where they have them for sale, and all of them have these beautiful, perfect flowers...unfortunately, the ones we have bought here end up dying pretty quickly and we found out it's mostly because they are given special supplements to bloom and when they stop receiving these they die. We have finally found a couple of vendors that bring gorgeous orchids and we have been lucky enough to keep them alive. We are hopeful the second bulb in this one will also bloom! I took this one inside today, and made a pastel painting based on it...it's been a year since I played with my pastels, and I had quite a fun -but messy- time doing this.
*Funny childhood story* The first time I heard about pastels I was like 5 or 6 years old, and my mom asked my dad to go to the mall to look for some "pastels", when I heard this I immediately jumped into the conversation and asked to come along too; we went over to the mall and I was ABSOLUTELY disappointed when I saw that the "pastels" my mom had just bought were crayons... to understand my disappointment you should know that "pastel" in Spanish means "cake", which explains why a box of crayons was not what I wanted to see in that moment!

Interested in the painting? Check it out in my Etsy

Fun Sunday!

2009-01-18T17:16:00.010-06:00

I joined the Wizard of Odd swap over at AFA and a whole odd side of me came up... Poor Dorothy ended up like a streetwalker with the Scarecrow as her pimp! I didn't want to end up making poor Tinman into a dealer so I decided to finish my 3rd card in a geometric style with all the gang in it. I ended up having a lot of fun with this one though, all the images are hand-drawn, inked and colored with Prismacolor colored pencils -they are my first art love after all-.

Now, for more fun I just received an award from Jennifer's blog Trial and Error...and I'm to confess 5 addictions and pass the award to 5 other bloggers. Ok, let's face the addictions then:

Coke -if I can drink it everyday I'm a happy camper
Pollo Campero-Guatemala's version of KFC, only 100 times better
Art supplies- I'm always buying more and more, even though I'm not using them
Mail Art - I'm so hooked on ATCs, chunkies and swaps!
And last, but not least...My blog -Even though I just started it this year, and I complained at first over what a hassle it was...I cannot help checking in everyday and finding more stuff to write about.

Ok, so there are my addictions...let's hear from other bloggers addictions. I'll pass the award to other 5 bloggers so they can fess up!!

Passion Flower

2009-01-16T15:50:00.008-06:00

A few years ago we planted a Passion Flower vine to cover the terrace railing and it just took over the whole front of the house, it was beautiful! And then... a handyman that was fixing some odd ends around the house decided to trim it back a bit; our poor vine was dead within a couple of months. Dad was upset because the vine reminded him of the vine in his childhood home in Yepocapa (yeah, I dare you to say that 3 times in a row!), Mom was mad because 1 "nobody" trims her flowers and 2 the great ecosystem for all the butterflies and hummingbirds that visited us came to an end, and I just hated seeing the bare railings exposed without all the wonderful greenery. We finally got another vine going last year, and although this one has not taken over like its predecessor it has began blooming and this is one of its wonderful flowers. I found some interesting facts in Wikipedia about the Passion Flower, here are some of them:

In the 15th and 16th century Spanish missionaries adopted the symbols of the plant as parallels to Christ's last days on Earth, so the word "passion" refers to the Passion of Jesus Christ.
All flowers have 10 petals that represent the apostles (minus Judas Iscariot and St. Peter)
The 3 stigmate represent the 3 nails used in hands and feet.
The 5 anthers represent the 5 wounds (2 hands, 2 feet, and the lance wound in the ribcage)
The filaments represent the crown of thorns.

I worked on another mixed media painting the last couple of weeks and I just ended this one today; it's painted on a 10"x10" canvasboard, with layers of book pages, gesso, acrylics, white ink, black ink, and metallic acrylic paint. The passion flower is all done with Acrylics, the photo is awful because the day has been too cold and there's just not enough light for a good pic. This one is going into my Etsy as well.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page if you wish to read more on the Passion Flower.

Hearts Everywhere...

2009-01-16T13:22:00.010-06:00

I had promised myself I would cut back in my swaps this year, but then again there are so many cool swaps I want to get my hands into that this is getting pretty difficult to do. These are cards I made for a Mixed Media Heart at AFA (I hadn't even signed up to the swap yet...so I hope I'm in, otherwise I'll have these available for trading!). I used canvas paper for my bases and I added different layers, they all have an altered magazine image, acrylics, gesso, metallic acrylic paint, black ink, and white ink.

Pick-a-Theme Cards

2009-01-15T13:23:00.010-06:00

In a Pick-a-Theme trade (PAT) you create a card for each person in the group based on their theme. I had fun with this month's PAT, they had to be all hand-drawn and I got amazing artists in my group, here are my cards for them.
Angel for Martha (SeekingForArt)
Ink and pastels over book page

Skull for Sarah (TheMuppet)
Ink and pastels over a book page

Flowering tree

for Shirley (Lilbad)
Ink, pastels, wax crayon over book page

Turquoise/Brown for Sarah (OriginalYouth)
Acrylics over book page

And finally a host card for Carole
Altered magazine image

Partner Trades

2009-01-14T16:36:00.008-06:00

I'm an ATC fan! I found an online forum on September '07 and I was hooked from the beginning, it has been an awesome experience because I've met some of the most friendly, creative, funny, and sometimes a bit crazy people around the world. I have traded and collected awesome art, made some great friends, and had the chance to learn more about art and my own process in creating it throughout this time. Last year in one of my regular hangouts, ATCs for All -AFA-, a new type of trade was set up; it's a monthly trade where you are set up blindly with another member, and you create a card especially for that member. It's a great way to trade with new people and try your hand at unusual themes. My January partner trade in AFA was Dawn (AKA Upwiththesun) and I made her a coffee ATC, it has a music sheet, way crayon, gesso, sharpie, stamps, gold pen, hand drawn image, collaged butterfly and ink.

This month a similar trade was set up in Mail Art World -MAW- and I got paired up with my dear pal Shirley (AKA Lilbad); she loves sheep, so I made a queen sheep for her! This one has scrapbooking paper, asian paper, embossed paper, hand drawn image, magazine text, sharpies, and wax crayon

Click here to see their galleries

Dawn's Gallery

Shirley's Gallery (MAW)
Shirley's Gallery (AFA)

Art Goodness

2009-01-13T19:50:00.012-06:00

Art Trader Magazine #5 is out!
This is an amazing web based publication full of awesome mail art, great inspiration and interesting tips and how-to articles. All of the awesome art has been created by the artists of

Check out all the great eye candy in this edition!!

A Yellow Rose

2009-01-12T16:15:00.008-06:00

I had a trade set up in Illustrated ATCs with Bonnie (Balletbon) for a 4"x4" rose, and with the holidays and job hunting I'd been dragging my feet with trades and swaps. Inspiration finally came today and I worked on a yellow rose for her based in one of the pics I took from my Mom's roses (read previous post). I chose the yellow rose because yellow roses carry such a beautiful meaning of sunshine and general happiness. I used watercolor paper, watercolors and white ink for this.
You can take a look at the beautiful Sunflower Bonnie did for me here.

Mom's Roses

2009-01-08T14:38:00.008-06:00

Ok, it's time to boast a bit about my Mom, as I've told you before she has an extraordinary green thumb, but the funny thing is that whenever we visit a nursery to get more plants she acts like a child looking at baseball cards "I have this one...I don't have one in that color...Oh, I need this one" Among her favorite flowers are roses and we have quite a few of those in our terrace, unfortunately we had to get our roof fixed in December and the poor roses paid quite a high price...here are pics from few of the survivors.

I on the othe hand do NOT have a green thumb...and I'm kind of banned of anything to do with the flowers lest I'll accidentally kill them... So I consider myself to have a colorful thumb instead and stick to painting them instead of planting them. Here's my latest inspiration coming straight from my Mom's roses; it has several layers of paint, gesso, paper, ink, texture, etc and a hand drawn and painted acrylic rose on top. It measures 10"x10" and is painted on canvas board. You can find it in my Etsy store.

Flowers Everywhere

2009-01-03T17:55:00.010-06:00

January can mean cold and lots of snow for many of you, but in Guate you can go really crazy with the weather; we can start with a very cold morning, work out to a hot afternoon and start getting cold again by early evening, this is why colds are so hard to shake off! The positive side of this weird weather is the fact that flowers seem to love it and you can find flowers all around you. This pic was taken in my own house (my mom has an extraordinary green thumb), this vine is called tumbralgia (let me know if you know its name in English) and it has taken over the whole backyard in just over a couple of months. (Mystery solved!! It is called a "clock vine". Thanks Jean for the info)All the wonderful colors around have inspired me to create a set of bookmarks with floral designs, here are some of them. They are for sale in my Etsy shop, so come by and take a look!

Why Springtime Inspired

2009-01-02T21:20:00.007-06:00

I am 28 years old and have been getting more inspired to create art for the last 3 years. A while ago I started thinking in where my inspiration comes from when I'm creating; and I now realize that most of it comes from my daily life and the great love I have of my country. I'm from Guatemala and although it's a small country (yeah, most people cannot say where it is!) it is full of beautiful landscapes, exotic flora and fauna, interesting traditions, soothing music, savory aromas and great things to discover each day. One of the things I love the most about it is the great weather we have; we only have two seasons -summer and winter- and this is why Guate is also know as the Land of the Eternal Spring, it is always green and with flowers blooming all year round, anyways this is where Springtime Inspired comes from. I hope to share more of my country with you and to keep trying to translate this extraordinary small country into my art.