Americana Rooster On Etsy and the PFATT Marketplace

A hand painted rooster with attitude, is set in red, white and blue for a bit of Americana for your home. Painted on an 8" x 10" gallery wrap canvas, he comes ready to frame. See him at :

Pfatt Marketplace or Etsy/MothersDreamRtworks

My Three Entries for the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts

Calabaza de Cuero

 It's nail biting time again. Funny, I always worry about being accepted, and haven't been turned away yet, so why the nail biting? I guess it's that old lack of self confidence creeping in. Keeps me humble right? Lol.

Sunset In Sonora

 This was an interesting challenge, but a lot of fun to do. I wanted to try and use my doilies in a tree painting, and it worked, although I had another style in mind prior. What's nice is I can still try my other idea. I've learned though that joint compound does not like cold basement floors. It was a bit hard to spread, and a lot more crazing happened than I like. The paint filled most of that in luckily, and the antiquing process brought out what was left, to my advantage.

The Red Hen

Pastels and chickens, who knew that would be my new fun challenge to try?! I have a couple of other challenges in that regard, and my temptation is to blow past the sketch step and get right to it, but I think I will try and sketch out my idea first to make sure I have my light and dark areas figured out. I can do that while Kent is doing his dulcimer practice so it works for both of us.
I'd better get to finishing getting ready for work. I am introducing Mary Cassatt to my students today. It will be interesting to see how they settle in after Spring Break.

Dreaming of Chickens

The Stansbury Art and Literary Society challenged us to come up with a poem and then a painting or some way to illustrate our poem. So I've been dreaming of crocus and chickens and dragonflies, trying to decide my topic. Here she is, what I've settle on. Not sure I'm completely finished, but she's pretty much there. Now to find a frame and get her ready for her debut tomorrow night.

Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts Success Story

 What an incredible show it was this year! I won a ribbon for the above piece, and it was one of the first pieces sold at the opening night reception Friday night. I was/am so tickled! I had a fun time Saturday as I was asked to demo my sculpting and textured art skills. The textured art demo was the most popular, with people of all ages watching and asking questions. One lady asked me if I considered what I do fine art or a crafty thing, and so I to pointed out to her that the above piece was accepted into the show and it is a fine art show.... she didn't ask any more questions after that, but I'm not sure what I could have said otherwise. The look on everyone's faces when she asked the question was funny, some shocked, some frowning, some with a wondering look, but when I answered they all nodded yes and smiled. I hope I wasn't too harsh as I said it gently, but firmly. The sculpting demo was fun as well and I was asked to join the quick draw next year to sculpt a piece with the idea that it would be sculpted to a finished stage, and painted later, with an example of what the finished piece would look like so folks bidding would know what they could expect. That will be quite a challenge as we have an hour and a half to finish a piece, so I had better settle on a theme and practice now.

 Sunday when I went to pick up my art, I found out that the same person who bought the one piece, bought my chicken as well, score! I hear she is a very nice person so I look forward to getting to know her.

To top everything off my silent auction piece sold as well, to a local chef, and this year half of the sale price goes to the artist, whoohoo!
All in all, it was a very good year for me, and I'm thrilled! After not working all year, and not really having much artistic time it was a sweet gift from above. I know where my blessings come from and I consider this such a blessing!

Virtue.... a finished WIP

I'm still in my jammies as I have been working on this and getting the photos and entry done, whew! I can go on vacation with peace of mind now. At 32 inches tall, she is the tallest/largest sculpt I've done to date. She is made from a total of 5 gourds, one for the body and two for each of the arms. No baby though. I had to remove the baby as it was looking more like a cocoon from outer space than a child, even a folk art one...lol. This is a bit different than I had planned for her dress as well, but sometimes things change as we go along. Now, to wait and see if I've been accepted.

Here's a closer look at her base. I tried to achieve a turquoise stone look to the panels on her dress. I hope that will show up in person. Photos are hard to take here.

Another one of my entries for the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts. A mixed media abstract.

I know I've shared this before as well, but here's "Who's Chicken?" again. Now the waiting begins. Will I be accepted? I hope so as I'm supposed to demo my sculpting and I usually volunteer to help. I do enjoy this show, but will be looking for others to enter as well. They are great experiences and you can get good feedback on where you need to improve. If you haven't entered a juried show before I urge you to give it a try. You never know!

Of Chickens and Things....

Chickens are funny creatures. They scratch and peck and bwaak bwaak their way around a yard, skittering here and there to catch a bug, or get out of the way if necessary. More and more folks are getting into raising chickens, and here in Utah there are communities that have passed ordinances allowing town folk to have a limited number on their property.
When we lived in North Pole we had several chickens, the white Cornish cross we would raise every year for eating. The year my ex and I split the second time I was left with about 30. They became my visitor greeters, surrounding any vehicle that came into our driveway, pecking at their tires and waiting for the "victim" to get out. I looked out my living room window one day to see a friend sitting on his bike with my little flock staring up at him. They even tried to go running with me and another friend one day. We took off down my drive and heard the skitter of tiny feet. As we looked back all my little hens were following us, trying to keep up.
We would like to raise laying hens some day, but for now, I will suffice with painting them. Here's a pastel I did yesterday. Do you have chickens?