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It's beginning to look alot like Christmas at PFATT for July.
It took me long enough to get back to posting photos, but here's the finished pieces I created for my participation in the Craft It forward challenge. These are all made of air dry clay, and hang on rat tail cording with a jewelry clasp. The receivers of these handsome fellas are Hope of The Pixies Ponderings, Mo of Wings and Paws Whimsies, and Judy of Art Dolls. 
Poor Jack...he lost his hat, so now he's hanging on to his head for dear life! The smile you wonder?
Well, he's hoping that if he's really nice, and shows his best side, you will take him home and fill him with delicious treats. He's on ebay right now!
Whoooooo is looking back at you? Why a handsome little owl or .....
two....... or......
three! All a ready and waiting to debut on PFATT Marketplace on Wednesday the 10th of June. You will find all sorts of spooky and wildly creepy Halloween items created for our Jack O' Lantern June! Please stop by.
Here are my entries for the art show this week.
You can't really see the paint shading very well and I do need to seal this tonight, but This Indian head is on a bottle gourd with a pine needle base attached with brass star brads. I tried to keep it simple so this is the way it will be.
So here we are and hopefully all done. Now, to choose something for the silent auction. Have a great night!
Almost done with this piece and it's a good thing as the entries have to be in on Wednesday. I have to bulk up the hair and finish the top of the hair, as well as figure out the base. This is done with Creative Paperclay over a bottle gourd. He's patterned after the Nez Perce Indians, which are indigenous to this part of Oregon.
Isn't this too cute?! I won this by visiting the Sweet B Folk Art blog. Oh, and there were a bunch of Smarties in the package to boot so I really lucked out. Why don't you take a stroll over to Amelia's blog and see if you can win a sweet treat for yourself? Find her link in my blog roll. Good luck!
I just got done mowing the lawn and couldn't resist taking a picture of the mountains this evening. I can smell the Ponderosa pines and fresh cut grass..ahhhhh......The work in progress is my house and the yard. We need to put one more coat of paint on the house and trim, and then put a deck around the front and side of the porch,(wish I would have thought of that last year) and get the rest of the landscaping done for this year. Next year we start on the inside. But I will post before and after photos of the outside of the house as it will amaze you!
Not sure if I bit off more than I could chew here, but my paintings always look iffy half way through. Can you guess what is standing in front of the barn on the hill?
I wanted to post a Memorial Day note but the day got away from me. I was up at 5am spraying the field of dandelions that have cropped up in our yard this year. Then Kent and I went for a walk and I fixed breakfast before he took off for Utah. I cleaned outside windows and went to a surprise birthday party for a friend at church, and then came home and built garden boxes. So here I am, later in the evening, wishing there was more time in the day. We just had Family Home Evening via the telephone, with Kent in Utah and Annie and I here in Oregon. We shared our thoughts on why this day is important.
I've had the photograph this was done from for a long time. I'm trying to step outside of what I normally do and use different brush strokes and so on and this is what the end result was. I plan on doing at least one painting a week until the art show, and then will make a decision on which pieces will be submitted. This is an acrylic on a 9 x 12 inch gallery wrap canvas. The painting does wrap around the sides. Let me know what you think!
Suzanne Urban of Smirking Goddess Studios and fearless leader of AHA turned me on to mini canvases so I've been itching to get a painting done on one of these. Well I actually have 3 owl paintings in production, but this is the first, Owlfred. The canvas is 4" by 4" by 1.5"deep. It will sit anywhere or you can hang this.
As with most artists, we have many creative hats we like to wear. One of mine is cooking. Mom used to make THE BEST Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie when we lived in Wallowa Valley before. Well, I went to the local fruit stand the other day and saw some long ruby red stalks of Rhubarb, so I picked some up. We also bought some Strawberries at Safeway so I searched the net and found a recipe and Whalaa! We have pie!
Let me tell you, the crust is a butter and canola oil crust so it is flaky and tender, one of my best yet, and the filling is to die for! So this was a huge success and now I will go to sleep with a full tummy, dreaming of pie for breakfast......well okay, I won't really have pie for breakfast, I would probably fall asleep in church, but I can look forward to pie for dessert after dinner. Then a long walk to enjoy the fresh pine scented breezes and the towering snow capped mountains. 
A special bouquet for all the ladies out there, whether you are a mother, grandmother, soon to be, or help take care of others, you have the mother spirit. May your day be filled with joy, love, laughter, and peace.
Stand up and salute because here comes Uncle Sam, and he wants you! I sure do love the USA! Americana is one of my favorite themes as it reflects a piece of history for me. We are a blessed nation, and I hope no one forgets that.
Did you ever just create a piece to see if you could do it? Well this would be one of those. Sunflowers grow wild here, so I've gathered seeds and planted them in the garden. They will take over if you let them, but their sunny happy faces are so enjoyable! So here she is my sunny, happy sunflower. Hope you have a creative week. I will be getting the garden ready, and packing for our sojourn to Oregon. Yay!
I am so fortunate to belong to American Holiday Artists! Suzanne is amazing at getting our work featured as we list new work. She gives all this and doesn't get paid, we couldn't afford her if we had to. She has this little fella up there right now, along with other Americana pieces by some of our other oh so talented members, so head on over and take a peek.
For those of you who like the pay it forward idea scroll on down and check out my craft it forward post. I have 3 volunteers, and am working on a new design to send their way. I have 2 openings left so if you like free stuff, check it out.
I can't decide what holiday I want to work on right now, so Americana is always a good one! Covers 4th of July, Memorial Day, President's Day, and so on. And why not? We live in the best nation in the world! So here's a candy cup sailor boy for all you patriotic folks out there.
Inspired by a great artisan, David of Chicken Lips Studios, who is the master at this, I created a little JOL candy cup. These are a lot harder than they look to create, so I probably won't be doing too many, but I do want to try a cat, a bat and an owl. Have you taken the time to check out the AHA blog lately? We sure have some talented folks over there!
I'm still plugging away at this doll. I painted her face, and used pastels to dust her cheeks and other features for shadows and color. I have wet wool wrapped around markers to form curls for her hair. When Emmett leaves I will be getting a design for something else done, and then working on this!
I had to share this, don't know why I haven't before. My great, great, great, great, grandfather was a designer of glassware. He has several patents, but this is the first piece I found out about, and then acquired. It's interesting how the finished piece is different from the drawing above.
Here is my Bird Pickle Dish, by Julius Proeger. The Proeger line is on my mom's side. The photo in the backround is mom with my real father on one side, and my grandma on the other. Mom is the dark haired women to your left as you look at the monitor.
Here are more examples of the dishes my gggg grandfather Julius Proeger designed. Pretty aren't they?!
I must admit that I didn't realize it was Earth Day until I saw Carries' blog at Snippetgirl. But I've been celebrating all day! I worked on a cloth and clay doll creation this morning, that will have a patriotic theme. The painted wood you see in the front of the doll will be a part of her finished creation. It was a piece off of a cable spool, that I found on the ground. Was too cool to walk past and leave.
Emmett and I spent a good part of the morning planting as I'm getting starts going to take with me to Oregon in 3 weeks. My trunk will be full of seedlings. I can't just plant one you know.
Here's a bed of peas, garlic and swiss chard. The neighborhood cats would love to use these as litter boxes so I keep chicken wire over the beds.
My Rosemary, Oregano and Chives are doing quite well and could use some trimming back.
And last but not least, some tomatoes, herbs, peppers and cauliflower almost ready to transplant. Perhaps you noticed that I've used cardboard egg cartons, and cleaned up meat trays for some of my starts. I also use toilet paper rolls for collars for my little starts to help keep the cut worms and such away. The nice thing about them and the egg cartons is that they will break down and add to the soil. They are considered "brown" compost material as they are created from recyclable material. So here's to Earth Day!
Man! Talk about a photo shoot from H - E - double toothpicks! This rascally fella was all over the place! I had to catch him as I could as he was in the house, then outside, and climbing stairs and I was about ready to ground him! Anyway, he has found a place in ebay land.
Follow my ebay link to the right to get to know more about him.
I have a message for the President......bwahahaha...... okay, not really.... Edwin, oh yes he has a name now, was goofing off as I was starting to get him dressed. His arms kept raising up all on their own, and I was sure he was ready to jump off the ironing board!
But he decided to hold still as I told him I would take away his next birthday if he didn't watch out! He's still getting dressed so stop by tomorrow and see the finished results!
I've been eye balling this gourd for awhile. He has such a bumpy texture that I had to see if I could create his features to match the texture of his skin and it worked! So he is going to be a truly creepy, and fun goblin!
But now I have some choices to make. I have 4 different fabrics, an old, crinkled, black lampshade cover that I peeled off to do something else with, and several different trims. I was also thinking of little bells, beads or whatever to add some extra fun. Aaaah the fun of choosing! Check back later...I will have made some progress and post some photos. By the way, there's still 3 slots for the Craft It Forward opportunity so scroll down and check out the details.
