Quirky Dame's Art Blog: christmas

Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts

Holiday Happenings at Quirky Dame Designs!

I am back from a much-needed, very restful vacation and am getting back into the swing of things creatively. I’ve added a few new items to my shop. Above is the Fantasy Flower pin and there are two more featuring cats. I also have some hand painted pendants in the works. I’ve been having fun playing around with the smaller scale pieces. I love unique, playful jewelry and creating it? So much fun!

While I was away, I was gathering inspiration. I spent two weeks soaking up the sights in Hawaii and have come away with many wonderful photos to use as references and a couple of sketches. I attended two one-hour demonstrations featuring Hawaiian musicians and hula dancers. I am fascinated by the hula and plan on studying it more in-depth. In the meantime, I worked on a sketch of a hula dancer and hope to turn it into a painting soon. I’m also working on a whimsical 8×6 oval painting of a mermaid.

But first, I must paint my Christmas present for my best friend. Each year, we create something for each other instead of just buying something from the store. I love having the chance to dream up and create something special with her in mind. That’s also one of the things that I love about custom orders. Being able to tailor something to another person’s taste and vision is quite a challenge and it’s so rewarding when you have managed to capture what they wanted and even more in a piece.

Okay, I had to share the picture of this crazy cat! It is another one of the hand painted pins. He was a fun one to work on! If you are looking for some colorful, quirky items as gifts for Christmas, I do have a few special deals at Quirky Dame Designs.

First, all prints, cards, hand painted magnets and pins ship USPS first class for free! If you need quicker shipping, please contact me. I will deduct what the first class postage would have been from the total of the faster shipping cost.

Also, all mini paintings with easels, such as the one to the left, are 20% off! I do accept custom orders, so if you see anything you like, but would prefer different colors, etc., please contact me about having something special made to your specifications.

Be back again soon with more news from Quirky Dame Designs!

Mermaid Update

After nearly falling asleep on the couch after work today, I roused myself up and headed down to the studio area. I decided to work on the Christmas project first and actually did more on that than I intended. Once I get going, I just want to keep going at it. Very hard to make myself put it down and walk away. But I finally did.

I’ve been feeling all day like I wanted to tackle the mermaid painting again. Taking advantage of that mood, I moved on to the mermaid. I mixed up the grays for the rock and dug in. I did have a sketch that I was working off of, but I also just played around with it a bit. It’s been months since I painted with oils, so I’m trying to get used to working with them again and I’m letting myself experiment. However, I’m really happy with how the mermaid is coming along, so I don’t want to mess things by playing around too much. LOL! I had a bad moment where I messed up the tail a bit, but I think that I rescued it fairly well.

I still have more work to do on the rock, then I also have to add in highlights and the foamy water around the rocks. And I have to fix a few areas of the water. I’m shooting for finishing it by next week. I want to take it to my class to have Linda take a look at it and see if she has any feedback before I declare it complete.
All right, time to get away from any and all things digital so I can settle down before hitting the sack. Happy dreams everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well, in my studio anyway! I’ve begun work on some new items just for Christmas! The bright reds and greens are quite festive and I’m looking forward to seeing it all come together. Though it’s quite strange to be doing Christmas in the middle of summer.

I’ve also been quite busy working on several other pieces. Not done with the mermaid yet, but I want to finish her by the end of this weekend. I also have a new owl that I’ve started. Want a sneak peek? Here ya go!

Next week is going to be crazy! I’m taking a five day intensive class. It’ll be every night next week from 6:30 to 9:00 pm. The class is taught by a local artist, Linda Infante Lyons and it will be focused on pet portraits. I’m very excited about this one and having taken several other classes by her, I know it’ll be a good one. I’ll be sure to post some pictures here.

Collaged Sketchbook

Just wanted to post a picture of my new sketchbook. I've decided to collage both covers on it and finished the first one today.

For this sketchbook, I wanted one cover to be full of inspiring words and phrases. The other cover will most likely have a Hawaiian theme, as this is the sketchbook that I will be using for my trip to Hawaii in December. :-)

I had fun with this. And since we get so many magazines from my sister, who works for a magazine and book stocking warehouse, I have a huge stash of magazines to comb for material. I'm going to continue to design my own sketchbook covers. It means a lot to me to be able to personalize my sketchbooks.

I've also been working hard on a new sketch, but since this is for my sis for Christmas, I'm not able to post any pictures. ACK! I especially hate not showing it to her, I'm so used to showing her everything I do. But so far, I'm happy with how it's turning out. And I can hardly wait until we celebrate Christmas in January. We've decided that instead of buying presents this year, we're each going to make each other a piece of art. How awesome is that??? :-) So I'll finally be able to post the picture of the completed mixed media painting here and on flickr after the holidays.

I can hardly wait!