Portrait of Contempt

she might have ice in her veins

Having more fun with Photoshop. I believe the photo is from Google News.
I saved it months ago because I was fascinated with her expression. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that look.

Wish I could get a job doing this all day long.

One Ringy Dingy

I received a phone call from my daughter-in-law yesterday. Upon answering, her first words to me were: "I'm standing here looking at a Mondrian." Aw, that's mean!

She was at MoMa. I was on my way to run errands.

My reply, "Please do not tell me if you see any Modigliani pieces."

And then I went about my mundane Saturday.

Sites I Visit For Inspiration Of The Artistic Kind

Thank you Mod Girl ( Mod Object At Home) for recognized me with this award for creativity and art today.
It was my intention when I started my blog to use it as a tool to help me become more technologically savvy and as a showcase for my artwork. I really haven't made any art since I began...just a lot of sketches and doodles. Everyone is very kind to say they like seeing them and I have had fun trying new things and meeting new people.

I would like to take this opportunity to recognize some truly artistic people whose blogs I review regularly. Unlike the community of bloggers we are building here, these people don't know me from the next person in the cyber-community. But I am thankful that they continue to put their ideas and artwork out there for people like me to browse, enjoy and draw inspiration from.

But first, inside our smaller cyber-community I would like to recognize Denise from Look Beyond The Picket Fence for her continuing creativity. I love her work with decoupage and her paper creations. Please check out her pretty blog and give her big round of applause.

Here is the list of rules that go along with this award:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award.

4. The award winner and one who has given the prize have to show the link "Arte y Pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. Show these rules.


Now here is a short list of my most inspiring blogs. I hope you will visit them and find some inspiration for yourselves.

A Field Journal which I like for her delicate natural drawings and illustrations.

Skinny Laminx for her clean graphic designs and her love of 60s era coffee cups.

Bobi and Bobi Illustrations because I enjoy studying her illustrations of people. You know how I am drawn to faces....and Willow I am trying to stop drawing myself! hehe

Paris Breakfasts for her yummy watercolors of French confections. Be sure to click on her gallery.

Teesha Moore for her ground breaking originality in the area of visual art journaling.


I have tried to give you a variety of artists to peruse. I hope you enjoy seeing their work. There are more links on my sidebar if you like these.

Still Lost....So Let's Go to the Beach

I watched the season ender for Lost and like the title of this post states-I'm still lost. Locke dead? Desmond found. Hurley crazy. Kate scared or protective? Jack addicted. Yeah, I have no idea what it all means. Or where it all leads.

But that tropical water looked awfully enticing. Let's take a swim! Tonight's post is brought to you by a school of mermaids.

Illustration from The Mermaid and the Major

I belong to a couple of Artist Trading Card groups. ATCs are 2.5 x 3.5 (playing card sized) pieces of original artwork that are traded not sold. The following black and white sketches were scanned into the computer, resized, cut out and colored and used to make ATCs.
Tissue paper was torn and pasted to watercolor paper using gel medium to form the background. The fish and shells are a combination of stickers, postage stamps and cutouts from National Geographic magazines.


This ATC is all digital. The image combines a couple of manipulated pictures into something new. Her fins were drawn and colored using a computer program. When the card was completed I printed it out and pasted it to heavy card stock to make a card to trade.

The next 2 pictures are of a painting I made for a friend. He wanted something that was a spin off of the Absolut Vodka advertisements.


This last mermaid picture is from a weird and delightful book I discovered while thrifting; The Mermaid and the Major ...The True Story of the Invention of the Submarine. The story and illustrations are by Francisco Melendez.

Splish Splash !!

Playing with Type

Brown Owl

'Owl'phabet Soup

Just Puttering Around

I made these little bird cutouts last night. I was inspired by the bird embellishments on her scrapbook layouts. I drew the shapes onto cardboard. Cut them out. Glued on scrapbook paper. Used ink pads to color feet and beaks and to outline the bird. Cut out birds eggs and nests from a sheet of ephemera to use for wings.

I don't know what I will use them for but it was fun. While browsing tonight I noted that lookbeyondthepicketfence and I seem to be on the same wavelength. Check her cute bird pins out.

Just a Couple of Pages

When I was taking watercolor lessons about ten years ago I realized that my life long habit of lazily avoiding hard tasks was getting in the way of what I really desired (sadly, this lesson applies to more than art in my life).

I came to recognize that the things about my finished watercolors that I didn't like had nothing to do with my ability to mix and apply paint effectively. It had little to do with understanding the mechanics of properly using the brushes. The reason my paintings dissatisfied me had nothing to do with my ability to paint and everything to do with the laziness with which I had executed the drawing underneath the painting. If the drawing had the wrong perspective, if the lines were sloppy, if my drawing didn't represent the subject faithfully how could my painting be a faithful representation of my subject matter.

It was at this point that I first realized I had to go back to step one and learn to draw. My technical proficiency is not now, nor probably never will be as accomplished as I would wish for.

All of that said to say, I do try to practice drawing a little every day. I am getting better. I know I'll never be a Leonardo though.

These are a couple of recent pages from my sketch pad.

On this page I am trying to work out some symbolic ideas for the mother earth pictures.


I have been reading Russian Textiles, a book I found at my local library. It has lovely illustrations of old fabric and amazing pictures of central Asian people. I haven't read much of the book because I keep finding things I want to sketch.


I find that I am drawn to faces.

I need the practice but I do think I draw better today than I did 10 years ago.

The Story Continues

Lavinia, the idea for this one was inspired by your birdbath chronicles. You got me to thinking....more mother earth exemplification.

Trying to Spin a Visual Tale

Playing with Paper and Photoshop

Let me begin this post by confessing that I have a paper fetish. If it is made of paper, I love it. Calendars, magazines, artwork, books, cards, photographs, stamps, postcards, ticket stubs, and Chinese fortunes.

With that said, I went to my favorite scrapbook store on my lunch hour today. I haven't been there in over 2 months because I can't just go in and look....I HAVE to buy. The store was filled with beautiful patterned paper. And I bought.

Tonight I scanned a few pieces of paper into my computer along with three pen, ink and colored pencil calendar cards that I drew recently. I began to manipulate the images digitally to produce the following pictures. Some are more successful than others, but the outcome is all part of the process of trial and error

This is where I began. Photoshop allows you to work in layers. Each action can be applied in it's own layer and discarded if it doesn't work. There is so much this program can do. I am familiar with only a tiny fraction of it's capabilities.

This is the same image with the colors inverted. I especially like the colors on the chair in this one. Funny how different the colors and patterns are when you see their opposites (on the color wheel).

Here is one with the 3 different cards altered slightly and then a colored pencil filter was used.


In this next one I began to get excited by the alterations. I like the way the whole image is softened and begins to read as a whole instead of it's individual parts.

This is just taking the last image a step further by removing most of the color.

Along the way, I also began to cut out smaller slices of the picture to form new images.




My favorite pictures are these.




I like the relative simplicity of the last three images. I may go back later and add some text to each. Maybe a favorite quotation or word.....

Jounaling 101

After repeated attempts to "journal," I have decided that I am just not deep in a literary way or even very articulate. I cringe when I consider putting my innermost thoughts on paper. ( I would probably not hesitate to spill the beans to anyone within hearing distance but commitment to paper is so final and could be damning. Thus it scares me.)

BUT, I was inspired by this book to begin a daily journal of some sort anyway. Also the fact that I am trapped for 8-9 hours daily in a non-creative atmosphere helped to convince me that any creative act is better than none.

This page from Linda Woods book gave me the idea for my little journal. You can find her art in her Etsy shop. (click on the pictures if you want to see them larger)

In years past I tried making this little daily calendar into something inspirational by printing out quotations and taping them to each page. In that way I could be "surprised" by each thought of the day. I enjoyed the quotes, but it required a lot of work done ahead of time. (Yes, I know they sell this sort of thing already done. Let's just say I am cheap.)

The tools of my trade are these; any pen or highlighter already at work (nothing brought from home for this purpose), any trade magazine or flyer that is mailed to us at work, any magazine or paper product that someone at work may give me.

I try to journal about some aspect of my day. Now, I don't want you to get the idea that I am wasting company time on this little whimsy of mine. I don't take breaks, I don't go outside to smoke, I put in my time. I usually only spend 3 to 5 minutes a day for each entry. I may take the calendar out of my drawer and jot down a thought and pop it right back into it's hiding place once or twice. I try to write something everyday but some days we are just too busy.

I was longing for sunlight and spring on this particular day. I was feeling quite dull. Can you tell?

And you can see how my mood was lifted by this sunny day.

Ooops, I'm back to wanting out! I was a SAHM for 26 years. I took care of my kids, I worked with the PTA, I went to Bible studies, I had a craft business. It has been the most difficult thing for me to get used to being stuck in just one place day after day. Some days I think I will go stir crazy if I can't do something new. This was one of those days obviously.

Refreshed by a nap in the car on my lunch hour. I love my lunch hour! : )


I got a new car over the weekend!

It was a VERY frustrating day!


Did I mention that I live for Fridays?


My Blog's birthday!

My list of woes.


The month end is always really busy. Not much time for fun. Just work!

Looks like some things will be changing around the office. It's all good!

Bad weather Friday!

And today's entry......


At the end of the year I'll make some kind of cover and use rings to keep this little work journal together. I hope it will amuse me to look back on 2008 and remember each day.

The Most Precious Gift

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. -Thich Nhat Hanh

Over at In The Lap of Loveliness you will find the story of this year's outing to their local ( sort of ) wildflower farm complete with pictures of my lovely granddaughters. So in that vein, I thought I would show you a picture of last year's outing which I was blessed to be a part of.

Those fields of flowers are poppies.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. -Joseph Addison

The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms, Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him. -Auguste Rodin

These two images were created digitally using MetaCreations Art Dabbler.

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.

-Henry Ward Beecher

A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers. -Chinese Proverb

How does springtime, nature and God's good earth inspire you? What aspect of nature makes you smile the most?