I've been designing a sweet short film. Our shoot is currently on hold, but I have created some new art work for the set, a restaurant.  One group is a series of graphic arts posters that subtly reference parts of the dialogue. They are based on either public domain photos, my own images, or my husband's. This last one is an adaptation of the poster design I have in my Etsy shop. Should I make the rest available as print-on-demand images? I've printed these quite small (11 x 14 I think) to fit in some small spaces between the windows, assuming we don't change location. Meanwhile they might also look nice grouped if we end up somewhere else.  

 Here are a bunch of *new* Either Way Mermaid Dolls on my Etsy , to help celebrate the progress of my upcoming book - MERMAID SUMMER. The fabrics are a mix of repurposed cotton shirts, quilting cottons, and vintage Indian cottons from my mother-in-law's collection. Their hair is made from felt. 

Print on demand art - click on each for a link to buy, in a range of sizes.   

 "Spinning Petals" is the name of the art installation piece I created for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Backcountry Casitas program - a dispersed collection of interactive environments to engage child visitors the Garden and encourage imaginative play. Here's a video about it.  My piece is a collection of six petal or leaf shaped hemp fabric sculptures over welded steel frames that spin when pushed or in the wind. The surface treatments are a virtual sampler of textile art mark making from painting, stamping, stencils, dye, applique, and embroidery.  My goal was to create a vividly colorful space that would attract the viewers interest from a distance while highlighting the textures and images of nature reflecting the local flora. The patterns are either from oversized flower petals or life sized bay leaves, while one petal showcases natural dyes including avocado, and transfer images from flowers including nasturtium and milkweed.  I chose hemp as a natural plan...

 I'm really thrilled with the results of this scenic design for the First Year AOS student production, especially the creativity and leadership of my student design collaborator, Jonathan Millan. He stepped up to lead the construction team and all those kids works super hard to build and realize a set design  that worked very well. I'm grateful and really proud of the whole class. The design was stylized realism, making good use of the inherent characteristics of the theater space itself and building a nice sense of space. I also got to do some nice original art for the set.  Here are the three acrylic and mixed media on canvas works in a sketchy style. I have now had the pleasure of teaching theater production to two cohorts of fine young actors. I hope I get to come back next April and continue helping them understand the thought process and design thinking behind costumes, sets, lighting, sound, props, and all that goes into getting a show on the stage. It has been 20 ...

 I'm trying out Etsy again. I've put three of my most beautiful pieces on to Etsy.  If you sign up for my email list, not only will you receive regular FREE downloadable art from me, but also a coupon for free shipping on these wonderful dolls. Already on the list but still want the code? Check the most recent email. Here's where to sign up.   Have a good day!

 Have joined a new challenge - because I have not been at all able to keep up with my "month of" tasks. Getting guided for a week - that will be fun. Also I am determined to bring more art into my life.  Thanks to the artists at Pixabay.com for making images available for download and use. Worth browsing there. 

Decorated paper roll containers with wire handles and wrapped candies. After a month of creating embellished paper clips as my project of the month, I now have a large selection of clips to use. I'm happy to send one to anyone who asks. This month the planned topic is Party Favor Ideas. Now this topic was originally set for earlier in the year. I pushed it forward when the coronavirus made parties seem unlikely. Evidently I was being too optimistic even then. However, in the spirit of looking forward to a time when gathering will not be a life threatening proposition, I have decided to collect, collate, and possibly construct some party favor ideas and place them on a Pinterest board made for the purpose. Here's the truth. There are a LOT of very creative party favor ideas out there already. They kinda fall into categories: 1. Edible favors : Re-packaged candy or snacks in soft bags of some kind, often with a themed tag, or in a decorated tin, b...

Peaceful Civil Rights Protesters in Los Angeles, June 2020 Original photo in Los Angeles Times. Let's face it. It is hard to focus on the trivial right now. Like many people, my creative energy was already sapped from the strangely timeless world of pandemic lock down. It was weird and twitchy to have my husband and daughter at home all the time, just when I had become accustomed to an empty house. But I have reoriented, and now I'm happy they are here and safe. My focus was on how to generate income to make up for the loss of it, while my husband is furloughed. I'm a little old white lady. Now suddenly I am living in a nation where the pain that was a dull ache that I could ignore most of the time because of my privilege, has turned into a conflagration of fury and outrage.  At this minute, my artworks don't seem needed in comparison to my ability to write letters to my representatives, or local officials. My energy is better spent helping people find work ,...

Some scrapbook embellishments - stamped, die cut, fussy cut, pins and colored with pencils February and March went very well with the "Month of..." art and creativity. Unfortunately, April not so much. I do have a brief video on its way about scrapbook embellishments, and with today May 3, being National Scrapbooking Day, it's probably a good day to get that done. However, May is going to be a Month of Printables. It wasn't going to be, but I wanted to make it something that was feasible and easy to do often. Since I will be at my computer doing work most of the time, then doing something that will work on my computer is helpful. It's just the month of ATCs - I made up a tray of materials and it was easy and fun to make ATC's. I made so many that I even had to order more card holder sheets for my album. So this month will focusing on choosing sayings that I like, and hopefully using lots of my own graphics and images for the backgrounds.

I've been putting the #aMonthofATCs up on my Facebook page . Here are some images of the recent cards.