Category Archives: Color

April Beaded Journal Page

My April Beaded Journal Page is complete. It is entitled “Home is where my Heart Grows”, representing the move to my new home at the end of April. As I have unpacked and settled in to my new home, my heart grows in layers of joy and love and experiences. My heart is sprouting some roots and from those roots, my garden is starting to bloom. The sun and moon watch over all, marking the passage of my journey.

There are some who move often and are able to do so with ease. I am not one of those people. After moving 8 times (5 states) as a child and teenager, loss became a part of my life as I connected and let go many times. So, there are issues there. As an adult, I did settle down and live 18 years in one house where I had my family and raised my kids. A divorce 4 years ago brought about a period of traumatic changes and another move for me and a lot of those issues returned. So, as I beaded this page, I concentrated on all the wonderful things I was gaining and welcoming into my life with this new move – living with someone I love, creating space for a garden and studio, bringing more creativity and color into my life, a space to welcome family and friends for tea and conversation. I read somewhere that the challenging times and losses in your life carve out crevices in your heart that leave plenty of room to be filled with love and positive joyful things. I had contemplated on whether I wanted to fill in the space in the middle of the heart in my piece. I decided to leave it open to symbolize my own crevice that is now welcoming and filling up with all of the joyful moments of my life.

Bracelets and April BJP

I’m so excited to announce that my bracelets have been posted to my website! You may view them here.

I’ve been diligently working on my April journal page. It represents my moving and settling in to my new home journey. As the garden has been blooming in bright colors, I decided to use a vibrant color palette to reflect that and my blooming happiness. I’m hoping to finish it this week.

My camera renders oranges and reds so intensely that I had to really tone down this photo quite a bit in Photoshop. It still appears like the background color is overtaking the colors of my beadwork. I don’t know how I feel about the empty part in the middle of my heart. I’m thinking of filling it up with something, possibly pearls. I may leave it empty though to represent an open heart which I aspire to have. What do you think?

I’m starting to meditate about my May page. I want it to represent a link to my very first page from last year called “The Garden in my Heart”. Now that I have a physical garden once again, there will be a connection with that. I’m still thinking about it…

Mixed Media Demo

At our last guild meeting, my kindred art spirit and dear friend Judy, showed us how she creates her beautiful mixed media art pieces using various objects to create texture in pastes and gels. After creating that texture on the canvas and letting the paste/gel dry, she then showed us how to stamp and paint over the textured areas for depth of color. A lot of the supplies she used were made by Golden but you can also achieve texture on your surface as she did with regular household paste found at your local home improvement store. You can see the full demo here.

After watching Judy’s demo, several of our members were talking excitedly about incorporating small polymer clay pieces and canework into a piece like this. Judy makes stamped, textured and glazed polymer clay buttons and faces to incorporate into her art. You can see a face at the top of her canvas. To see more of Judy’s work, visit her website.

Oh, the possibilities!

The Birth of a Blog

Today a kindred art spirit and friend of mine, Dora, has written her very first post on her brand new blog, Dora’s Explorations. Dora is a polymer clay artist extraordinaire and a fellow guild member in the Rhode Island Polymer Clay Guild. Her passion is canework and the photo above illustrates her fabulous talent. She is also our demo coordinator and always brings the most delicious coffee and on special occasion her decadent to-die-for Palm Beach brownies. If you get a chance, please do pay her a visit.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Dora!