An Artful Life

Living an artful life is something I've enjoyed ever since I can remember.  My love for art was nurtured by my parents who exposed me to museums, various types of fine art classes, art materials and books throughout my upbringing.  Therefore, I've enjoyed sharing my artful life with family, friends, and now through the joys of blogging.

The first piece I'm sharing today is a birthday card I made for my oldest daughter.  I was inspired by the paper bag fold tutorial by my friend Karen Letchworth, but added my own twists.  First of all, I folded the bottom portion of the Kraft paper bag only 3/4 up, cut 2 cardstock panels, glued them in place, and sewed the sides to form the 2 pockets.  I decorated the front panel with a gold foil doily, various flowers, various beads, hand cut banners, calligraphy, a birthday sticker, stamp pad distressing, liquid pearls, and a ribbon, as well as a heart and crown cut with Tim Holtz dies.  As a way for my family to write personal notes, I made 3 round tabbed cards to insert in the front pocket by using punches, stamps and a mini stapler.  I also included some chocolates in the back pocket.  Of course, I had to coordinate the presents' wrapping by using Kraft paper, lavender ribbons, and other girly accents (See top right section of the photographic montage).  I am submitting this piece to Simon Says Stamp and Show - Kraft Challenge, Blog dos Desafios #17 - Banners, and Manon Visser's Paper Saturdays.

I shared this second piece with my Design Team comrades at Tag Tuesday - Letter X.  My inspiration came from "Chi," the Greek name for the letter "X" and the initial used for the name of Christ, whom they call Xpiotós.  You may recall that last week I used the Tim Holtz cabinet dies and the stripes embossing folder to make the scrap plastic frame for my Letter W Tag.  Being a thrifty and environmentally conscious artist, I layed the inner cut over a hand painted church bulletin to make this week's tag foundation.  I like the church stained glass window effect it gave the tag.  I drew, watercolored, and fuzzy cut the small figure of Christ.   I attached Him along with a small label and three Martha Stewart star gems to the tag.  As a finishing touch, I tied some ribbons and rickrack as toppers.  I am also submitting this piece to Sarah Evan's Inspire Success, Crazy Amigo Challenge: Men's Card, Diana Evan's 10 Minute Warm Up, and Marcia Beckett's Artist's In Blogland.

The next piece I'm sharing with you today, is an art journal drawing inspired by the actress, humanitarian and queen of style, Audrey Hepburn.  Although it's OK, it does not resemble Audrey Hepburn and I had a series of frustrating moments when working on it.  I started with a quick pencil sketch which truly resembled her.  However, I used a set of .05 to .5 Copic inking pens to complete the drawing.  Although I like the way they work, the line work was extremely fine for the look I wanted to achieve.  Therefore, I decided to use a Pentel color brush to go over the lines.  Well, the ink lines started bleeding and ruined the artwork on the page behind.  I did some corrections to my drawing, but the resemblance was lost.  (I still don't know what to do to fix the artwork on the page behind.)  Anyway, I am submitting this piece to Inspiration Avenue - Audrey Hepburn, Jennifer McLean's Artist's Playroom #62 - What Makes You Angry, and Julia Dunnit's What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday #211.

The icon done in pastels of Father Abraham, who is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, is a piece I'm submitting to Seth Apter's Buried Treasure.  Father Abraham's story is truly remarkable, because it perfectly illustrates the importance of faith in God's Word and of God's grace on humanity's sinful nature.  The posts where I featured him didn't get much visibility because I didn't have many followers at the time and was not linking to very many blogs either.  I only had around half a dozen comments about him over a series of 3 postings about him.  LOL!  I posted this photograph of the finished piece in my post regarding my reflections on November 13, 2011, but you can see a photograph of its conception in the October 10, 2011 post and a photograph of its showing in my November 27, 2011 post.  I am also submitting this piece to Word Art Wednesday #85 and Eva and Kristin's Paint Party Friday Week 15-Year 3.

The 3 photographs above are of other various ways in which I create an artful life for myself.  The mushrooms came up in my backyard after a rainy day.  In order to enhance their beauty, I edited the photograph on Pixelmator by sharpening the image, adding a vintage filter, saturating the warm colors, and blurring the edges.  The dinner plate is of a simple dinner of quesadillas, guacachile, and fresh nopalitos salad that I made for my family.  I think color and presentation make dinners much more appetizing.  Last, but not least, I have a photographic montage of a center piece I did for the Father's Day luncheon at my church.  I took cuts from flowering bushes and arranged them in an aluminum pail.  Then, I incorporated them into a cascade of tablecloths, burlap, a rabbit skin, antlers, mason jars, tea lights, and a ram skull.  (The Sunday School's dove was a serendipity touch - LOL!)  Not only did it look manly and artsy, but it reminded me of the atonement altars mentioned in the Bible.  I am submitting the photograph of the mushrooms to Take a Word Challenge - Botanical, Maria's Orange You Glad It's Friday #43, and Lorik's Mandarin Orange Monday #47; the photograph of the dinner plate to 52 Photos Project: Gallery 9 {Chopped}, Jen Price's In the Studio, and Ramona's Inspire Me Monday - Week 77; and the photographic montage of the luncheon to The Order of the Opus Gluei: Challenge #159 Give Me Wings.

I hope you enjoyed this week's tour of my artful life.  I want to thank all my followers, as well as all of you who left comments regarding my post last week.  Blessings!