Fairy Tales

You know how much I adore fairy tales. So when I was included in this fairy tale themed collection on artfire, I was just thrilled! I wanted to share this whimsical collection with you. I think that LuaTuomi did a wonderful job! My favorites? Coltpixy's Golden Apple and krougeau's In The Garden Of Live Flowers. So much fun! Which ones are your favorites?

Fairy Tales

Curated By: LuaTuomi

ArtFire.com

Handmade Gifts

Life in a Tree with Patrick Dougherty

I have just stumbled across someone that I KNOW you are going to love. An amazing sculptor by the name of Patrick Dougherty who has taken his love of nature and carpentry skills to a whole new level. He creates extraordinary sculptures and houses out of sticks and has created over 200 pieces all over the world. They are just AMAZING! I am completely in awe of them and have already spent many hours envisioning myself as a woodland nymph or fairy living in one of these amazing dwellings. It's even more fun to imagine what kind of furniture they would have in them! His work fits perfectly with all of the fairy paintings I have been doing lately.

I hope that you will take the time to do the same. Enjoy some time with your imagination. :)

If you'd like to watch him work on one of these pieces, check out this nifty video!




For more information about Patrick Dougherty, check out his website.

Thanks for looking! Have an inspiring day!

Daily Inspiration

Some inspirational words for you. Read them, contemplate them and then make them a reality!

RIP Etsy Chat

Tomorrow at 5pm EDT, Etsy will be permanently closing their chat rooms. This has caused me and many others, a great deal of sadness. I have gotten to know so many wonderful people through the etsy chat rooms! We have become close friends and have been there for each other to give support and advice whenever needed. It is definitely a sad day for many of us, both sellers and buyers. It was a way for buyers to get to know their favorite artists and crafters on a more personal level and it was a way for sellers to find like-minded people to share their artistic passions with. I'm sure that etsy has it's reasons for making this change, but I wonder if their reasons are worth the cost that they've incurred. Many sellers will be leaving and taking their shops to zibbet.com. It's hard to call yourself an artistic or handmade community if you are getting rid of the community aspect of it. Etsy will now be nothing more than a shop. Random shops all selling things side by side without any communication occurring between them. New shop owners won't have the luxury of getting to know fellow sellers. Nor will they be able to turn to fellow sellers for advice when facing obstacles. I don't envy them one bit!



In memory of the "good 'ol days", here are some pieces from shops owned by people who I have grown to know and love through etsy chat.

                                                                        Spiral Stew

                                                                          Never Too Old

                                                                        Annabel's Aprons

                                                                        My Cariads

                                                                   Petit Bijou Art Shop

                                                                    A Bunch of Scrap

There are many many more that I have had the great pleasure of getting to know over the course of my three years with etsy and I am grateful for each and every one of them!

Thank you for the memories etsy. Goodnight!

Painting a Butterfly

For the past week, I've been hard at work painting a portrait of a butterfly fairy. She loves to lay down and let the butterflies fly about her and land in her long, beautiful hair. They have such wonderful stories to tell!

I have always loved butterflies. They seem to live two lives. One as a caterpillar and one as a beautiful, free and majestic butterfly. I always associate them with rebirth, much like a phoenix.

Each of the five butterfly families (papilionidae, pieridae, nymphalidae, lycaenidae and riodindae) have been represented in this piece. There is still quite a bit of work to do on this painting before it will be complete, but I wanted to share what I have done so far. I also wanted to share my latest video installment on youtube, "Painting a Butterfly". I still have some work to do on my video skills, but I'm not too terribly disappointed with this one. :)



Enjoy and have a wonderful day!!!

Broken Hearts and Growing Pains

I recently had to say goodbye to a friend of mine who betrayed my trust. We had been friends for almost 2 yrs.  I’ve been examining my reaction to this separation and trying to discern which part of this experience is causing me the most pain. Obviously the loss of a friend and the overall disappointment is bitter, but I believe that the biggest contributor to the pain is the fact that I’ve had to reconcile the dream reality with the actual reality. In our minds we create a version of the person we are friends with. They are kind, honest, trustworthy, etc. They have faults, but we take the bad with the good. We would gladly come to their defense if they were ever accused of something that went against the person we KNOW them to be. 

Occasionally, there comes a time when we realize that the reality and the dream have little in common. I think that it’s this realization and the reconciling of the two worlds that causes the most pain. Sort of like growing pains as you grow an extra inch. Our heart expands or contracts, as does our vision of the world and it’s inhabitants. Also, much like growing pains, there will come a point where things are a bit awkward as we grow accustomed to this change within ourselves. We will find ourselves in an odd gangly stage,but hopefully as we continue to grow, we'll emerge even stronger and more beautiful than before. The best we can do is to try to not allow our hearts to be hardened by these growing pains and to continue to work towards trusting others and loving with our complete hearts. Even if we continue to be hurt by those we love….

As Alfred Lord Tennyson said “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

 

Stay lovely and have a wonderful day!

Trouble with YouTube

Ok so my last post told everyone to stay around for Part II of Making Embossed Polymer Earrings. The only problem is that Part II took over 24 hours for youtube to process! I was beginning to worry that my video was lost in some internet/digital void!


Anyway, I thought that I would let you know that Part II is FINALLY up. Enjoy my general silliness. :)

Here is part I for anyone who missed that



And here is part II.



I am looking forward to sharing some of my current paintings with you, so I"ll see you soon! :)

New YouTubeVideo and Earrings for Lisa

I recently had a fantabulous lady, by the name of Lisa, purchase my Rainbow Celtic Iona Cross Pendant. She also really loved my Something Blue Earrings but wanted them in colors that would match her new cross. I love doing custom orders and was super excited to get this one so I took the opportunity to do something different while I created her earrings. I took some video of myself while I worked!  It was an interesting experience to say the least. My camera doesn't have a good auto focus in video mode so a lot of it is sort of out of focus. (something that I didn't realize until AFTER I had spent all day working on it!) It was also really weird talking to myself. Hahaha! I'm not sure how reality tv people do it!

If you have some time to watch my video, be sure check out part II. It's my favorite one because it contains some funny bits and bloopers at the very end. They crack me up!

Since it was a bit difficult to see my pieces in the video, here are some photos of two pairs of my finished earrings, along with the cross that I was matching them to.

Finished Painting- Fairy Kisses

Well after weeks of working on and off, I have finally finished my mother/ daughter painting entitled Fairy Kisses. You first saw initial sketches and the early stages of this painting on my blog post Painting in Progress. It's come a long way since then!

A mother gives her daughter a kiss amongst sweet smelling lavender. I chose lavender because I have been itching to paint it again ever since my trip to England about 4 yrs ago. The color of lavender by itself is almost ordinary, but when you have a field of them the color simply takes your breath away.

                           " Fairy Kisses"  16 x 20 mixed media on wood

                                Detail

Fine quality art prints are already available at Society6 .

 I've already begun sketches for my next projects and am looking forward to sharing those with you next!
Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope to see you soon!

Christmas in July Sale!

I have been hard and work creating artwork the past few days so I should be posting images of finished pieces very soon. In the meantime, I wanted to let my readers know that www.artfire.com is having a Christmas in July sale. Quite a few shops are participating in this event, including yours truly. I didn't want etsy shoppers to feel left out, however, so everything in my etsy shops are also on sale!

Use coupon code SUMMERFUN in any of my online shops and save 10% off of your entire order! This is a great way to support handmade while saving some money!

      Geometric Drape Necklace in my Jewels of Enchantment shop

  "Sisters" watercolor ACEO found in my Artfire shop

Serenity Brooch soon to be listed in Phoenix Art Studio on Etsy


All of the links you need are right here:

To see all participating artfire shops, click here 
For my personal artfire shop, click here 
To shop for fantasy based jewelry and art,  click here
For bold, enchanting jewelry, click here

Hope that everyone finds the perfect gifts this year! Stay tuned for my latest painting as well as sketches and ideas for my upcoming pieces.

Have a fantastic day! ♥

New Facebook Page!

As my art business grows I have had to make changes to better accommodate it. I do most of my artwork under my name, rather than Phoenix Art Studio, so I have decided to switch to a new facebook page. Since I have shops under names other than Phoenix Art Studio, I'm hoping that this will help to avoid confusion in the future. Once you "like" my facebook page you'll learn about my process, new and upcoming projects, contests, etc as well as have fun because I love posting fun and silly things. (although don't be surprised if you see an article posted about some new scientific theory or discovery. Science was always one of my favorite subjects in school)  I hope that everyone will take a minute to check it out. If you love to laugh and love art, then you are sure to enjoy my page. It is always wonderful to meet like-minded people and I have been truly blessed so far to be able to do just that!

I have some exciting blog posts planned so I hope that you'll follow my blog or keep checking back so that you can read them. I have an ode to Monet ( he's worth sonnets, and hymns and odes and even more!), a summer sale,some new projects and sketches, a new online shop and an introduction to an absolutely AMAZING fantasy jewelry artist. Her work just astounds me with it's awesomeness, but I'm not telling you who it is. It's a surprise!!

Hope to see you back here soon and that you have a wonderful day!!

A Trip to the Louvre

I just wanted to thank everyone for the kind comments regarding my last blog post about my trip to France. I'm so glad that everyone enjoyed my photos!

I didn't really cover my trip to the Louvre in that post because the Louvre definitely deserves a post of it's own. That place is mind boggling with the sheer size of the building and it's quantity of art! It contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 652,000 sq ft! It also gets approximately 15,000 visitors a day! I only spent a day there and felt like my head would explode if I took in one more piece of artwork.

I would like to share with you some of my personal favorites that I saw while there.

A Detail of Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss by Antonio Canova - one of my favorite Neo-classical sculptures.

   Young Christian Martyr by Paul Delaroche I had never seen this painting before but feel instantly in love with the dramatic composition and lighting. SO beautifully executed.

                           Diana and Actaeon by Francesco Albani
This piece is beautifully executed like most Baroque or Rococo paintings, but I'll tell you WHY I loved it so much. This piece tells the story of the hunter Diana's bath being disturbed when the mortal man, Actaeon,  accidentally stumbles into the scene. She ends up turning him into a deer who is then killed by his friends when they fail to recognize him. Typical tragic story. Diana stands in the center pointing in an accusatory fashion towards the unfortunate Actaeon while her nymphs try vainly to shield her nakedness. Here is the part that I love. Check out the face of the young nymph to the bottom left of Diana's figure. ( Diana is actually resting her foot upon the nymph's thigh) This nymph is shielding herself like the others, but actually has a slight smile on her face. Does she find the whole situation amusing? Is she slightly enamored with the young man? There is a shy, but definitely intriguing look upon this nymphs face and it's HER face that made this painting one of my favorites. I could spend hours just looking upon the story and trying to determine what exactly she might be thinking or feeling.

                  A detail from The Slumber of Titania by Richard Dadd  I've always loved Midsummer Night's Dream and have myself done several pieces depicting Titania asleep. I hadn't even realized that this piece was at the Louvre so I was delighted and surprised when I stumbled across it. The thing that is so unbelievable about this piece is that it is SO SMALL! All of this amazing detail is done in a 25 x 30 inch painting!

Here are a few more that I really love, but can't give credit to because I forgot to write down the title and artist's name. (the Louvre's database is a bit difficult to navigate if all you have are descriptions) If any of you recognize the painting, or artist, PLEASE share it with me so that I can add it under the pieces! Much obliged... :)

             This sculpture depicts Joan of Arc as she hears the voice of God. I love that the artist placed her in a standard dress, but has the foot peeking out from under her dress in armor. It's a lovely sculpture that beautifully tells a story.

 This is a detail from a portrait of a young girl. ( The photo I took of the full piece had some light glare from the window behind me ) The soft light and way in which this piece was painted just stole my heart immediately. I absolutely love it!

     This sculpture just looks so real to me! I love his gnarled, lined face and hands. The amazing folds in his cloak!  He's just beautiful!


A few other shots of the Louvre itself.

                               Being inside the glass pyramids are super cool!

                      The architecture inside the museum is stunning!

                                The ceilings are breathtaking!

 If you would like to take your own tour of the Louvre, you can take a 3-D tour by going to their website. 
I hope that you enjoyed this brief trip to the Louvre!

Thanks for checking out my blog and have a wonderful weekend!