Rafer

.  This is my grandbaby Rafer.  He was born with an extremely rare brain disorder called schizencephaly.  His family and doctors have been fighting for almost two years for him to be able to get this surgery he needs, to try and stop the seizures.  Becaues of the disorder he is blind and the seizures cause his brain to reset every time he has one, so it's hard for him to learn new things.  The insurance company has turned down the claim for the surgery, so we've been trying really hard to raise money so he can get the surgery he needs.  The day before the benefit myself and my daughter put on for him, his mom got a phone call from the military. (My son - Rafe's Daddy, was in serving in Afghanistan) The call was to let her know they had found a military doctor who has agreed to do the surgery without charge.  It's been something we've wanted so desperately for him for so long, it's still hard to believe it's actually going to happen!  The money we raised will be used for his care after the surgery, since the insurance won't pay.  Rafe's surgery is slated for November 17.  I'm beyond excited for him and for his parents, who fight for him and work hard to make his life as normal as possible, given all his difficulties. The military has actually brought Rafe's Daddy home from Afghanistan so he can be there for the surgery, so he's safe and sound at home with his family finally.  I love you Rafer and BJ and Laura...You are amazing parents to this beautiful little boy...i love you both so much!

Ruby Red Lips

Ruby Red Lips

12 X 12

Acrylic Paint on Canvas Board

She was a lot of fun to create!

Inspired by my daughters who both have long beautiful hair and very colorful personalities!

$75

if you are interested in purchasing a piece of my art or are interested in commissioning me to do a piece just for you, email me! youvegotmel0821@yahoo.com

Strong

Pencil/graphite drawing

Free To Be Me

This was a very fun piece to create! More from my contemporary style. I enjoyed the color composition on this one and the name of the piece is Free To Be Me ... an eagle with such brilliant colors has his own style and flair! We're lucky to live in a country where we are free to be different!

Free To Be Me

13 X 36

In plain black wood frame

$100

HARSH

This is a piece that is near and dear to my heart.  It was inspired by my sister Dana, who has been fighting Breast Cancer for the past 8 months.  I made hundreds of tiny pink breast cancer ribbons to construct the skirt, using tiny staples to hold the ribbons together. The staples are to sympbolize the fact that no matter how feminine a woman is she must become as tough as she's ever been to enure the harsh treatments after diagnosis. 
this piece won the People's Choice Award at the International Butterfly Festival this weekend! It was the first time showing my work in a public forum so I was pretty pumped to win this award!

Majestic

I've been venturing into the contemporary style lately and this guy is part of that foray. I love using brilliant colors with bright backgrounds and fun shapes!  I showed several of my pieces at the Butterfly Festival in Paris this weekend and he didn't sell, so I have a special price on him now! He can be yours !

16 X 20 stretched canvas

Acrylic Paint

$60 + $10 shipping

If you're interested in purchasing one of my pieces, email me at youvegotmel0821@yahoo.com

For the Love of Rafe

Hello bloggers,  yesterday was a hard day for me for two reasons...
1. my son left the safety of our country to fight for our freedoms in Afghanistan (please pray for his safe return) and 2. I found out that the insurance company denied a claim a brain surgery that my grandbaby Rafe needs to stop the seizures he has every day several times a day.  He was born with a rare brain disorder called schizencephaly. Not only does he have seizures every day, he is legally blind and has other developmental issues.
Rafe is a sweet, loving, good natured little boy despite all he's been through and all he goes through every single day with this disorder. He touches everyone he meets in a way only a special child can do.  I love him so much and it is hard to see him suffer.
I am putting together a benefit to raise funds for the surgery he needs.  It's the doctors last resort in an effort to stop the seizures...they've tried everything else! 
Please go to the Facebook page I created for Rafe and click like to stay abreast of the progress of our fund raising efforts. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/For-the-Love-of-Rafe/223727720987979
I will be adding a Donate for Rafe button to this blog for those who want to donate to this worthy cause.
one thing is for sure: 

NO LOUSY INSURANCE COMPANY IS BIGGER THAN A MOM AND GRANDMOTHER'S LOVE! WE WILL MAKE THIS HAPPEN FOR RAFE!

Aunt Pag Sitting on a 1950's Plytmouth

Colored Pencil rendering of my aunt in the 1950's, drawn from a photo I love!

Self Portrait

Still working on my portfolio and needed a self portrait, so here it is, rendered in graphite...
Thanks for visiting my blog!

Gregory

This is a pic of my grandson Gregory I rendered from graphite and colored pencil...I wish I could watch a movie with him right now!

Rafe Graphite and Colored Artists Pencil Drawing

This is a portrait drawing of my grandbaby Rafe on his 2nd Birthday...I miss him and his brother and sister so much!

Pink Chair

My obsession with the 1920's era continues! My wonderful friend Alda (Flying Unicorn) commissioned me to do a few pieces for her. This is the one I finished last night, completing her set of 3 1920's ladies! She is 11 X 14, done in colored Artist Pencils and I can do artist quality prints in a limited number if anyone is interested in owning one of your own!

1920s Lady in Black

I'm working on a portfolio of my art work and making a series of pieces from the 1920s ... (Like I said, I've become obsessed! lol)  here's my latelst drawing in colored pencil. Thanks for visiting my blog!

1920's Lady in Green

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you are feeling better today that I am...my allergies are making me miserable! Blah!  I didn't get a lot of sleep last night either (silly coughing), but part of the reason was that I stayed up until 3 a.m. working on a new drawing and talking to my daugther on the phone...I love those convos...she's such a joy to me...all three of my kids are amazing.  ANYway, here's the new drawing...I'm not exactly happy with it, but here it is anyway...

1920's Lady in Blue

I have fallen in love with the 1920's fashion lately. The past few weeks I've found myself all over the web chekcing out the fashion from that extraordinary era!  Before I knew it I had my sketch pad and pencils out! I have a feeling you may be seeing a few more art pieces from me inspired by the 1920's...
This is a pencil drawing. 8 X 10 inches, in blues with a touch of red...

Mischevious Bella

Hello!  So today I got to run around the neighborhood looking for my dog Bella...she wears me out...we have a big fenced-in yard, but she manages to get out somehow anyway! This time she dug out and went under the fence...that must have been a long, tedious project for her. Gotta admire the tenacity! ha!  Her buddy, Gabby, stayed home...she know's when she's got it good!

Pretty in Pink Mixed Media Canvas Painting

Mixed Media Canvas Painting "Pretty in Pink"

This project has been lying in wait inside my head for a while. I finally finished it tonite after starting it four or five days ago.  The bottom of the skirt is made from breast cancer ribbons.  I made them myself and let me tell you, it took A WHILE! My sister Dana has breast cancer. It has been very hard watching this horrible disease ravage her body and soul.  She finally finished chemo though and starts radiation this week.  I used tiny staples to make the ribbons as a statement about breast cancer. They represent the fact that the patient of breast cancer, no matter how fragile and feminine they are before diagnosis, must become  rugged and tough to make it through the harsh cancer treatment. 
I inked the dozens and dozens of ribbons with two colors of Tim Holtz ink, then used crackle paint in two colors on them.  I attached them with YES Paste.  The top part of the painting I painted using artists acrylic paints.

done and done!

UPDATE:  I ended up buying the Chevrolet Traverse! It was between that and the Cadillac SRX. I love it, but the Traverse had a few more options and less miles on it (they wre both 2009).  The one we got is a dark grey, it has OnStar, sattelite phone, very low mileage, and looks and feels brand new. I love this car! Check it out!

On the Hunt

Hi to all my amazing friends and followers!  The last couple days I've been on a mission to find my new car! My husband John and I decided a couple of weeks ago we might need to start looking for me a new car since mine's got about 70K miles on it and I do quite a bit of driving for work. Besides that I've been wanting an SUV for a while. There are several on the road that I like, with a Buick Enclave and the Cadillac SRX in my two five.  Now, that is not to say I can afford one of those, but I am going to check it out to see...if not then I'll be looking at the Traverse and a Murano, which I like as well.

I'm getting ready to head into my studio and see what I can get into now! Hope you are all having a very happy and relaxing Sunday!

BLESSED

Well my mojo has been playing tricks on me but the past couple weeks it's come back full force! I have been eating, living and literally dreaming about paint, ink, canvas, papers and all things art!  I have a HUGE canvas sitting on my art table waiting on it's second coat of gesso and I've just finished a small canvas.  Here are a couple of my latest projects!  Wish me luck on the giant canvas!

This is my husband and sweet granddauther Sydney.  I love pictures of big burly guys with tiny little babies...so sweet! I made all the flowers, inked everything up with Tim Holtz turquoise and painted and distressed Dusty Attic scroll at the top of the circle...I got the piece at the Scrappy Chic Online store (see link to the left of my page to get your own!)  I will soon be adding a tutorial here on how to make the flowers...

This is a little box with magnetic lid that opens to hold small treasures.  It's for my granddaughter's nursery and it was so much fun to create! Lots of torn and distressed patterened paper and bling...

The last one is the painting I finished last weekend.  It's a abstract floral and I am soon going to paint two more similar to go with this one, which is hanging solo in my bathroom right now.

Hello friends! I hope your Sunday's were as relaxing and creative as mine! I spent almost the entire day in my favorite chair scooted right up to my art table creating a few projects and enjoying every minute!

If only every day could be so easy!  Iwanted to wish my friend Paula McClane a happy birthday! I know I missed a good time at your Mystery Weekend and I can't wait to see pics and pages of how it all went and especially whodunit!!!

So, I'm working on a page for my Secret Sister Swap's Circle Journal..(on Scrapbook.com).  Anyway, I started on one page in which the owner of the page wanted me to scrap about the best advice I've ever gotten. A fun and interesting topic for sure.  Her color theme was black and white with one pop of color (I chose orange).  I decided that the one piece of advice I would use on this page as this:

Direct your thoughts,
Control your emotions,
Ordain your destiny

I first heard of this quotable advice while working for an insurance company in the sales division where I was Branch Manager for the Houston, Tx territory,  Once I learned the meaning of this quote, I took it with me in all aspects of my life and it helped me through many a hard day and lots of rough moments in my life.  I think it is right on the money! So many times when faced with frustrations, hard decisions etcetra, we let our emotions get away from us and end up making spur of the moment, heat of passion decisions.  But if we could find the gumption (I love that word!) to stop and focus our thoughts ON the things we want and OFF the things we don't want, we can make decisions from a better place than when we allow our emotions to get the best of us! 

I got stuck on the layout though because part of the requirements was to include a graphic and for some reason I, with all the millions of choices out there, I haven't found what I wanted to include..so, the project is STILL not complete!  I hate when mojo takes a leave of absence like that!

Here's hoping YOUR mojo keeps flowing like a river!

MISS YOU

I'm working on a tutorial for my Design Team work over at Scrappy Chic Cafe...this is a layout I did using three different techniques...Lacing (FUN!), masking, and something I call 'crystalizing' because of the look of it when I finished! (The mosaics and the rose, plus the corners of the page).  Here's the layout...be sure to cruise over to Scrappy Chic Cafe March 1 to check out my step-by-step how-to tutorial:

Journalling reads:  I love this photo of Rafe and Sydney. Even though he's blind he obviously likes the touch, sounds and smells of his new little sister.Makes my heart sing with joy to see it! I miss them so much!