Jar of Hearts

Work in progress, the jar of hearts is starting to take shape.

Spring Beauty

The air is cool with the sweet breeze as the sun shines to make it the most beautiful day.

Stained Glass

This piece was done during one of our Second Saturday Art group gatherings. Created out of an image I doodle frequently, I enjoyed playing with the variety of glass pieces to give her depth.

Catchin' Up/ Rock and Roll

Since I was scanning already, I decided to add some pics of past pieces I had done. This first one was for the Rock and Roll Exhibit at the Dover Art League.

Liberte's Wine Labels

Ignorant Indifferance and Honest Heart

This is the Free Choice round for the Vices and Virtues Round Robin. After thinking about lots of things going on around me, I came up with the this theme. I hadn't used any encaustics for a while, so I played around with them and enjoyed the process.

Pride and Humility

Inspired by my son's first dance, I created this piece for the Vice and Virtues Pride and Humility theme. Created with watercolors, one side of the spread portrays Bryan as a baby in my arms and the second is him today as I was teaching him how to dance.

Temperance and Gluttony

This theme was much more difficult for me to create. I wanted to do something different and finally became inspired. It seems that both gluttony and temperance are rooted in money, hence the torn dollar bill representing the roots.

Digital Deck

This is one of the After pics from the Digital Deck. The final one had a couple of more tweaks to it.

Liberte Postage Stamp/Digital Deck BEFORE

Liberte has been born. I have been invited into the Recollection Parlor. This artistic group will be creating a country from their own inner minds. This was the first project. This also became the BEFORE piece for the Digital Deck hosted by Red Scott of Travelers Hart.

Envy and Contentment

Two sisters dreaming of their futures...each will end up envying the other. Created with Adobe in layers then colorized with acrylics. Image printed onto inkjet transparencies.

Wrath and Peace

Does she really decide who I will be? This was a commentary on whether we become our mothers.

Using the same main image of the young girl (the daughter), it was scanned and then in Adobe, the
background was "erased" out. Two copies were done on ink jet transparency. The first mother image was scanned and the tiled in Adobe. It was also copied onto a transparency. Offsetting the two transparencies gave the daughter quite a menacing appearance.

The peaceful mother was done in the same way.

Greed and Generosity

Greed and Generosity...vintage image was scanned and then copied onto a heavy vellum paper. It was then punched with a circle punch. The greed image was swirled in a vortex pattern using Adobe. The circles were attached with mini brads.

Sloth and Service

After the last player dropped out. a new player was added. This was the journal that I received a week ago. The theme for this round was Sloth and Service. I had an original idea prior to receiving this journal, but after reading the artist's guidelines, I had a complete change of thought. This artist expressed that she loved writing, so I thought that I would devote this spread to that. I set this up as a journal entry format over the life of two brothers. The diary entry begins with this photo and the events of that day:






The vintage photo was edited using Adobe Elements 5.0, then printed onto photo paper. The frame was a slide frame.


Encaustics were used to create the texture of the frame.










The white pages were painted with two coats of Golden Carbon Black to give it a vintage scrapbook appearance.










The entries were written with silver calligraphy pen.







The ceramic tile represents the tombstone.

Is It Love or Lust?

The spread is complete and in the artist's journal.

Lust and Purity Become One

Normally these would be opposite each other in a book style, but because of the size of the paper, I decided to do them back to back.

Purity....It makes Itself

I rarely have a piece of art completely planned out. The most that I had envisioned for this spread was for the backgrounds of lust to be fire colors and the purity to be pale in color. I realized when I started this page that I didn't really have any shades of white acrylics, except pure white. It has been my vow to not purchase new materials, so I looked around and decided to use several shades of Pearl Ex to tint the paint and add a shine.

I had printed a second transparency that I was planning on cutting out and using. As I laid the transparency onto the paper to judge the size, I soon realized that the paint was still wet. The transparency now was covered in paint. I decided at that point to lay down the transparency in the same way as the lust page, but just press around the outline of the image (not transferring the background). I then was left with the transparency covered in paint, but I thought it looked quite cool. So, I cut around the wedding girl on the transparency, and placed her opposite to the first image. It looked lost. I decided then that I would create the girl with layers. The bottom layer would be her struggle with her lust, the next layer (the paint covered transparency) would be her defense layer, and then the final would be outside "face".

Lust and Purity

The first round's theme is Lust and Purity. I immediately thought of fire when I thought of lust. The first photo is done on yupo paper with acrylics. The vintage photo is of a woman in a wedding gown in what I thought was quite a provocative pose. The photo is done on transparency and while the ink was still wet, pressed onto the paper in certain areas.

And I Receive One

Yes, that is how it all is supposed to work. Each month we should receive a new journal as they revolve around the United States. This journal did not travel very far as it came from PA. Each journal opens your mind to new ideas, whether it is the art that you see, the words written by one of the players, or even the medium or surface. In one round robin I worked in an old cookbook, you know the Betty Crocker kind with the three ring binder. It was quite cool! In another round robin, the journal was book of record sleeves for the old albums ( the real ones). The artist had cut circular watercolor paper to resemble a vinyl record as our surface. Again, a challenging and unique way to think.

The journal I received this month was created from a scrapbook photo album. It has plastic sheets for the artist to insert their completed spread. The pages are for me the challenge. It is large in size, 12x12, and square. I usually work in rectangular shaped paper and a smaller size. So, this would be quite fun!

Ist Stop

My journal has arrived at its first stop on its journey. I mailed it to another player in California. So from the East Coast to the West Coast, it has already traveled farther than I ever have! I received a sweet email from the receiver and I was glad to hear it had arrived all in tact.