Ugly Shelf Rescue

Ugly Shelf Rescued in the Nick of Time!

Sophie is very concerned about the plight of Ugly Knick Knacks.

 

 

As you know I have several "Nearly Hopeless, Terminally Ugly" Items that I have Rescued from Local Thrift and Antique Shops.  This Poor little guy had been living his Entire 'Shelf Life' with Tacky, Glued-on Red Peppers and Wonky Ladders to Nowhere.  Need I even mention that "Friends don't let Friends have Tacky Pueblo Shelves painted Salmon"?

 

 

Anyway, I was looking for someplace to hang our 47 million Keys...and $2.99 later...he was part of our Family...

 

So after several Sessions of Love and Care...here he is "Made Over and Fabulous!"

 

 

I definitely give it 'Two Snaps Up!'  As it is going on MY wall, I had to keep it Funky...and you know I am Addicted to Little Houses!

 

 

Here are a Few Close Ups:)

 

 

 

AND- the Before and After...

 

 

Another Knic Knack saved from a Life of 'Salmon Infamy'!

 

Do you have a heart that breaks at the sight of Tacky Home Goods?  Do Ugly Wooden things call to you?  Do you long to Give new life to 'Sappy Angels with Moss Hair from the 80's'?  Join me my friends...together we can Rescue, Repurpose and Upscale!

 

Love to all!

 

 

Art Journal Tutorial

Time to Play in my Journal:)

 

So I've been seeing 'White Trees' in my mind lately.  Sometimes when I'm working in my Journal I will have a definite idea or Plan on what I'm trying to make.  But Most of the time it really just kind of 'Evolves' as I go along.  This time it was a little bit of both:)

 

 

 

 

I have been Absolutely Loving working on my Gelli Plate!  On Sunday, the lady in front of me at Church had on this cool blouse...I hope the Lord will forgive me for taking notes on the Blouse in between my Sermon Notes:) 

 

Anyway, it was Golden Yellow, Rusty Orange and Sage Green.  Over the Top of it was a transparent 'white' leaf pattern.   So that night I dreamed about White Misty Trees, and I knew I wanted to make the Background on the Gelli.

 

And as I have been trying to work on Faces in Acrylic, I thought I would make a girl under my 'Ghost tree'. 

 

 

So here is a Peak at how I got to this point:)  If you are new to Gelli like I am, I just want to know exactly how everyone does the things they do! If you scroll down quickly it will look like a Movie!

 

Here's the First layer:)  Is that little 'Hand Stir Stick' Adorable or what??? Got it at Home Goods- pack of 4 for a buck...LOVE!  So fun to 'scratch' with:)

 

 

Here's the Pull...

 

 

Then I used Old Envelopes and Strips of paper for a 'Mask'- which I totally learned from Linda Germain...

 

 

Rolled the Golden Yellow over the Mask..

 

Then added some Texture...Punchinella this time.

 

I pulled off the masks...

 

Here's what it looked like at that point:)

 

Next, grabbed an old stencil and rolled paint over.

 

Here it is over just one half of the Paper.

 

Circles Next!

 

I scratched around in them a bit- here's what I ended up with:)

 

Smaller Circles...

 

Adding Layers:)

 

Now for the Sage Green- Used a Flower Stencil.

 

 

Now it's getting more Interesting!

 

 

 

I wanted to add some Cream Highlights so I grabbed a Stencil and a Spongee thingee.

 

 

Now it's time to add the Design... I drew the Tree in with my Scarlet Lime Roller Ball Pen then filled it in with White Acrylic that I added a little Gel Medium to.  Then I cut out my Collage pieces.  Her skin is a Book Page that I painted over with Flesh Colored Acrylic with a little Float Medium mixed in so you could see through it.

Here she has a Face:)

 

I painted in some Hair...The smaller Card there is for my ICAD- I used it to practice her face and Hair.

 

And Here she is All Done!

 

 

I was Happy with how she turned out:) 

 

 

 

Her Eyes are actually Green- but this is the best my Cell Phone will do:)

 

So here are the rest of the Gelli's that I worked on at the same time...I just kept adding layers to all of them as I worked on this one.

 

 

 

 

Here's a little Close up:)

 

 

I'm adding some Tissue Paper and Stamping to one...we'll see how it goes:)

 

And Last but not Least- here's my little 'Practice Index Card'. 

 

 

I can't believe that Index Card a Day is coming to an end:(   But Tammy Garcia is going to post her Daily Art Prompts which have all kinds of different  ideas for Mixed Media.  That way we can all still stay in touch and post our Daily Stuff. 

 

If you are interested in Jumping in, check it out here at Daisy Yellow.  I would love to see you there!

 

So what is in your Art Journal right now?

 

Send me a pic!  I'd love to see it!

 

Love to all! 

 

 

 

ICAD Round Up!

Index Card a Day- The Weekly Round Up!

 

I can't belive we are getting so Close to the end!!! Waaaaaa!!  I let Tammy Garcia know I wasn't quite sure how I was going to make it without ICAD and she assured me this was just the 'First Step' to even more Yummy Daisy Yellow Goodness:)

 

So this one is Sage and Sepia for "Summer of Color's" Challenge. I found these Crazy Cool Seed Pods while out on a "Sniffy" walk with the doggies. Love them! I used Gesso, Acrylic and a Pitt Pen for a quick sketch.

 

 

This last week I worked really Hard at learning the In's and Out's of Twitter- so I felt like this little guy was Warranted.  I love his little round belly!  This one is Watercolor.

 

This is my first 'Foray' into the Mystical World of White Pen-ness...This is a Gelly Roll which is one of the only things I can seem to find around here.  It's on Black Acrylic with a White Acrylic Stamp.  I had to go slowly with it and that is good for me:) 

 

The Ladies of ICAD are Incredible Artitst and lots of them do these Breath Taking 'Doodles'..I tell you... they are seriously Zen man!  This one is one of my attempts.  I was using their cards for Inspiration.  I just don't know how they come up with all those designs!

 

This one was directly inspired by one of the gals.  I was feeling so 'Out of Juice' that day and all I could do was grab a pen.  It did help...it always does:)

 

And Then!....Everything changed....

 

After 2 weeks of waiting my Gelli Plate arrived and suddenly- all I could do was Gelli! 

Don't ask me why I tried lettering...Dyslexics of the Art world should seriously reconsider.  It took like 20 cards to figure out how to get it right:)  But it was crazy fun!

 

I was so busy Gelli-ing that I had to take a break for this one- It was my Special Horde of 'Gathered material' from when I was Marathon Training in California.  All Collaged and Doodled...and there's that white Pen again:)  This caption meant a lot to me...it kind of said it all!

 

 

And Finally- this was inspired by some Awesome Graffiti going on on ICAD.  It was also a 'shout out' to my roots.  Believe it or not I grew up in a Gang infested school with Drive by Shootings and 14 foot Chain Link gates with Armed Proctor Guards.  I LOVE graffiti....good Graffiti that is:)  This was a little bit of where I come from..."Torn, but Beautiful":)

 

Are you Rounding up your ICADs? I would love to do a link up and spread the Love!

 

Leave  me a note and I'll get right back to you!

 

Love to All!

Meet our Critters!

 

A Day in the life of our "Little Piece of Country"

 

This was a bit of a Crazy week.  You would think that with my Boys away at Grama's that it would be quiet and get Lots of Painting done, but I have quite a few Critters Here at "El-Ranchito-Freibotto" to keep me busy.

 

This week we had 'The Great Chicken Escape"...she actually got into the Yard with the Dogs- the culprit is the  Black one trying to play it 'Cool' there..

 

 

This could have proven Fatal...if these were not the Dogs in the yard....

 

 




Ya, This is Spot and Shadow:)
It's not the Camera Angle...they are quite 'portly':)

I've mentioned that we are Actually running a 'Home for Not-so-smart' Critters.  These two Big Love Bugs are our "Working Dogs"...they are in charge of 'Security' for the whole 2 1/2 acres. 

 Most of our Big Security Breeches include Lizards boldy walking up to drink their water, Bunnies taking up Residence in their Yard and of course an entire Family of Quails that now lives back there...in plain sight...

 

Their  plan of action?  Sit on the Porch, bark once and go back to sleep...yep, that's it.  Once there was actually a Quail ON one of these guys...Seriously?

 

So why is it so dangerous for a Chicken to escape the Coup? 

 

Well the Dogs will not bother the chickens if they stay in there pen, even if the door is open.  BUT- if one gets out...he's fair game.  That is if they aren't too lazy to get off the porch.  Most of the time they are just 'catching and bringing them to us'...but the chicken doesn't do so well in this arrangement:)

 

So- the chicken was out- the dogs didn't even move and it came running over to me so I could toss it back into "Chateau de Redneck Chicken".  Here is Sophie making sure everything is safe and sound...

 

 

And of course...you've met Socks the Goatie:)

 Her 6 foot No-Climb Fence is really mostly a "Suggestion". Sometimes, when she really wants a cup of Coffee, she'll come around to the Front Door and Knock with her Horns...Once she's had some "Jo" and a  'treat' she's more than happy to run back to the Pen:)

 

So, lest you think that our 'Less than Brilliant' Animal Rescue program doesn't apply to Livestock....Here's was what I came out to this last week:

 Sigh....yep.  The Big dogs didn't even Budge off the Porch...and when I got there she was just happily chomping on whatever leaves she could reach. Not a care in the World- she had obviously been there a while but she's like "Dude...like, I'm totally stuck man...whatever man..."

 

 I had to cut a huge hole and do some Serious Goat Chiropractics to get her Horns out of there!

 

So, our last little sweetie's are Coco and Sophie...the 'inside dogs'.  Sophie is our adorable 'Chug' rescue..part Pug and part Chihuahua.  I know right!  Hilarious!  Here she is being Adorable..

 

 

Sophie is smarter than Every Single Animal here Combined!  We don't even know what to do with her sometimes because she gets BORED.....Bored!  She isn't content to sit on the couch and stare into space for 15 hours at a time which is what we are used to with most of  pets:)  That's because they have to concentrate on 'breathing' which taxes most of their mental capacity.

 

 

 

The Little Precious in the Back is CoCo, our Chi-weenie:)  We rescued her from a horrible Pet Store that we helped shut down afterwards.  She almost didn't make it.  But after 10 years with us we have concluded, with our Vet, that she is probably somewhere between a "Rock" and a "House Plant" as far as intelligence:)  But she is Happy and Adorable and loves just Sittin' on the couch...well...breathing...:)

 

So That's our little "Menagerie" here on our little piece of Heaven:)

 

I'm off to chase the Lizard off the Porch and maybe Brew Socks a cup of Coffee...then maybe they'll let me Paint!:)

 

Love to all!