Focusing on Life: Create. Art.

Two little words.  Create.  Art

This week, Week 4 of focusing on life, those words meant friends, paints, papers, messes, gelatin plates, acrylics, lace, stencils, brayers, more papers, wine, color, experiments, tools, sharing, rearranging, layering, scissors, smocks, and most important, JOY.

My one piece to share this week is a collage of a few of the 102 papers I printed last weekend with my dear friends Carol and Bette.  I met these likeminded ladies through various workshops, including Art & Soul, over the last couple of years.  They're just a small bit of the wonderful people I've met through art, and I love spending time with them since it's so non-day-job-bureaucracy.  It's totally recharging.

I invited myself to Carol's house for a road trip weekend and loved spending time with her and her sweet doll husband, Steve.  He lets me come back even though every time I show up the entire townhouse gets rearranged into a creative "enclave" and there's no room for much of anything else.  We had to eat our rib dinner on our laps because there was too much action on the dining room table to clear it off for a meal.  haaaaaaaaa  Plus, he has his own creative bent with a wood shop in the basement and I always leave with wonderful hand-turned treats.  

Anyway, Carol and I spent about 10 hours standing around that table trying out something new (to us): Gelli plates.  Bette joined us on Sunday and we wiled away the afternoon trying new techniques to monoprint using acrylics on this gelatin-sort-of plate.  I'd never heard of it before, but was, of course, thrilled to go out and buy some more art supplies.  Bette's a paper master, so she brought her collection of stencils with her.  It was like having a personal artist's supply shop right there since she has hundreds of them.  No joke.  

Another key activity of the weekend involved Carol's blog...she's up and running at Carol DeeZigns and has a post with more details about our weekend's "business."  

With aching backs from standing so long, we were able to look back over our weekend thrilled with all our new, cool papers and excited about printing some more...oh, and about buying more stencils and paints and such, because you can't start a new craft without using it as excuse to buy things!  haaaaaaaaaaaaa  So, even as I play with my papers, or play with my pictures of those papers, and shop for new toys to make more, I think of the JOY we felt all weekend and can only smile.  :)

Blog Hop: Challenge of Color

I wrote a big long post last night that was all scheduled for this morning, but now here I am retyping the  thing because it has somehow disappeared.  Lovely.  So, you're going to get the highlights:

~ This is the 2nd Annual Challenge of Color Blog Hop.

~ Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati is a prolific inspirer and is our host for today.

~ Erin invited participants to choose from 12 color families. 

~ I picked pink, even though that's not really a "winter" color and I wasn't sure what would happen.

~ Erin chose personalized palettes designed by Jessica Colaluca of Design Seeds.

~ My palette, called "sweetened tints," is based on a cupcake.  Awesome.

~ I love the recycled sari ribbon from Darn Good Yarn.

~ I just happened to have a brand new (can you have a "brand new" thing of something recycled?) skein of ribbon called "Fall Nightfall" that has all my cupcake colors.

~ I am recently obsessed with crocheting little shapes with a big hook.

~ After making a pile of little shapes out of ribbon, I picked one to create a pin.

~ The ribbon bits + steel wire + random pearls = pretty bit for atop a scarf or coat.

~ The hardest part of the whole thing was the actual pin piece; had to make it big enough to hold up the "flower" and smooth enough to keep from ripping up whatever it's pinned onto.

~ I wanted to display it on a cool and creamy (buttercreamy, specifically) scarf but didn't get it done; hence, the pictures are all posed on a half completed scarf and it's accompanying yarn.

~ If I didn't have to go put on camouflage to go to the office, I'd wear this right now!

~ Because I think the ribbon is so awesome, I want to give some away from my stash, a few yards of each of my faves.

~~ (This is a sub-bullet...this is how we write at work! haaaaaaaaaa)  Leave a comment and tell me something funny and I'll draw from the comments on Friday to pick a winner.

~ There are a ton of other great inspired bloggers out there...go see their goods:

1 Norma Turvey ~ Teal ~ Color Crave

2 Jeannie Dukic ~ Green ~ Mineral Tones

3 Mary McGraw ~ Teal ~ Embellished Hues

4 Jo Tinley ~ Red ~ Decadent Tones

5 Rebecca Anderson ~ Pink ~ Tulip Tones

6 Kristi Jaro ~ Red ~ Temple Entrance

7 Stephani Gorman ~ Green ~ Dew Tones

8 Melissa Meman ~ Green ~ Fruit Star

9 Kathleen Lange Klik ~ Teal ~ Silk Hues

10 Cynthia Riggs ~ Red ~ Autumn Comfort

11 Heidi Post ~ Teal ~ Flora Bright

12 Cece Cormier ~ Teal ~ Merino Teal

13 Amy Freeland ~ Gray ~ Cultured Tones

14 Alice Peterson ~ Blue ~ Island Play

15 Rose Noble ~ Gray ~ Autumn Stacked

16 Kristina Johansson ~ Yellow ~ Sunny Flower

17 Kirsi Luostarinen ~ Teal ~ Dragon Hues

18 Tari Kahrs ~ Orange ~ Citrus Tones

19 Mallory Hoffman ~ Purple ~ Petaled Dark

20 Molly Alexander ~ Brown ~ Peppered Tones

21 Regina Santerre ~ Red ~ Frosted Berry

22 Emanda Johnson ~ Teal ~ Color Purl

23 Amy Severino ~ Orange ~ Winged Tones

24 Bobbie Rafferty ~ Teal ~ Lime Hues

25 Tanya Goodwin ~ Gray ~ Pecked Tones

26 Lisa Lodge ~ Blue ~ Nocturnal Tones

27 Hope Smitherman ~ Blue ~ Bloom Tones

28 Linda Landig ~ Green ~ Cacti Dark

29 Ambra Gostoli ~ Teal ~ Perched Autumn

30 Lori Bowring-Michaud ~ Blue ~ Sharpened Blue

31 Pippa Chandler ~ Teal ~ Hungarian Hues

32 Keirsten Giles ~ Purple ~ Mineral Brights

33 Jennifer Justman ~ Blue ~ Autumn Rays

34 Sandy Richardson ~ Purple ~ Moroccan Brights

35 CJ Bauschka ~ Teal ~ Teal Air

36 Shaiha Williams ~ Teal ~ Sushi Hues

37 Kay Thomerson ~ Purple ~ Autumn Spectrum

38 Sally Russick ~ Purple ~ Golden Gate Tones

39 Cilla Watkins ~ Purple ~ Autumn Infused

40 Shirley Moore ~ Purple ~ Frozen Heather

41 Jenni Connolly ~ Gray ~ Paw Tones

42 Tamara Soper ~ Green ~ Field Tones

43 Sharyl McMillian-Nelson ~ Blue ~ Nested Blues

44 Jen Velasquez ~ Pink ~ Sweetened Tints

45 Maria Grimes ~ Red ~ Bright Bloom

46 Elisabeth Auld ~ Gray ~ Petaled Tints

47 Susan Kennedy ~ Pink ~ Zinnia Tones

48 Shannon Chomanczuk ~ Gray ~ Autumn Leaf

49 Holly Westfall ~ Yellow ~ Sprinkled Tones

50 Patty Gasparino ~ Red ~ Color Carton

51 Angela Little ~ Pink ~ Singapore Brights

52 Lizzie Zawinski ~ Green ~ Budding Hues

53 Kristen Stevens ~ Pink ~ Scooped Tones

54 Dawn Doucette ~ Brown ~ Jarred Tones

~ Thank you to Erin for hosting, Jessica for coming up with amazing palettes, my blog friends for being a piece of the party, and my blog readers/commenters for coming along for the ride!

Color Adventure: Split-Complementary

I'm no color genius...I can't even figure out what my natural haircolor is!  haaaaaaaaaa  So, when it came to the "Split-Complementary" challenge through the Beads of Clay blog.  I had to do some resesarch.

I started first on this website, recommend by Kristie of Artisan Clay:  The Color Schemer tool.  You can pick a color combo and then play with a sliding scale of values to see your options. 

Then, I broke out my new "3-in-1 Color Tool" that I picked up on Amazon.  It's made for quilters, but it's great for my bead drawers.  I can pull out the "swatches" I need and then use them to search for just the right colors because each swatch includes all the tones and shades of each color.

I picked my focal first and then built from there.  This awesome purple zinnia piece is by Tracee Dock from The Classic Bead.  From the purple, across the color wheel, is yellow-green, so to split that I got chartreuse and green. 

The end result:

Zinnia Stoneware Pendant - The Classic Bead

Faceted lemon quartz

Facted iolite

Green/yellow agate rounds

Green chunky pearls (I hate the word "blister" so I can't use it here even though I think that's what they really are)

Sterling silver wire used to bail up the pendant

And you can own it...it's for sale in my etsy shop.  :)

There are two more color challenges in the mix right now, so come on and join me in exploring: 

The Tetradic Color Scheme - through April 2nd

and

The Neutral Color Scheme - through April 16th

Orange Inspiration Around the House

In a spin around my house this morning, looking for the orange inspiration, it wasn't hard to find...

First, my kitchen floor...this wool rug that I picked up at my favorite rug shop near Pordenone while I was stationed in Italy at Aviano Air Base.  I couldn't resist the rich colors.  Of course, the vegetable dye left its mark on the carpet in my old house, but I still love it.

Over in the kitchen by the fridge is this little number by Danilo Soligo.  I picked it up at a flea market in Italy along with a couple of other pieces and framed them up with the bright colors.  I love picking frames because it always makes me think of my sister and how different our tastes are...she would have picked brown or grey for this one.  :)  (Love you, April!!  haaaaaaa)

And, in the dining room, a bigger drama by Kerin McBride.  I found her at an arts festival in Occoquan, Virginia and absolutely fell in love with her color!!!!  Her website has even more gorgeous goodness. 

Over by the front door is this sweet copper mirror.  It came from a vendor at a festival in my hometown, Bedford's Fall Foliage Festival, a couple of years ago. 

Back over here by my desk is the orange chair that came from my grandparents' house (which only shows a little bit of the cat scratch fever it has) and some fun pillows.

Can you believe I've been having trouble picking out colors for my wedding next year?  Uh, now that I look at these pictures, it seems a bit obvious.  Can you see orange and pink with cherry blossoms in DC in April?  haaaaaaaaaaaaa

Can You Really Hate Orange?

This morning I had a great laugh over one of my bead bud's blog. Marcie at La Bella Joya declared that orange is completely uninspiring.  Can you believe that?  haaaaaaaa  It is a great post which you should definitely check out.  But, I have to declare in response that orange is key to life!!!   I haven't been as diligent about looking for orange around my house, but I don't have to look far...especially in my studio.  I have a whole lotta orange! And, uh, have you seen my blog background?!  haaaaaaaa  So, this week's posts and my etsy shop adds are going to be part of the orange family...because orange rocks!!!

Here's the first piece...I just love the "focal coloring" tool  that I found at Picnik, so I wanted to show the sweetness of this crazy lace focal.  The orange and purple all swirled and pretty...

And here's the whole kit and caboodle in color! 

It's like when you can't choose the grape soda or the orange soda.  Both of them are wonderfully sweet and when you're on the road wandering around Italy in your convertible, the most refreshing taste at the roadside stop is a frothy, fruity Fanta.  Yes, I lived in Italy and had a convertible and drank a lot of Fanta.  haaaaaaaa

Thanks for the inspiration, Marcie!!!  haaaaaaaaaaa

Ciao,

Jen Velasquez

(yep, that's my new name!!!)

Complementary: In the Round

This is my entry into the Complementary Color Scheme Challenge on the Beads-of-Clay blog....


The big focal is a HUGE awesome button from Nancy's Round Rabbit.


I used the colors and roundness to drive my choices for other beads...there's a slab of garnet, some mookaite spacers, a few bits of Roman glass (from Happy Mango Beads) and a lampwork art bead that I bought on ebay years ago. The chain is from a shop in Kansas City, but as soon as I started going "round" it jumped out as the perfect complement. (Get it?! haaaaaaaaaa)

My pictures aren't exactly perfect, but I hope you can see the color scheme...



Thanks to Kristie at Artisan Clay for the reminder to get this thing done! haaaaaaaaaaa

Going Analogous...

That's like a combination of "anal" and "gorgeous" which just totally made me laugh...it's like a fancy little vanity table that's very tidy. haaaaaaaaa

This is my take on #2 of the Beads-of-Clay Color Challenge series. You can see other details about the challenge on the Artisan Clay blog. The basic requirements are: use a clay bead (earthen clay, porcelain or ceramic--not polymer) and follow the analogous color "code."

I like this color challenge series because it starts with simpler combinations (one color) and works towards more complex mixes (many colors). Because it's a gradual design process, I've been gradually studying color more...both in books and just by observing the world around me a little differently. For instance, warm, punchy colors permeate my home's decor...there are pinks and oranges everywhere. But, they all fall on a nice, cool, relaxing denim blue couch or a heavy, rich brown wooden dining room table. I guess that's how I design my jewelry, too...depends on the mood. Do I want punch or do I want soothing? But, then, there are so many other textural factors to think of, too, that the options are just so much fun to think about!


To help steer my color-related mind, I used a handy-dandy Border's coupon and got myself a new book: Color Index by Jim Krause. Its main audience, as far as I can tell, is print and web graphic design--there are lot of things about mixing formulas for the best screen or print results. But, to quote the author, "Simply put, use this book however you like." So, for a designer/beader/artisan/crafter, the book is great to educate on color basics (like what an analogous color scheme is) but also to trigger ideas about color combinations and how different values (lightness or darkness) can work. There are pages and pages in this little guidebook that pull combinations from the world around us...both natural and media-created. If you want to take a look at inside the book, you can go to the Jim Krause Design website and "cyber flip" through a few.

Anyway, enough on the book...on to the beads!!!

This work was inspired by the big porcelain focal bead over on the left-hand side of the necklace. I would love to tell you the designer, but I can't for the life of me remember. I know, though, that I bought it at a trunk show at the sweet little bead shop in Alexandria, Virginia called Bead Obsessions. Patricia always has wonderful treats in the store, but I failed to write down the info...I even found the receipt from Valentine's Day, 2009...nice record-keeping. :)

**I have an update! The bead artist is Bill Batts--according to Patricia, he was from North Carolina at that time. :)

I went with the violet and blue analogous color scheme with this eclectic mix of beads. Plus, I created my own wire-worked links to add a little bit more interest to the asymmetry...

Materials:
- Lovely big "mystery designer" **Bill Batts** porcelain focal with a great blue-violet finish
On the Blue Side:
- Navy glass ovals (from a bead swap with a friend)
- Blue spotted Kazuri bead (from Off the Beading Path)
- Denim blue lapis square pillows (from Potomac Bead Co.)
- Navy leather finished with sterling crimp ends (from Artbeads)
On the Violet Side:
- Dyed purple rough-cut agate nuggets
- Amethyst rectangles & nuggets (from Michael's)
- Blue-violet agate ovals
& violet simple cut stones(from Potomac Bead Co.)
- Lampwork glass disks (from HMB Studios)

Here's to the blues (and violets) on a rainy Sunday morning. :) I have to go take a nap before reading about nuclear strategy...or should I say not reading about nuclear strategy and playing with my latest bead goodies instead. haaaaaaaaaaa

A Color Challenge...

And, no, I don't mean trying to fit into my blues on a Monday! haaaaaaaa (For those who might wonder what I'm talking about, I'm in the Air Force and we wear our blue service uniform on Mondays. It tends to be a little less forgiving in the fit department than the camouflage of the other days of the week.)

The challenge I'm talking about this time I found on the Beads of Clay blog. It's going to require a little bit of practice thinking about the color wheel in different ways with new combinations of colors every couple of weeks. I own at least six books on color (buried in my crafty-book bookcase) but find myself drawn to the same color palettes most of the time. My brother, an artist, once told me that color is all about "trippin' out the rods and cones." That always cracks me up, in an eyeball-anatomy-nerd sort of way. :)

The other cool thing about these challenge projects is that they're focused on clay beads--that's earthen clay like porcelain, stoneware, earthenware, terra cotta, or raku--rather than polymer clay, which is what I've worked with before. There are tons of great clay artists out there so not only do I get to think outside my normal boxy workspace, I get to shop for some great new beads! haaaaaaaaa

For the first challenge, the focus is "Monochromatic." This scheme can be considered one color--just tones and shades of that one color. Well, I happened to have this fantastic clay & recycled glass pendant by Kristie at Artisan Clay which is where I first saw the challenge post! It's in a vibrant violet that actually looks to me more like a red-violet than a blue-violet. Either way...I was able to feature the pendant prominently amidst a mix of big funky cut stones. Then, the back is finished off more daintily with amethyst and pearls. I'd highly recommend Kristie's shop at Artisan Clay Jewelry Etsy Shop.

Since I was in the monochromatic groove, I decided to do another piece--this one turned into a set of earrings. The denim blue porcelain charms that are central to the design came from Marsha Neal. I strung a variety of blues on beading wire and used a Beadalong crimp end, that has a little ring on it, to finish it off. This creates a perfect link to an earring wire.

If you're up for some color challenge or just want to see some pretty work, check out the Beads of Clay blog. :)