First of all, free shipping on Society6 this week!  If you've been thinking of buying something from my shop, hurry on over there and do it this week.

Secondly.....It's nice to start and finish an artwork in one sitting.   I did that recently with this little diamond painting.

I really like contrasting warm/cool colors. 

I also enjoy starting an artwork without any sort of plan.  That's what I've been doing now.

I started this one with the loose plan of not using any black (because I have a lot of colorful pens I rarely use), and being circular.  Since then I've decided to turn them into gears and have the circles interact with each other once they've grown to the right size. It's been a fun little drawing so far.

This past weekend Ryan and I's Schlitterbahn plans were finally realized.  It was so fun!

And I'll end with this sweet picture of Nell with her Uncle Ry-Ry

They love each other.

Posting two days in a row!  That's a first for this blog.

I've declared my spider finished.

I cropped it a little differently for Society6.

Do you think that's an improvement, or should I keep the rectangle?  I also plan on putting the original on Etsy.

I am glad to be finished with this; the spider makes me feel a little queasy even after staring at it for so long...

I might as well declare a couple of other changes in my life.  Most of you who know me on a day-to-day basis know this already--I quit my teaching job a few months ago.  I loved my school, and I love elementary art, but there were some things I was unsatisfied with so I decided to move on.  No job is perfect, but there is still a threshold.....So this summer I've been on the hunt for something else--either teaching art, or something else education/arts related.  So I've actually found two new jobs now.   One is a part time job at Dallas Heritage Village (which I posted about visiting a couple weeks ago).  And the other is an adjunct teaching position at Brown Mackie College--teaching Art History (my first love -- before education or even creating art myself, I studied Art History).

I'm really excited about both of these endeavors, and even with these two jobs I feel I will have a lot more free time to create than I did when I was teaching full time at an elementary school. 

And I wouldn't be surprised if I find myself teaching K-12 again in the future, this is just what God has for me for now.

So now I will start another piece.  Any suggestions?  And you know you can always commission a custom drawing as well--just email me or message me on Etsy.

Happy Friday.

I've been trucking along on my spider.

(I like to include my Mona Lisa mouse pad in my pictures, when I can.  I often draw next to my computer, either because I'm looking up something on Google Images--say, a spider--or I'm watching Netflix--say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)  I'm honestly not super thrilled with it right now.  But that's usually how things go.  I like this chart...

That's from this book,

which is an inspiring little read for anybody who likes to create anything (write, draw, sing, act....)  And that chart is a realistic picture of the creative process.  Sometimes I end a little higher than that last point, sometimes lower. Then I just move on, trying to remember this Andy Warhol quote.
 

Because..

I didn't mean to be so quote happy in this post.  Just trying to encourage myself to finish this spider, because right now I'm on the "this sucks and its boring" part of the chart.  I get to that point on pretty much every drawing I do, just so you know. 

Phew.  You never really know where a blog post is going to go.  I'm trying to post at least once a week.  Hopefully more (comments are always a great encouragement....).  And finally.....

I should probably go now. 

And it now lives as the logo for the new business Stampworthy.  This is a wonderful endeavor begun by my life-long friend, Allison.  She has a passion for travel--the joys of experiencing different cultures and places--and making the world a better, more fair place for local businesses and artists/artisans.   So she and a friend are launching a business toward those ends.  Find out more about it at on their website that launched just this week.

Now I am working on something creepy crawly...

Inspired by an encounter on a recent walk.

When I posted that on Instagram, one of my friend's responses pointed out that it looked like a golden spider, so I think I'm going to go with that...  And maybe doing something web-y in the background.  Maybe not.  We'll see....

And I'll leave you with this-->A couple of snapshots from this past weekend that was (unexpectedly) spent in Austin.

I've decided to paint the inside of the land with watercolor paint.

The water I finished in one sitting, because of the magic of watercolor pencils.  The land will take much longer--to paint each individual shape.

Really I'm almost done though.  I'm a lot further along than that picture and hope to finish today. Then I plan on shading around the outside of the land, so it stands out more.  Right now it's just all busy-ness.

My summer tradition is to go to museums.  I already mentioned going to the DMA last week.  Later in the week I visited the Dallas Heritage Village with Chris and Heidi.

Dallas Heritage Village is a fun, educational gem in Dallas that I feel like a lot of people don't know about.   It's closed all of August though, so you'll have to visit in September.

Ryan wasn't with us--he was working.  but here is a picture of him too with Olive.

I could also talk about my visit to the Crow Collection yesterday, but I feel this post has enough pictures already.  So stay tuned.  And probably in my next post the globe will be finished and I will hopefully have started something new.

I'm starting to add insides to the land.

Since the water is all flow-y and curvy, I'm challenging myself to only add straight lines in the land.  I like to make rules for myself sometimes.  One of my favorite Art Education articles I read during grad school was called "Constraints that Enable."  Putting down limits to enable creativity.

Then I'll have to decide how to add color within the straight-line patterns. Stay-tuned.

I didn't have tons of time to work on any drawings this past weekend because of our yard sale.

It was a nice time to make some cash-money, hang out with friends, and meet neighbors.

And no, our dogs were not our only customers.

To close, I just heard of and bought a Sylvan Esso album. They're fun, makes you wanna dance around a little.  Like here.

And if I still have your attention, here's another (there is explicit language in this one, FYI, in case your little ones are present).  And notice the guy playing the wine bottle as a musical instrument (and her awesome shoes, which I believe are also in the previous video).