The other day I was thinking and remembering some of the art-sy and craft-sy kinds of things that I did when I was young. Some I stuck with, some I tried and then got bored. The more I thought about it - the more I remembered...I was kind of amazed at all the different mediums I had played with.

It started with just paper (see my first post 'me and paper'). I would draw with crayons, and sometimes used stencils (numbers and letters) that my father brought home from the mill. I remember getting 'paint by number' oil painting kits for Christmas. Not a lot of creativity in these - however they do teach about painting composition, and working with oil paint.

Here's a bunch of other art/craft stuff I enjoyed -
made my own candles
had an 'Artex' (remember these?) fabric painting set
linoleum art block carving (Speedball Brand stuff)
taught myself to macrame belts and bracelets (hey..it was the 70's!)
my mother taught me to knit and to crochet.
Learned to sew -(starting in 7th grade most girl's took 'Home Economics' - half the school year was cooking and half the school year was sewing.) LOVED learning to sew and really took to it. I continued to make a lot of my own clothes right through high school. Took apart my old jeans and turned them into purses, skirts, pillows etc. Cut up plain, crew neck wool sweaters, shortened the sleeves, added buttons down the front and made cute new tops out of them. Made clothes for my Barbies.
Made detailed Christmas ornaments from homemade salt dough.
Wrote (awful) poetry, in my journals and did lots of drawings in those as well.
Worked with clay.
Pressed flowers in glass.
Used paper and cardboard to create houses and whole villages for the tiny dolls my little sister and I loved called "Little Kiddles". (Gosh we loved those dolls!)
Always made my own greeting cards, invitations etc.
Worked with oil pastels. Charcoal pencils. And lots and lots of markers.

I think there are probably even more.
All these creative endeavors that I was interested in...I can't believe that I let that part of myself go away for years and years. I feel like my truest, most real self when I am creating and I know it's here to stay now.

Here is one of my latest - showing the painting... (appropriately titled - 'Follow Your Heart')
                                                        'in progress' and then finished.

 

 

 

 





 Original and prints available on ETSY.

 

all about the hair!

I really have fun playing with hair in lots of my art pieces. Sometimes I draw the faces/heads without any hair..and then I cut out different 'hair pieces' from decorative papers, and try them on the different girls to see where they fit - as I did in the piece with the six girls in it. This was so much fun! Once I had drawn a bunch of different 'hairstyles' and cut them  out - I kept trying them on all the different girls, until I decided who looked best in which one. It was like playing with paper dolls! And then I pasted them on and continued with the artwork.

and sometimes I draw/paint the hair directly on to each 'girlie'  - like so...

I like to put things in the hair too. Really enjoying this lately - am going to do some more of these. This one with the purple hair isn't done yet - I need to do a background for her.

Ladies - whether you do artwork or not. I'm sure you agree..
some days it's just 'all about the hair'!