A memory of the sky

So my boyfriend and I were walking out of Starbucks (which due to the crappy economy closes at 9 on Sundays now), and the sky was gorgeous...

Smog stained pink clouds at the bottom, turquoise blue at the western side contrasted with dark navy clouds...it was breathtaking, and I stood there for a couple of minutes trying to remember the feeling and the colors.

And here's the result...

Of course the camera screwed the colors shmorgusboard. You don't see the slight hue changes, and the deep navys, and the halo around the moon.

8 x 20" two gallery wrapped canvases.

Gimp fun, or repurposing photos

Hi!

I was a bit bored, and looking for a new photo on facebook, and decided to reconfigure this from advertising Rainbow Vaccums to my selfish purposes. It was a messy easy Gimp 2 job on my laptop, so don't judge :)


Uvidimsia Skoro

"Mademoiselle Plauche" aka how to save a dying painting

Work in progress pics.

I'm gona put this way for a couple of days now, so i'll see the mistakes better...

And as far as saving a dying painting, my advice is to keep working on it, listen to your intuition, and if you are getting frustrated, just put it away for a couple of days.

So here ya go...Happy Painting

The Inspiration

The Process

The last photo's colours are a bit better, but my camera still does not pick up yellows and light greens very well, and made the skin look blue. Anyways trust me that it is closer to the skin tone, has a lot more gradations of colour. ...and in the painting you definitely see that she is smiling a little.

In this one for some reason the lighting was too harsh and the border was washed out. But the slight texture and the yellow undertones make it work well, in my opinion. I'm not sure if i should soften the edge though...hmmm

Uvidimsia skoro

Marie Antoinette Bodoir

I can finally put the Marie Antoinette Boudoir painting up ^_^

But first the small tutorial on how to make a matlike border without a mat cutter.

You'll need...

• Scissors
• Ruler
• Matboard of desired size
• Exacto or carpet knife
• Trim
• And of course the art piece

Step 1.
Put the piece on the matboard and measure of what size border you would life. Cut the matboard to the desired size, using a ruler and the carper/exacto kife (do not use scissors as the matboard is too thick and you will end up with bent and unevent edges)

Step 2.
Center the art piece on the matboard and use the tip of the knife to punch down holes about quarter to half an inch from each corner of the art.

Step 3.
Connect the dots. Connect two holes of each corner with each other. You will end up with something resembling the old fashioned photo corners.

Step 4.
Tuck the corners of art into the previously mentioned corners. You might need to make them bigger, or use your nails or the ruler to help push them in


Step 5.
Cut the trim to the desired size

Step 6.
Tuck the trim into the corners on the edges of the painting

Step 7.
ENJOY YOUR ALMOST CUT FREE AND HAND CRAMP LESS MATTED WORK!


Here is a detailed shot of my favourite part
and here is a photo of a happy customer ^_^


Hope you enjoyed it.

Uvidimsia skoro

Recent Etsy favourites

I've finally got around to featuring some of my recent favourites at Etsy. Many of these are interesting finds, and most are reasonable price wise and would make unique gifts.

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade MariyaArt.etsy.com

Soap Dispensers

I'm not sure how to start. So here it is....THE BOBBLE-HEAD FROGGIE SOAP DISPENSER



Today I went to Ross to look for some stuff for our apartment bathroom for next year, and in the back among all the outdated grandmaish towels, pretentious soap dishes, anti slip bathtub things (which are a hell to clean in my opinion) I found a bobble-head frog soap dispenser. It was absolutely adorable, and as I carried it to the register a couple of people admired it, and the cashier called her friend over to look. They must have had a boring day.

But I don't mean to write about my shopping experiences. Instead, I'd like to reflect on the tough times many people are going through right now, not just economically, but also motivationally, spiritually, and on the horrible feeling many of us have in the pit of our stomachs. In my short life, I've always heard and usually tried to follow "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" (or my favourite "...squeeze them in its eyes"), but when your motivation dips, and sometimes it seems like your day is made up of nothing, then it gets a lot harder to hear that quote.

Even more, we get tired. Tired of constantly fighting through the stream, adjusting, readjusting, being flexible thinkers outside the box, concentrated, and sometimes happy at the drop of a hat. When your neighbor asks you "Hey Sue! How are you doing?" how many would actually take time to talk and ask in return. Most just brush it off with a "Fine. And you?" And sometimes it might be that the neighbor is pestery, and that your day was satisfactory, but on the off days, we want nothing more but to climb in bed and tune everything out. We're not bad people for it, it is just hard to relate to others, when sometimes we can't relate to ourselves.

Sometimes it seems like there are not enough big things to be happy about in our lives, but usually there are some little things. A little thing here, a little thing there, and somehow that brings you to another day. Your daughters painting, or a cup of tea, or, perhaps, just 10 minutes of quietly reading a magazine in the bathroom, maybe a friend from a while back just popping in to say hi. These things add up.

Same goes for the soap dispenser. Its just a little something to brighten up your day. I am not saying that you should turn your outlook on life around, or keep a small notebook in which you write down small things that are cool (doesn't sound like a bad idea though), but try to notice those things. They do make life just a wee bit sunnier.

Also most of us have a person who is our "soap dispenser". When we come in with banged up knees, or back from a bad experience, a failed job interview, or a speeding ticket, he/she/they are there to listen and give us some "soap" to wash those thoughts away (not to be confused with brain-washing ^_^ ). Sometimes its easy to overlook them and be angry at the world. But don't, they care deeply for you, and those family members, church members, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, or a stranger on the bus who's willing to listen help you stay sane and see some of the light that is around you.

And when you'll shake yourself off from that gutwretching feeling, you'll notice that the light is coming from inside of you.


Uvidimsia skoro

Warm up piece

When I feel wide awake in the middle of the night, but don't quite feel like working, or as a warm up for a larger/more serious piece, I often make these small paintings. This one actually is one of the first fast ones in a really long time, but hopefully they will be more frequent, and accumulate into many ^_^. Not that I want sleepless nights, but making these is fun.

This small watercolour painting measures 5x5". I can't make up my mind if its sunset or sunrise. What do you think?

A few cute things

Here are a couple of things that are going for sale at Etsy, as soon as I'll get better photos of them...






I am hoping to offer print sales also as soon also. But meanwhile I am accepting commissions. Here's a cupcake commission I did for a friend.

I am also currently working on a children's alphabet piece, recently finished a Marie Antoinette Boudoir piece (hopefully will upload it in a few days, as well as a tutorial for cheaply finishing pieces without a matt cutter), working on a second cupcake commission, working on an 8 x 8" portrait for a friend...and waiting for more work to come my way.

Uvidimsia skoro

My camera

I wanted to cover this in the last post, but decided not to. However, since my friend asked me what camera I use, I'll cover it.

Last year I was on a very limited budget, and before the price of cameras went down significantly, I bought a Cannon PowerShot A590 IS for $170, but now they are only $130.
It is considered a compact camera, but I would call it somewhat bulkier than the others because it takes AA batteries, instead of a rechargeable one (I wanted that because I don't always want to carry cables or a computer with me). But for my small hands it gives a pretty comfortable grip. It has a <3 mode which takes pretty good pictures in any conditions, but in low light conditions the image usually turns pretty grainy (I think it adds charm to it, as some of my favourite personal photos were taken on this setting). Auto setting as a standard one, and I've recently began playing with the manual one, which I used in my previous post with photos of flowers.

For a camera it also takes pretty good video (prolly one of the best cheap camera videos I've seen) and the sound is not half bad.

Overall for a very inexpensive camera it takes excellent photos and I am VERY happy with it. I've used it very heavily in the past year, and carry it with me often without a protective case, and it has endured wear and tear, with barely any scratches. It won't exactly fit into your wallet, but for someone on a budget I would certainly recommend it.

Personally I dream of owning one of the newer black Rebels someday, but that's just a dream for now.

First ever painting progressione

Recently I did a commission and remembered (which happens rarely) to take pictures of the work in progress. Unfortunately I did not start the sequence from the very beginning, but it gives a pretty good idea of how the work progressed.

I hesitate to stop and takes pictures when I am working in watercolour because I like working on the wet surface.

Progression...






In the end I had trouble getting it framed because unfortunately I did not make this a standard 8 x 10 painting. However even though a few details were lost in the smaller mat window, the cream coloured mat helps the colours pop. The painting was not cropped, so if the owner someday will decide to reframe it, all of the original content is there.

Uvidimsia skoro

I fell ^_^

As I am sitting here eating leftover meatballs, and eggplant/tomato salad thing, and refried beans, it just hit me that today instead of going to church, we went to the arboretum. In a way, it is a relaxation of the soul and uniting with nature. So honestly I don't feel too bad about that.

After an hour of taking photos of butterflies, bees and of course flowers, I found a ravine and in it the arboretum workers threw out tons of ornamental peppers :O. I, trying to be an unwasteful person and horrified that the flowers would be disposed off in this manner, decided to rescue them.
Got 1, 2, 3, 4 and then spotted a bunch down below. So as I was about to grab them I slid on my thigh down the sandy hill, and stood up thigh deep in sad, and something mushy. Yikes. I quickly scrambled up. Yours truly remained unscathed and very excited.

And here some of my favourite photos of the day...feel free to use them as references in your projects

Hi again.

Sorry I was away. Life happened, as customary, and I've been busy socializing and painting.

Since it is hard for web space to feel personal, I decided to show you photos of what is personal to me - my room and my "studio". If you do not know me personally, this should let you know what kind of person I am. So without further talking...my room
My room with a few of my paintings.


"Studio" - complete with materials (stores in the bookshelf), a fishbowl water holder, and a comfy chair in which I am sitting for lumbar support.

That's it for now. Some of my sketches and paintings will be featured tomorrow, as well as a video recipe by my friend, and a couple of wonderful things i have found around etsy.

Uvidimsia skoro

In the begining...

...there was a brush, and there was a Mariya. Well not really, but it certainly would have been wonderful ^_^

I love handmade things, and giving people something beautiful and from the heart because in the impersonal environment we live in now, it shows deep appreciation, attention, as well as comfort of the past when the world seemed just a bit smaller.

In the following entries I plan to post art tutorials on some of my small art pieces, ideas for a special gift, and hopefully a generous dose of optimism.

I'm off to work, and see y'all tomorrow.