Posts from — March 2010

The “unspeakable muse” jewelry finding included in my kit for the Use the Muse IV contest inspired a piece of art featuring a design similar to a stained glass rose window, which I used as the backdrop for a black-haired dragonfly fairy.

Unless I change my mind, the plan is to transfer this piece of art to a polymer clay shield pendant piece and incorporate some copper clay dragonflies with all the other components in the Use the Muse kit. If I get brave, I may even try my hand at enameling those copper clay dragonflies I want to make. Until then, here’s the artwork. The color scheme is a warmer blend of pastels that should go with the beads in the kit.

I also recently joined a blog called Art Cards 365, where all the art featured by members is in the collectible art card size of 2.5″ X 3.5″. I thought participating in this blog would inspire me to keep working on my art and get back into practice. Maybe if I did that, black hair–or hair in general–wouldn’t be so difficult for me to paint! The original of this piece is 5″ X 7″, which resizes perfectly to ACEO size, so I think I’m going to use this piece as a limited edition ACEO. Now I just need to think of a title!

Artbeads.com is celebrating ten years of business. Would you like to help them celebrate by taking a chance to win a $1000 shopping spree? Then hurry, because the Artbeads 10^th Anniversary Sweepstakes will be ending Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 11:59pm (PST).

Here’s a picture of the kit contents for Use the Muse IV contest sponsored by Scarlett Lanson and Artbeads.com. It’s always so much fun to see what different designers come up with using the same materials. In addition to what you see here, each kit contains one special piece called the “muse,” of which there is no photo. That is half the fun of entering the contest–you don’t know what the special muse piece is until you receive your kit. It’s always a challenge, but I’m starting to put together ideas. Since we’re going into spring and summer, I think I will lighten things up with some turquoise and maybe some other color.  Still thinking . . .