The Creative Process...........

Welcome to the Honey Girl Studio..............

The other night my husband and I were discussing the creative process of completing something....anything basically. We differ in that I enjoy the process of creating something much more than the completed project whereas he enjoys the completed project more than the process. I think the journey is far more important than the destination. I guess that's why I consider myself a "workhorse", I'm not the fast race horse, I'm not the glossy show horse, I'm the workhorse, the horse that is dependable and gets the job done and keeps plugging away until the project or task is completed.

Here is my question to all of my artist friends out there.....which do you prefer........the process or the completed project?

Here is a peek into my incredibly messy studio table and my creative process..........

This is "Toodee", she keeps a watch over my studio......often times messing up my table and eating my glitter. I love her though because my dear friend in California, Jacque sent her to me.

Believe it or not I know pretty much where everything is. I like to have most things that I use a lot at my fingertips.

Sometimes my process is back-asward.........I made the head from paper clay, painted it and then thought hmmmmmmmm, perhaps I should now consider a body!

Eventually my studio table gets so messy that I can't find anything and I have to take a day and clean it. My wonderful husband is making me new studio table/storage center from quarter sawn oak. It's half way done, I should have it within the next few weeks! I can't wait.....perhaps I'll keep it neat!

Looooook who's here........Pinkie!

Pinkie is a tiny (about 2.5 inches high) paper mache snowman with a knitted pink hat complete with a button and tiny red feather. Isn't he cute?

He has picked his Christmas tree already! It's a tiny pink bottle brush tree surrounded by silver tinsel.
How about that toasty pink chenille scarf!
He's cozied up inside of a small glass cloche with a sparkly pom-pom on top.Pinkie will be available to purchase on Spooky Time Jingles Marketplace on July 13th.

Taking a Break.......

Took a little break from the studio today. Made a fabulous pizza with organic, cold pressed olive oil that was a creamy green color and so fresh tasting......basal from my garden.......tomatoes from sombody elses garden.........kalamata olives from my olive tree (not really, I wish!)........buffalo mozzarella cheese from my pet buffalo........just kidding, from Wal-Mart actually and fresh homemade pizza dough........a dash of salt and a few cranks of pepper and ta-da! It was so de-lish!!!!!!

Gary and I ate the pizza overlooking the back flower garden. The black-eyed Susans are doing great as well as the hostas!

Sneak peek of a new Halloween project started earlier this week..........and it's not a shadowbox. Hmmmm, are you curious?????

And the winner is..........

The winner of the July 4th Artist Trading Card is Shelia from Pieces of Me because that crazy nut ate warm potato salad on the 4th of July and live to tell the story! He, he, he!

Happy 4th of July!!!!

Happy 4th of July!

Digby, Alice, Johnson and Beverly were getting their "festive" on with their red and blue party hats for the 4th of July party. They had a lovely picnic planned of potato salad, burgers and watermelon followed up by a hell-raising good time of setting off M-80s near the gazebo around 9 PM.........yes, yes, they were a wild group!

Have safe and happy 4th of July friends in blogland!

The first person who leaves a comment that says "I ate warm potato salad on the 4th of July and lived to tell the story" will receive this artist trading card!

Christmas in July?......Oh yah!

Yes, it's true, it's Christmas in July! Already there are Halloween and the beginning of Christmas decorations in the craft stores such as Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Pat Catans. As a seasonal artist you have to be 1 to 2 seasons ahead of game to get things done in time. Therefore, I'm working on 3 new Christmas pieces to add to the Spooky Time Jingles Market Place on July 13th. I've got 2 done and now I'm off to create my 3rd offering which is going to be something different from the shadowboxes.

I like the 1950s retro look of aqua and red together, it hearkens back to a time of a aluminum Christmas trees, tons of silver glitter and Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas". This piece entitled "MaryBelle's Snowmen" has that touch of nostalgia, with MaryBelle dressed in her swing coat with her hand nestled in her tinsel muff. The snowmen are hand drawn and painted. The little one raised from the background as well as MaryBelle, she is raised about an inch from the background to give depth to the piece. The size is 5 inches by 5 inches square in a black wooded frame with small glittery red, silver and aqua balls and a small white bottle brush tree in the forefront.

The collage before I put it into the shadowbox frame.......

The collage in the shadowbox frame............

Some people are not into the retro 1950s Christmas colors and like a more traditional look to their Christmas art........enter........red & green. Nothing says 'Christmas' like the pairing of red & green. I've entitled this piece "Imogene's Red and Green Christmas". Imogene is a copy of a photo from around 1915. I love her giant puffy hat and obviously from her fur trimmed coat she appears to have been a child of privilege. She holds a candy cane in one had as if to usher in the holiday season and a Christmas ball in the other hand. This piece is full of detail from the original 6 cent Christmas stamp to the tiny glittery circles reading "family and friends" and "Happy Holidays". Vintage style sheet music of 'Jingle Bells' is placed diagonally behind Imogene which as been slightly antiqued. Stamped, lacy snowflakes dot the background. This piece is 5 X 5 inches in a black wooded frame with a glass front.

It's very difficult to take a good picture of the shadowbox when it is assembled because of the reflection on the glass. If anybody has any tips on how to take good pics with a glass front on the object, I'd be more than happy to receive them!

Another Spooky Time Jingles Offerings

Max knew he had the best, most whimsical pumpkins in the land and would proudly display them on an old wooden bench as not to upstage their character and beauty. Why were his pumpkins so special? Simple.....he talked to them everyday. He'd spin spooky tales of far away dusty places where a lone howl or simple creak was a sinister foreshadowing that something truly scary was going to take place. Sitting for hours with his pet crow Edgar perched on his shoulder on lazy, sunny, Sunday's in late September, Max would sell his prizes and dream of planting pumpkin seeds next summer.

A picture before I put it in the wooden box.....

This shows the dimension.....

This shadowbox measures 5 inches square. Max, the pumpkins, crow and bench are raised approximately 1/2 inch from the background giving a 3-D look. The back of this piece has been signed and titled by the artist with the Honey Girl Studio circle seal. This piece will be available on the Spooky Time Jingle Marketplace on July 13. Mark your calenders to pop onto this website because it definitely has some of the most talented folk artists of our time.
If you can't wait until July 13th you can visit my All Hallows' Evening site of Halloween creations.
Smiles!

Spooky Time Jingles Market Place

I'm pleased to announced that I will be joining the Spooky Time Jingles Marketplace where I will have my own page of creations along with a plethora of extremely talented artists. Halloween and Christmas art will be sold on this site only. I'm both excited and humbled to be in the company of such extraordinary talent. Dani from Ambitions Design created this marketplace and the official lauch will be July 13th. She has put a lot of time and work into it and I'll post more as the time nears. I hope you'll take time to pop in and check out the creativity!

In preparing for the July 13th launch, I've been in my studio working an Halloween pieces. Here is a sneak peek........

The background in this piece with the man in the moon is a copy of a vintage board game cover. Isn't it cool!!!! I love the colors and the graphics.

It's here.......the All Hallows' Evening Store

All Hallows' Evening Website

It's up and running! Please visit All Hallows' Evening. A site I started for just my Halloween creations which you can purchase or just have fun looking at. I really dig Halloween and especially the vintage Halloween look. All fo my creations are one of a kind creations. Bookmark and check the All Hallows' Evening site frequently as I will be adding new creations just about every other day.

Here are a few things you'll find on the site.........

Something new this way comes.........

I'm working on a new Halloween venture.........stay tuned for more information....soon......very soooooooooon! A little picture to spark your interest!

Getting Greener?

A lot of talk has been generated about "going green" but really what does it really mean? I find it very confusing at times, however an article I read in the Sunday New York Times also found "going green" to be equally confusing but they gave a few useful tips. One of the tips was to check out this website called Simple Steps. It breaks down things you can do in a minute, a week or a month to save energy and conserve resources. I was inspired to make this ATC after reading the article.....

On another related note to the environment (it's been on my mind a lot lately) I was thinking about honey bees and why I haven't seen as many this spring in my flowers and I've heard they are dying off at an alarming rate. Here is a video which tells why, if you'd like to watch it. I love bees! My name is Melissa and it means "honeybee". My all time favorite fictional novel is 'The Secret Life of Bees'. It is the only book which I ever kept after reading and have read it again 2 more times. After each time I read it, I say to myself and my friends, "this should be made into a movie!" And guess what, it has been!!! I'm so excited, I hope it's as good as the book. The movie is scheduled to come out in October. Here is a clip of it! If you've never read this book, you need to get it and read it before seeing the movie.

Lemonade Summer.......

Yesterday was one of those hot perfect summer days. I spent the afternoon hanging out at my friend's house by the pool with 2 other friends. It was a perfect lemonade day!I'm very fortunate to have the summers off since I work in the schools. Every summer around June 4th or 5th I get to relieve that feeling of having the endless possiblities of summer stretching out before me like a mile long country road fading into a far away pinpoint.



I think the kids in this ATC had this picture taken at the beginning of the summer right after school was out and they knew that if they stood like statues for another 15 seconds until the picture was taken, they would be home free to enjoy a lemonade summer!

Lemonade Summer

Summer came folding in upon us on warm merangue clouds,

It spoke of promises of hazy yellow days,

Barefoot hours on the porch swing reading of far away places in time,

And fireflies gently captured in Mason jars lanterns.

It was a lemonade summer

Lemonade Recipe

1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 cup water (for the simple syrup)
1 cup lemon juice
3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)
Method
1 Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely.
2 While the sugar is dissolving, use a juicer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice.
3 Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher. Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it.
Serve with ice, sliced lemons.
Serves 6.

Gothic Arches and Raindrops

Today we had a cooling rain which fell in fat splats of drops making the world smell fresh and look new again. I have gigantic hostas which love the rain and collect the droplets on their broad leaves so I gabbed my camera and got some shots.

I did 5 Gothic arches in a series, you saw Mona's New Do in the last post. Here are a few more.....

Jack was a very well behaved child, he always put his toys away!

This one is entitled "Strange Travels". Have you ever traveled somewhere, never having been there before and thinking it was going to be great only to discover that the strange journey getting there was better than the actual place?!?!? This happens to me frequently!The gas price drove Maxine to sheer madness! One day she yelled "I'm an Edsel, I'm an Edsel!", grabbed the gas pump nozzel and started to guzzle. Needless to say about an hour later she had bad gas....(sorry, I just couldn't resist).You see, sometimes cards tell a story through just few pictures in a small 2.5 by 3.5 inch space. The evil queen looked down from her tower plotting, scheming and planning her next move.....what evil deed would be bestowed upon the innocent worker bees? Only time would tell.
Ta-Ta for now!

Inspiration for Mona's New Do.....

You know, I often write on this blog about the inspiration for my Artist Trading Cards as well as other works of art, sometimes the choices are conscious while other times I believe they are "twinklings" whirling in the back of my mind of something I've seen or heard in the past causing subconscious choices in my artworks. This trading card is one such "subconscious twinkling". While I have been recovering from hip surgery I've been watching old T.V. shows from the 70s and 80s on a wonderful website called hulu, mostly because there is just garbage on TV today. The shows on Hulu are free to watch and there is quite the mix, everything from The Bob Newhart Show to Mary Tyler Moore to Hart to Hart. You know Hart to Hart was my all time favorite show in the early 80s. My brother and I use to fight over the T.V. (I always won!) when it came on, I wanted to watch it and he didn't. Now that I look back on it with 41 year old eyes instead of 16 year old eyes, the show's concept is even more wonderful than I remembered .....a married couple that actually loved, respected and enjoyed each others company and carried on intelligent conversations with a touch of humor! I long for a TV show like that now but sadly the public only wants to see violence, fighting, blatent sex and rude borish behavior on TV shows. But I digress......remember Jennifer Hart's fabulous hair (I had the same gigantic hair in 1984!)? She was played by the equally fabulous Stefanie Powers. Well, I believe that as a result of all this Hart to Hart watching over the past 2 weeks I subconsciously created a Mona Lisa with a red Jennifer Hart hair style! It really didn't dawn on me until I was through with it. It is the first in a series of ATC Gothic Arches within my ATC a day for a year project. Funny how the "twinklings" in the back of the mind work! Do you every have a "twinkling" that you carry over into your artwork?

Pixie Give Away....

It's a Pixie give away! I made a series of 3 ATCs in a my year of ATCs project which are dedicated to the pixie. When I was a little girl my Gram had a collection of glass pixies on a shelf in her kitchen. I loved those pixies and had to hold them and play with them (carefully) everytime we visited. I have a big one sitting on a rock with a red outfit and a yellow flower hat from that collection (my Gram smuggled home for me). The pixies on the ATC remind me of her collection. They are all free hand and their faces are hand painted. If you would like like one of these be the first one to post a comment indicating which one you want and make sure I can reach you through you blog or email and I'll get back to your to get your address.

This is Pircillia. She likes pink fragrant flowers and playing Uker. The book text behind her is in Dutch from the Netherlands. I hand painted the flowers the text with acrylics.
This is Jasper. He like anything blue, gin and puppies.
This is Bo. She likes naps, truth and the American way.

So that's the story of the Pixies. Which one would you like?

Mini Domino Necklace.....

I had a bag of these mini dominos and started to play around with them last night started to collage decorative papers on them and then stamping them. They are then sealed with 3 coats of shiny glaze. The one that says "pax" means "peace" in Latin. I was inspired to make that domino as my mind was drifting to a time when I was in Assisi, Italy visiting the basilicia of St. Francis.......when you came out of the lower grotto to the outside there was a huge garden and "pax" was spelled out in green plants. That got tucked away in my mind to resurface 7 years later on a dominio. It's funny what sticks in the old noggin! I loved Assisi, it was so beautiful nestled in Umbria (means "green heart") countryside at the base of the Appennines and surrounded by fields of wheat and sunflowers. The sky was so blue and the air so warm with the windy scent of the fields. Sometimes I can close my eyes and I'm back there standing on the upper wall overlooking the countryside.

This is a necklace I made for a dear friend with one of the dominos. I like the green beads! This is a long necklace, about 20-22 inches.

Altered Altoid tin started......

A wish for a trip to the beach......................

Hmmmmmmm, I started on an altered Altoid tin last night and here's what I have so far.

Can you guess the theme? Yes, that's right it's a beach theme. I went to one of my favorite color combos, aqua and red. My dear friend Jacque sent me the "Wish" ticket and I knew I wanted to use it in this project somewhere. Seashells are a must in any beach themed creation. I like to call these little girls "the Seashell Sisters"!

The sand and sandcastle are actually textured. I got textured paint chip samples at Lowe's and stamped a castle on them. It's hard to see it in the photo but really looks like a real sandcastle up close and personal!

I'll post pictures later today of the finished project.........