THE PAINTER'S GUARDIAN & YAY! I GET TO CONTINUE SCHOOL!

Over the summmer, I've been a bit bummed. I have run short of money to put toward any more school, and I really wanted to continue my education toward an MFA. This desire has been fueled at the urging of my instructors, who believe I would make a good art teacher. One in particular has been very influential and helpful in pushing me in that direction. Getting money for more school has been the big question.

I finally decided on a path to take and applied to the school I really felt was the right place to go. I was accepted, but had to be accepted by the art department as well. Fortunately, my portfolio was looked upon with favor, and I also was accepted to the art program. With that tackled, the art professor appointed as my adviser told me that he understood my money dilemma and offered me an application for their art department scholarship. He also directed me to the school's financial aid office for help. I made an appointment.

I went to my financial aid appointment with much skepticism, muttering to myself as I trudged up the hill to their offices in the sweltering Mississippi humidity "This is going to be a total waste of time." Fortunately, I'm never right when I have such negativity going into things. The counselor there was helpful and told me that since I have a high GPA, I am eligible for some scholarship money. Enough that I should not turn it down, and hopefully I will be able to swing supplementing the rest; that being due to a certain guardian angel represented by the collage below.

I'm thankful, and excited I'll get to continue my art education, majoring in Fine Art (painting) and minoring in Communications. It's going to be tough, but I really want this badly. I've managed to scratch up the cash for the fall semester, and part of spring. Let's try dis ting.

The Painter's Guardian

COLLAGES USING PHOTO TEST STRIPS & BOTCHED FILM
When I was taking photography in the spring, I saved test strips and pieces of film that did not turn out, just so I could use them for collage. Seemed a waste to toss them in the trash! Photo supplies are spendiferous! So, I decided to put some of them to use this week, and I put together these collage pieces. The top piece measures 6 X 8 and is done on a recycled gallery canvas. The bottom piece measures 8 X 10 and is done on mat board. Both of these pieces feature the same child in the photo test strip, Miss Hannaboo.

I used gesso, acrylic paints, fancy paper, silver leaf, stamps/ink, clippings, tape transfers, frottage, and paper whatnots as well.

ADORE
It's collage time! I got out a piece of 8 X 10 black mat board and went to town on it with some white gesso and acrylic paint. I used a Neenah papers label on there and did some frottage, then scratched it all up. I added an old contour drawing of a fairy doll that I did for drawing class a couple of years ago. I put gesso on a tin leaf and used some tape transfers and ink/stamps as extra accents here and there, then finished it off with some of those little tin corners (originally colored pink) that I painted up with some gold and black gesso. Viola!

MIXED MEDIA PIECES ON RECYCLED CANVAS
Recently I cleaned out my studio and a lot of stuff went onto the burn pile. I spent a good day recycling canvasses with gesso in various colors. Many of them were left with interesting textures. I decided that they would make good surfaces for mixed media pieces and used some varying colors of gesso on them. I found some colors I thought looked good together and added some more textures to a couple of the canvasses. Here are the resulting pieces.

I used lots of gesso, ink, stamps, frottage, tape tranfer, clippings, fancy fiber paper, acrylic paints, and vintage hardware I found in NOLA.

SMALL, QUICK STILL LIFE PAINTINGS
These are some still life paintings done in the past few weeks. They are all 8 X 10 done on masonite boards. Everyone has been busy, so studio time at the school has been cut short and we've limited our work to smaller pieces, thus the 8 X 10 size here. I have a couple of larger ones I can post later but these are easy for now.

Some of these items are things I picked up on a recent weekend in New Orleans. The Boviril jar and the shooter marbles were finds in antique stores there. I also found some really cool old hardware that I used in a mixed media piece that I'll post later. The retro cream pitcher is a find that Melanie Atkinson came upon during her recent trip to North Carolina to visit family. It is way cute.

Vintage Bovril Jar & Lantern Flowers


Retro Cream Pitcher With Fruit


Peter's Pottery Bunny With Lilies & Vintage Shooters