Creative Business Plan Marathon!

Hi guys,
I just wanted to say thanks for coming over to the creativebizmarathon.com blog and checking us out! It was a wild 24 hours for all of us, and we are a lot closer to having a plan ready for 2011 now.  If you haven't had a chance, follow the link to see what we did.  A group of 5 artists started reading the book The Creative Entrepreneur together and posting our exercises online.  It helps us to keep each other on track, and hopefully inspire other artists to get moving on their plan for 2011.

I know that some of you stopped over, and I appreciate it!  It's nice to know that somebody out there was seeing all of our hard work :)

We are heading out of town for New Year's Eve, and then I'm off to deliver my work for the upcoming exhibit for the Cabarrus County Arts Council.  I'll be back early January, and I am really looking forward to getting back to a studio routine!!

Be safe on New Years!
~Kelly

On Being Thankful

I wanted to share with you the finished sketch that I did while the kiddo was in her travel crib on Christmas Day.  This sketch didn't start out as a drawing about my daughter, but that day, listening to her as she talked to her stuffed animals, I decided that it was a perfect sketch for her.  I love the beauty of the flowers in the girls hair in the sketch, and it reminds me of the beauty that my daughter has brought into my life.   The light in the eyes of the girl in the drawing reminds me of the light in my daughter's eyes when she giggles about something silly.

All this might be a little too mushy for you, but I was feeling all sorts of tender on that day, and I was thankful for all of the goodness in my life.  I hope you had a wonderful holiday, and I am so looking forward to the new year!

And speaking of the upcoming year... I am in the middle of a 24 hour blogging adventure over at creativebizmarathon.  It is a group of 5 artists, and we are all creating our business plans for 2011, and we are putting it online for all to see.   If you've started thinking about your plan for the new year, and are feeling curious about our plans, come on over to see us! We all have different styles and there is a lot of information over there!

~Kelly

Working on a Sketch

Yikes! The Sketchbook Project deadline is nearing, and I still have some pages to fill! So I've been slowly working on a sketch that I started a while back... I'm just having fun drawing girls' faces for some reason. I love drawing the features of the face, and would you look at those lips?? Wowsers, those are some full lips!



Anyway, I've just started adding color to her. Right now, I'm using colored pencils because that is what was handy, but I'm sure some other mediums will get thrown in there too. Oh, and those lighter streaks across the drawing is sunlight streaming across my worksurface. If you haven't heard about it, check out The Sketchbook Project. There are over 28,000 people worldwide participating in this venture! That is so cool!!



Here is another little thing I did over the weekend. Tile coasters! We went over to Laura Otero's house for a craft party and made these. She was kind enough to supply all the materials! And last, but not least, here is a picture of my hubby and the kiddo just before the parade..



What a riot! Stay safe this week with all the last minute shopping out there going on...
~Kelly

Missing my Studio Time & Having Fun, too

This week has been a flurry of activities!  I've had to forfeit my studio time to get ready for Christmas.  I've actually enjoyed the shopping, and hearing the music and buying for my loved ones.  I'm feeling good this holiday, I love my family, and I have much to be thankful for.  But just last night, I started to feel that feeling, the one that makes me grumpy if I don't get in the studio.  I am waiting for some pieces to dry, then I can add them to my kiln for a full load.  I am at a good stopping point in the work flow of things, but I don't really want to stop!  I think what will happen over the next few days is that I'll have to carve out some time for other creative things, like sketching or art journaling.  Those things are so much more conducive to working in a 30 minute window.  It's hard to get much done in the clay studio in 30 minutes.  That's just long enough to get your hands dirty, and then it's time to clean up!  I'm in a glazing phase right now, and that takes me a little longer to complete a stage. 

All this chaos has been fun, though.  What's really fun is seeing Christmas through the eyes of my 2.5 yr old daughter.  She is so excited and is having SO MUCH fun seeing all the decorations and hearing her favorite Christmas carols (Rudolph and Jingle Bells).  I am so happy we decided to have a child.  She brings so many smiles to our lives everyday!

Here is a photo of another birdhouse I've made.  I like using simple forms and playing with the surface decorations.  This form actually started out as a square bowl I used to make back in my functional pottery days.  I am using the underside of the mold and forming the square birdhouse from that.  It gives me a supported surface that I can then draw and carve into!  I like this little red bird, too.  We have a lot of cardinals around my house, and I was thinking of those guys when I painted this little one.  I've rested the birdhouse on a shelf for the photo, but this one has holes and will hang on the wall.

Hope you have a fun and merry weekend lined up! This is the last weekend before Christmas and there is a lot happening! Tonight we have a Christmas party at my house with friends, tomorrow is a holiday crafting party with Laura Otero of Strategic Online Marketing and Dreamy Designs, and then Sunday is our local parade, where my hubby dresses as an elf and rides his unicycle.  What a riot! He is definitely a local celebrity around here, just due to the parade.  :)

Have fun!
~Kelly

Wall-mounted Birdhouse

Hello there!
I wanted to share with you one of the pieces I finished recently.  I call these Birdhouses, and I've been stewing on this idea for months now.  I couldn't work on them until I had my pieces complete for the upcoming exhibition in January, but now I am plowing ahead and getting ready for my retail show in March.  I"m having fun coming up with designs that can hang on the wall.  I tend to think that "sculpture" goes on the shelf or table or pedestal.  So it is a different way of thinking to come up with hanging items.  Here is one birdhouse:

The little birdie is a light, almost chartreuse green, and there's little hints of that color (which are hard to see in the photo) in the house itself.  I need to measure to get the dimensions, but the height of the piece is probably around 10" or 11" to give you an idea.  I can totally see a grouping of three of these on a wall... what about you?

Hope you had a great weekend.  We had a very cold and quiet weekend, and it was just lovely.

~Kelly

Turning a journal page into a Clay Painting

Ever since our trip this summer to San Francisco, I've been toying with what to do with my sketches.  I like some of them enough that I'd like to see them come to life in another medium, and so I recently decided to do some Clay Paintings.  I've only done one; this is my first experiment with it.  You can read about this sketch here, as the original drawing, or here as the mixed media painting on birch panel.  The dimensions are roughly 9"x9"x3", made out of stoneware clay, and she was fired 3 or 4 times to play with the glazes.  I took her out of the kiln yesterday, and she kept me awake last night, thinking of how to finish her off.  I painted her with ceramic underglazes, and mostly I was happy with the results after all the firings, but I just couldn't help myself and had to add some acrylic paint and colored pencil.  What do you think of her? I am trying to decide if this is something I want to keep pursuing...  Perhaps I will do a couple more and then review them as a whole.

I've been running the kiln almost nonstop, trying to get some pieces to completion, and I've burned myself out a bit.  I'm taking a break from all the glazing and firing, and getting my hands back into the wet clay.  I'll be posting some of the new pieces over the next couple of weeks.

Hope everyone is well and getting ready for the holiday!  I still have some shopping to do...

~Kelly