More New Pendants

I managed to get more pendants ready last week.  Now the chains are driving me crazy!!  I spent most of the day today making design decisions to compliment the pendants.  I think I finally hit on what I want but boy, what a lot of work!!  LOL

I'll post pics of the necklaces complete in my next post but for now, here are the new pendants:

On another note:  Bailey finished 13th in the singing competition.  Thank you all so much for voting for her.  We truly appreciated the effort.  xoxo

New Paintings

I have been working for weeks on the pendants (I have 15 more in the kiln!!) and the Legions (my ceramic figures...pictures still to come).  I have to switch up my activities or lose my mind so yesterday I put everything aside and painted a few new paintings.  Big Boss was done start to finish yesterday but the two others had been started a couple of weeks ago so they just needed finishing up.

Big Boss

Bedtime Stories

Picture Books

On another note, thank you so much to all the people who have voted for my daughter Bailey in her online singing conpetition.  She is currently in 11th place out of 126 contestants.  If you would like to go over and vote for her, there is still a little time.  The contest ends on Friday.  To vote for her, go to talenthouse.com/baileycarvalho  Type her name in the search box and then choose the middle link which says Dear California (her original song).  That will take you to the voting page.  Again, thank you.  She works so hard on her music.



New Pendants

These are pendants I have been working on for the past week. They are ceramic, fired about 5 times and measure about 2". I think they are going to look amazing on chains! The round pieces will be connectors.  I tried to get the chains finished, as well...but you know how it goes! Computer problems, dinner.....Alabama playing LSU !!!

The Value of an Idea Journal

I tried so hard to be a "journaler" when that avenue of art first became so popular.  I both made and bought journal after journal each time promising myself that I would fill it with my art.  What I discovered is that I am NOT a journaler!!  Haha!  The reason:  I am an all or nothing person.  A page in those journals is exactly like a one of my complete paintings (translation:  hours and hours of work, with pressure to make it perfect!).  Not that my paintings are perfect but I like a certain look and can't get past the feeling that something is not complete until I hit that level of detail I am looking for.  Here are a few journal pages (I just took pics of the pages, I didn't crop them or try to make them more presentable!):

I so admire the people who can make amazing journal pages in a reasonable amount of time.  I'm not one of those people!!  Consequently, I stopped trying to do this type of journaling.  That's not to say I don't keep a journal!  I keep an IDEA journal....a place to put the things that pop into my head all day long.  A LOT of the ideas in this journal become complete paintings, though on wood, not in the journal.  Here is my current journal (I posted a picture a while back):

This journal is never far from me.  I have so many weird things bouncing around in my head that I can't possibly remember them all.  I add little drawings to the pages constantly.  The best part for me is that there is no pressure to make any of the drawings anything other than "ideas".  Here are a couple of pages:

As you can see from the first page, three of the little drawings have already become completed paintings, click here to see the completed paintings.  On the second page, I am currently working on pendants from the little drawings (I'll do a post when they are ready).

Personally, I have so much inside my head that I can't possibly remember all the ideas.  I can't tell you how many times I look through my journal for an idea for a new painting and I don't even remember drawing some of the pictures.  That means that idea would have been forgotten forever had I not drawn it right then!  There is no pressure because I know these are just ideas and the details will be added elsewhere when I start the actual painting.

I only show you all of this to encourage you to do whatever type of "journaling" that appeals to you.  I have accepted my own limitations to traditional journaling and embraced the style of journaling that works for me.  There is HUGE value in that!

xoxo                  I love you guys!