Sky Jewelry

If you have taken a glance at my twitter or facebook pages in the past few months, chances are that you've seen one of the many photos I've  taken of this piece. I couldn't help myself - this painting won me over even as I spend finger-numbing hours sewing each star by hand. There's something about the simplicity  of the image vs. the tediousness of the technique that is striking -  and difficult to capture in photos! So forgive my "photo overload"...

It began with this piece of fabric:

After dyeing it light blue, I mixed up a batch of navy RIT dye and slowly dipped the fabric to create an ombre effect. I have very little fabric dyeing experience so at this point I was basically figuring it out as I went along.

Thankfully, it turned out exactly as I'd hoped:

After stretching the fabric onto canvas stretchers, I started painting in the skyline and added some brushstrokes in to deepen the faded look. And I couldn't resist sprinkling some pastel-colored stars in the sky:

One of my secret wishes for this project was to finally master french knots, the one basic embroidery stitch that has always given me trouble. There are a few wonky ones in there, but I must say that I'm feeling a bit more confident in my french knots these days.

If you want a piece of the night sky for yourself, you can buy the 8x10 "Sky Jewelry" print at my etsy shop. Hope you like how it came out!

Safe Pasture

Hello! I'm excited to share a new painting with you today. Over the past  three months, I set to work creating some new paintings for my first  ever solo gallery show called "Threads." One of six 32" x 40" paintings,  this piece combines paint, pencil and thread in a way I'd never tried  before.

Each of the paintings were inspired by a different biblical Psalm; this one was taken from Psalm 37: Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

I absolutely loved stitching these pastel colors directly over my brushstrokes - it was a "no turning back" moment but I really am happy with how it turned out.

Here's a little look back at the process of creating this one. I loved this painting at each different stage (which isn't always the case!). It gives me a "safe" feeling and I wish I could crawl inside and spend a week in that sweet little cabin.

An 8x10 print of the painting is available in my etsy shop. Enjoy!

"Safe Pasture" painting progress

"Dusk" painting progress

"Knit Together" painting progress

Cabin drawing

Hi friends, Hope you had a lovely weekend. I spent most of my time doing this:

It feels good to be drawing and painting again. I'll be starting painting #4 for my "Threads" show this week, and am excited to try out something new that I've had on my mind for a while... which might work out exactly how I see it in my mind or might fail miserably. Fingers crossed!

Last year

It's amazing how quickly a year can slip by, isn't it? On New Year's day I found myself trying to remember what has even happened over the past twelve months. The more I thought, the more I realized that 2011 was actually a great year. I don't usually talk too much about my personal life here on the blog, choosing to keep it more about what I'm working on, but I think I'll make an exception to do a little "2011 year in review"- hope you don't mind! I've condensed my entire year into one memorable event from each month. JANUARY

While I spend my nights, weekends, days off and lunch hours working on illustrations and making things, during the day I work for Providence Media, a publishing company here in RI. January marked my transition from assistant art director (which I started as in July '09) to art director. That month we were working on a cover story for February's issue of Providence Monthly, which was definitely the highlight of the month. We made paper cutout props and had a fun nautical-themed photo shoot. You can see the rest of the issue here.

FEBRUARY

In February, my family adopted Bonnie. This photo is from one of our first walks together. Look at that face!

MARCH

March was a quiet month; I was doing a lot of brainstorming and prep work. These are some of the images that were inspiring me, gathered on my digital inspiration board. (1. Michael Kenna, 2. Dermot Flynn, 3. Ed Ruscha, 4. modified version of this 1927 photo)

APRIL

The biggest project I worked on this year was Easter Encounter, basically a giant walk-through art installation created by 70 artists and volunteers from Renaissance Church that sought to communicate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Being involved in the dreaming, construction and sharing of this was a humbling, exciting experience and was definitely a highlight of my year.

MAY May meant packing up and saying goodbye to a beautiful apartment. In the process I ended up going through a ton old paintings, as far back as when I was 5 years old, photographing each one before unceremoniously shoving it into a garbage bag. (Ouch!) It's okay, I saved my favorites.

JUNE Now you see why I had to get rid of so much! I'm learning to love living with less things. My new workstation holds the whittled-down essential tools that I need to make my art. (Even with less stuff, I still manage to make a huge mess.)

JULY

Every year I look forward to the Newport Folk Festival with much anticipation. It's a great mix of bands I already love and bands I fall in love with that weekend. Here's me, in my giant sun hat, with Rhode Island's famous Del's frozen lemonade. Mmmmm.

AUGUST

This year I turned 25, and the cake was delicious. I also got hurricane Irene the week of my birthday, which reminded me that, yes, I can survive without the internet.

SEPTEMBER Shortly after the hurricane, my family and I took a quick getaway to New Hampshire. My favorite memory from the trip was exploring a hiking trail that followed a cascading waterfall down the mountain. It was way more beautiful than my camera could capture, but this photo at least reminds me of it.

OCTOBER

The biggest milestone of the month was finishing the illustrations for my first children's book! Unfortunately, you can't see that yet. But the other exciting event of October was going to see The Civil Wars, my favorites. This was, hands down, my favorite concert ever.

NOVEMBER My mom makes a great Thanksgiving dinner, and this years' was no exception. But the highlight of the month, honestly, was getting to hang out with my family. Now that my siblings and I are all out on our own, I really treasure our time together.

DECEMBER

I had ten days off in December. Ten days.(I still can't believe it.) I spent a couple of those days working on getting a new series of paintings started, and it was bliss. Resting and making art? A perfect way to end 2011, if you ask me.

What was the highlight of your year?

"Sky Jewelry" painting progress

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?

psalm 8:3-4 (the message)

Custom wrapping paper illustration

Happy almost-Thanksgiving! I've been working on so much Christmas stuff lately, I keep forgetting that Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet; my brain already skipped over it. Anyways, here's some work I did recently for the cover of SO Rhode Island's December issue- a custom wrapping paper design with illustrations of local landmarks. This was my first attempt at patterns, so I kept it simple. There are so many great pattern designers out there that it can be intimidating to even try, but it was a lot of fun and satisfying to see the final product. Thanks to Stacey Doyle for her photography work on the cover!

Guide to Giving illustrations

The December issue of SO Rhode Island Magazine featured a Guide to Giving, including sections on holiday tipping and charitable giving. Here are some small illustrations of mine that accompanied the story: