Lizzy D's Art Blog|My art, projects, and life in general

So last year I was lying in bed after a day at looking at art and photos being sold in downtown Mesa AZ.  For some reason I distinctly remember a photo of Marigolds and that image stayed in my head for the rest of the day and into the night.  An idea popped into my head as I was lying there…and it was a good idea!  Fairies wearing flowers!  Very original I know but it wasn’t fantasy type clothing I was thinking of-no it was modern clothing!  And so I set myself to work and now a year and a half later I finished my project.  14 fairies were painted but only 12 will be seen grouped together in a calendar for 2011!  I am so excited about this just because it was the biggest project I put myself into!  I have it on sale for preorder here in my Etsy shop.  Here is a sample of one of the months.

In other news I finished my painting of my Dandelion Fairy only to be struggling with making it look right on the computer. I will post it once I get things fixed.

For future notice the TusCon is coming up in November 12-14.  I’ll be having a dealers table there and I’ll have a panel in the art show.  I’m going to be selling the calendar, prints, cards and even originals there so stop on by if you are in the area.

It is now summer in Arizona and I’m already looking forward to winter. It’s just freakin’ hot down here! And let’s add a story to this hot weather complaint. It was the first week of June when I was taking a right turn at a light just a minute away from my home. All of a sudden WHAM; my car got hit! Lucky for me they had insurance, but unfortunately for us it was the car with AC. It’s been in for repairs it’s taking a while for that to get done. We have been driving our second car that is an old 1990 Toyota Corolla that has no AC. So we have the windows rolled down and hope that all the stop lights stay green- yeah it’s that hot.

What all have I been up too lately? I must apologize for the absence. Since my son got out of school for the summer it’s been hard focusing on my work, but once school starts again everything should settle back into place again. But it doesn’t mean I haven’t done any art, I actually been working on small projects.

These were done for a contest on deviantArt. I was supposed to come up with my own character designs for Fantasy Earth Zero. They were fun to do and were a small enough project I could take them with me when my son was at swim team practice.

Other artsy things I’ve been doing are teaching art classes from home. I’ve been teaching a couple of girl’s watercolors and a younger one arts and crafts. It’s been fun and educational for both me and the girls. I actually find it hard to teach others my techniques because I am so use to doing them myself and they just come naturally with no need for an explanation. Trying to tell someone else how to do it really makes me have to think about each step I go through when I paint!

Another project is something my husband and I are working on. We are making steampunk costumes! He is farther along on his than I am…it’s actually been pretty hard trying to come up with just the right outfit. But once things start picking in the costume making I’ll post the progress if I can.

Tomorrow is the first day of Leprecon!  So if you are in town come check it out, it’s at the Phoenix Mesa Marriott here in Mesa, AZ. I have spent this last week trying to get everything ready, with the one thing that took up most of my time was trying to finding mats for the pictures.  I knew what colors of mats that I wanted to match with the paintings and the frames I had for them, but after searching through four different stores I had to settle with some second best mat choices.  After cutting them I found that they didn’t quite go well with two of the paintings and I wasn’t happy. My husband remembered a smaller art store that we hadn’t been to in years because they were a bit pricey and the store was cramped and unorganized, but I figured we might as well check it out. When we got there, the first mat I saw was EXACTLY what I wanted in the first place!!  In fact they had a lot more in store selection then the other places, and their prices were similar to the other places I had checked out.

So now everything is matted and framed and ready for the art show.  I must admit this is my first art show so I’m feeling a little nervous.  Mostly because I won’t be there the whole time so I can’t protect my art from any bad scrutiny.  I know that sounds silly but my art means a lot to me.

I just finished another piece for the art show, one I had as an option should I find some extra time for it. It was done on black paper with prisma pencils, which causes issues getting a good scan out of my scanner for some reason, but here is the original sketch:

She is the second of a light fairy series, this is the first one:

Well, I still have some last minute things to do so I’ll type again soon!

I’m Alive! (sort of…)

I’m sorry I disappeared like that, a lot has happen recently.  Multiple family members have came down and visited, my son got scarlet fever (don’t worry he’s fine), and just little things here and there. But now things are quieting down and I can get some work done now.  Speaking of work, I spent all of last week working on this acrylic painting:

There you go!  “Stubborn” redone.  This is done in acrylics and took me about 40-50 hours to paint, compared to the 15 or so on the original (it was a speed painting contest).  It definitely looks like I imagined it to be and I’m very happy with the way it turned out. I’ll be including this at the upcoming Leprecon 36 here in Phoenix next month. For reference, here is the original version, done in Watercolor paints:

It has been a while since my last acrylic painting and I forgot how much more detailed you can get with them than with watercolors. My husband has been trying to get me to use acrylics more because he enjoys the bright, vivid colors that they have. I had to go out and purchase several new colors and replacement paints as several of my other ones were almost empty or dried up, and they had a nice sale on paints so I grabbed a few new colors. I plan on using acrylic’s for my next few paintings as well.

I’ve got two 5-foot panels that I’ll have my art on at Leprecon, and planning on putting some stuff in the print gallery as well. A few of my Flower Fashion Fairies will be up for sale as originals and prints, and a few other new paintings that I hope to have finished in time. I won’t be at the booth or the con itself, but if you’re attending feel free to stop by and let me know what you think of my stuff – or even better, purchase some of it .

Phoenix Comicon is coming up next month as well and I’ve got several ideas on what to have there. I’ll be helping out at the Tiny Army booth for a few hours and will have some prints, ACEO’s, and other stuff for sell. I’ll give you more details on that as it gets closer.

Speaking of getting stuff finished in time, I need to get going on the next painting! See ya!

With the help of my wonderful husband my website is finally complete! I am so lucky to have such a supportive husband he sacrificed a lot of time into the website and to help me get started with this blog and other things to help get my art out there! So please take a look around and tell me what you think.

If you are in the Tempe, AZ area, today is you last chance to buy a raffle ticket to win a drawing or painting at Jerry’s Artarama. One raffle ticket is $5 and 5 tickets are $20.

I am now starting to get art ready for the Leprecon coming up in May. I have some finished art but there some I need to start on or redo. I’m a little stressed about it but at least I have a plan, normally I don’t have one of those. Here’s a sketch of one of my “plans”:

We made it to the annual Arizona Renaissance Festival on opening day this year. A much better experience for us than when we attended 2 years ago during its final weekend. The crowds were a lot smaller, the people were full of energy, and my son let us enjoy most of it.    One of the things I missed was enjoying the musical performances, my son, sadly, doesn’t show much interest in that sort of thing and feels he must express it verbally during the performance.  The sacrifices of a mother *sigh* oh well.  But with that aside everything else was great!  We saw some great juggling and tightrope walking and of course the JOUSTING!  We were rooting for the blood thirsty knight – it was pretty awesome!

The villagers were great too, if not a little weird.  A man was trying to sell his niece and nephew to us for 2 pence each, I had to turn down his offer as my son is like having 3 children in one, I don’t need more.  Not long after that I found myself playing match maker for a young man’s mother…who was a potato.  I advised a radish for I thought the potato might find it rather hot!  Then there was a fairy, I must admit there was something other worldly  about her presence.  The children around her (including my son) were just captivated by her mute, innocent gestures and by the music of her two-pipe flute.

The shops were fun to walk through, they gave my husband and I ideas for some costumes that we would like to make and some great ideas for my art.  I tried on some feathered hats and a corset that I thought would go well with a costume idea I had. Too bad the prices for those things are outrageously high at the faire’s.