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.

Sorry for the absence; as the summer progressed it became harder and harder to find the time to do anything with my art or anything online.  So I decided to just wait until school started again for my son.  Now that it has, I can get back to work.

This has been the project I have been working on recently. I’ve had this fairy in my sketchbook for a while and wanted to do something with it.  I am starting out with watercolors then using acrylics for brighter colors.  So far so good I think. J

These Fashion fairies were one of the summer projects I started and had to stop until school started once again.  I actually redid the Lily; here is the first one;

It wasn’t what I had in mind in the first place though it does look good it wasn’t what I wanted, I’m happier with the second one.  Now the Hibiscus, if you haven’t recognized it yet, was originally done for a fundraiser for Haiti at Jerry’s Art-o-Rama.  At the request of one of several people I made another one, though slightly different.

Coming up this weekend is CopperCon , it’s here in Mesa so if you are in the area come check it out.  They are not having an art show or art auction, but they did offer several panel spacing in the dealer’s room for artists to show their work. I’ll be displaying some of my original art there. CopperCon runs Saturday thru Monday, Sept. 4-6.

This time around I’m going to try to post more blogs and try to keep you updated on my art.  I must warn you though, I may forget; sometimes I get so into my art that nothing else happens – including keeping the house clean.

Leprecon 36 started started Friday and my art is now in the art show there!  It was almost scary getting to it however.  I had neatly packed all the pictures in the car, some in the trunk and the rest in the back seat.  A lesson in packing pictures in the back seat, DO NOT lean them upright in the back seat, you lay them flat instead.  Which is the smart way to do it but I wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box that morning.

So we are heading to the con when the first light we come up to suddenly turns yellow.  I was trying to stop quick enough but slow enough so I didn’t knock the pictures over, but at the end, they all went toppling over to the foot of the back seat.  All I could do was keep driving (since the con is only 10 minutes from my house) and pray that everything was alright.  When I got there I found that out of the four pictures in the seat only the glass on one was broken.  And it was a standard size so we were able to replace it quickly.  But still its a little scary seeing something you work so hard on having a near death experience!

The art show has some really awesome stuff and it was great talking to some of the artists there also I was able to met some new people and found a Tiny Army friend had works on display too.  There’s one I met who had some fun creative art on display, and his website is pretty awesome too-check it out – http://alexanderscotthughes.com/

Last night the guest artist Charles Vess walked through the art show and first spoke of his art and then gave his opinion of the our art.  He is a pretty amazing artist and had some great advice to give.  Its was a honor being there and hearing what he had to say about my art.

I’ll let you know how it all turned out when it’s over…

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 had intentions to post this the other day but my body went on strike and shut down on me on Thursday.  I spent most of that day sleeping and being a vegetable.  I guess I was using more energy than I’d thought the last couple of weeks.  Listen to your body folks or it will stop listening to you.  Friday was busy, then the weekend flew by, and now here we are!

First I finished my painting titled ‘Lightning Sprite’. You can see the a larger version in my fantasy art gallery. There were so many times I wanted to give up and quit but I couldn’t.  For one, I would kick myself for the rest of my life knowing I failed at a piece, but the main reason I kept going because my husband wanted to see it finished.  I know I say this so many times on this blog but I consider myself a very lucky woman to be married to such a wonderful supporting man.

While we are on the subject of my husband, he gave the most wonderful mother’s day present.  He took me to see “Celtic Women” this last week.  It was even better than I imagined it to be.  We were up in the nose-bleed section but we could see the whole stage perfectly.  The concert was in the ASU Gammage, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  I thought I would just put that in for those curious.  So yes it was an amazing experience and I had never felt so special or so loved in my whole entire life!  So again thank you “Love”.

The next morning I had to take my son to the dentist to have some cavities drilled.  Because he has autism he had to be sedated first.  He had to drink the mixture and then wait for 45 minutes.  I thought that the drug would slow him down; instead he started bouncing off the walls!  And to add to that he walked up too almost every kid in the waiting room, asked their name, ran back to me to tell me their name and then ran back to the child so he can tell him his name.  It was embarrassing but cute.  At the end the dentist said my son did great! But he still has to go back in to get the rest of his teeth done.

So this weekend is Leprecon.  For those of you that are going to be down in Arizona for this event please stop on by the art show and see the beautiful work that me and the other artists have worked so hard on.   I’m a little nervous being that this is my first time I’m putting art in a show but I’m excited at the same time.  It will be fun to see how this goes.

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!

What a week!  And this next one is going to be about the same! My sister came to visit from Idaho this past week.  It was wonderful seeing her again, but I also had to be a mom to a sick little boy. He got Pink eye and a cold at the same time. But we were still able to have fun and bless my husband’s heart he sacrificed his time to tend to Marius so I was able to hang out with my sister. I owe him big!

I finished this contest piece that I posted about earlier:

I call it Sisters, the three women are related and the main characters of a story written by a fellow artist.  The man who create these ladies has some really neat stuff if you are into martial arts you should check him out at commando massacres.  As for the contest, I got third place.

I am now preparing for the Art-A-Thon that is coming up on Saturday, March 20^th at Jerry’s Art-a-rama on Rural Rd in Tempe, AZ. I’ll be there at 11:00 so if any of you are in the area, stop on by!  Here is a sketch idea of what I’m planning on painting there.

I’ve been keeping my husband busy this past week with my galleries website’s re-design.  He is such an amazing guy you won’t believe how much work and time he has put into helping with not only my website but this blog and has been teaching me how to use everything along the way.  I’ve designed a new logo that I’m going to use on it and try to incorporate into other places like my business card and maybe on here as well eventually.

There are a few things that I’ve been working on as well. Today I’m starting on a piece for this contest it should prove fun.  I also am getting ready to redo this picture:

I call it “Stubborn” and it was originally from a contest that had a time limit of 24 hrs.  Yep, I was up working on it till 4 in the morning then didn’t win anything.  Oh well, it turned out pretty cool, though it’s not at its best. I’m going to redo it in acrylics with some slight changes and fix some of the things I don’t care for in it.

I’m planning on displaying some art in the LepreCon convention here in Mesa, May, 14-16. I have never done anything like this before so this should prove quite an experience.  I’m hoping I’ll have “Stubborn” done for this event as well as a few others, but I do have some finished ones I’m excited to show to the public. I may also be attending the Phoenix ComiCon this year, and helping out the Tiny Army with their booth. I’ll post more about that when I find out more information.