New Stuff! Dragons and Baby Bird Dragon-Creatures??

Hi everyone! Hope you have all been super and are enjoying the summer so far!

I made a little more progress on the paper clay bust but still have much more work to do yet. Before I can move further I need to get his horns, teeth & spikes made so I can embed them in the clay and start constructing the wing frames.

Here's where we are so far:



















Thankfully, playing with paperclay inspired me to start some other new projects. It's so great to be creating again! I'm sculpting, drawing, painting, a little of everything! Yippee! I'm currently working on the courage to put up a couple of older drawings up (you know larger than thumbnail size) ha ha ha hopefully soon!

A few weeks ago I started playing with the Firm Super sculpey. I don't know why but i had convinced myself this stuff was going to be as hard as a rock, impossible to condition and would need to be chiseled into rather than sculpted with. Of course it is not at all like that so it needlessly sat in my drawer for years!

Sometimes with new or different clay(s) stranger than normally strange creatures emerge. I started sculpting thinking a dragon was about to be born but instead a baby bird dragon creature hatched from my clay!? Cute, but odd little creature isnt it!? He looks hungry, I wonder where his mommy is (hopefully finding him some food) and what she looks like.















Needs much work yet, horns, teeth, feet! ;) wing membranes and possibly some feathers or fuzzy flocking in areas cuz baby bird fuzz is just too cute not to include. :D

















This little one is being cured in the oven in stages the brownish areas are where I temporarily cured to hold details with a heat gun and roasted it. No worries it'll be painted anyway - speaking of which...I haven't a clue what colors he'll be, yellow, gold/ blue? Black, purple & red? ANY suggestions? Please!? :)


















That other lil blob next to him is a really rough start of a sleeping mousey looking creature.















As for the clay, I like working with it, not sure if its as strong as I would have imagined it to be but perhaps sitting in a drawer for years had something to do with that. The pieces is fine but I think I'll add some strengthener to it next time.

OH! and in closing, I see a few new readers, welcome and thank you all for being here! It truly makes my heart happy! :) Especially since I'm not the most frequent blogger and am long winded when I do post! To show my appreciation, I'm considering having a giveaway open to followers at 200 or so. That should give me a lil time to figure out what its going to be hee hee :) So stay tuned!

As always, Thanks so much for visiting!

BIG hugs,
Sprite

I'm back! and playing with paper clay! ;D

Hi Everyone! My goodness time has flown hasn't it!?

My apologies for the lack of updates, after my last entry my camera lens jammed so I've been without one. I was taking wip pics for an upcoming class and think I got some sand and glue in there, oops! Lesson learned ;) I'd also been in a major creative slump and when that happens I mostly draw and experiment with new mediums here and there - nothing terribly exciting but keeps me sane anyway...

Then last week I was reminded of how short life is with heartbreaking news of Hannie's passing... an amazing, awe inspiring incredible artist....who will be deeply missed....

Suddenly...my slump lifted. I didn't want to waste another precious moment waiting to play with materials I've wanted to experiment with, I grabbed the package of paper clay that I've had for quite a while and quickly grabbed some supplies and tools and started slapping some of it on a larger than my normal scale dragon bust armature that's been waiting for some love. To my surprise, I don't mind the feel of the paperclay which I'm thrilled about!

I'd only used this stuff briefly once before at Sherry & Jean's retreat. I love the idea of using it but it was quite different than what i was used to (polymer & apoxie) I was disappointed to find I did not like it, couldn't work with it, hated how it sucked my paint right into the seams I poorly blended and so I begged for help and gave the rest of my opened pack to Sherry to keep and make something wonderful with (and I have no doubt that she did!) I've seen so many beautiful figures being made with it I knew there had to be more to it....and there is! I think I just needed to try it again when I wasn't as nervous as I was in class.

Here's a quick pic of my first paper clay piece snapped with my cell phone




















It needs much work yet, including bulk, details, teeth, horns, wings etc, but i think I'm lovin the paper clay, (Although, truth be told I may add some of the finer details in my beloved apoxie sculpt.)

Hope you have all been super!!!!! As always thanks so much for visiting!!

BIG hugs,
Sprite

OWOH Winners & another very special Giveaway!

Hi Everyone! OWOH is over. Thank you all who stopped by to enter! It's so wonderful to meet you. :) Unfortunately, I wasn't able to visit as many blogs as I would have liked to this year but I will be sure to visit you all shortly. I'll also be having another giveaway as a thank you to my followers, soon. ;) Ok so here we go.....

As I mentioned I"d donated a piece for the ADO giveaway, what a fabulous response to an incredible giveaway! Congrats to Cathy!!!! of Christmas Corgi! She won my piece :)



















And Congrats to Joanna Thomas! Who was random generator picked # 27. She's the winner of my giveaway!




















It was quite difficult to capture their true coloring which is golds, copper, bronze and interference colors. I truly hope you both like them when they arrive.

I had a very pleasant surprise yesterday when I was informed that I was the lucky winner of this gorgeous piece of silk fabric from Shashi's giveaway!


Isn't it yummy?!





and....

Before I let you go, I wanted to tell you all about another a very special giveaway my friend Sue is having on her blog, It's called Thanksgiving in February.

Trust me, it is definitely special, I don't think you'll want to miss it. I'm headed over shortly to enter myself! ;)

Have a super fantastic & wonderful & creative day and as always thank you for visiting.

Hugs,
Sprite

OWOH - One World one Heart Blog Giveaway is here! :D

Hello Everyone, it's wonderful to see and meet you!
Won't you join me on a magical carpet ride? :)

Lisa at A Whimsical Bohemian (http://awhimsicalbohemian.typepad.com)
Started this awesome event in 2007. The idea was to bring bloggers together from around the world who may never ordinarily meet through a blog giveaway. Last year there were over 900 participants! To find out more about this event please check it out at:http://www.oneworldoneheart.typepad.com/
be sure to visit some of the others on the list! :)

I participated last year and it was so much fun I'm excited and thrilled to do it again! I met so many wonderful people... Thanks Lisa for creating and hosting such a wonderful event!

My giveaway is a small, one of a kind - 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 INCH - Mixed Media shadowbox style wall hanging created by me. :)

It's made primarily of recycled, natural found items, left over project pieces, lots of love, glues, textile hardeners and acrylic paint.

Work in progress pic:




















and here are a few updated pictures of the piece basically finished.
It was not easy to photograph something metallic!



















View in the shade....


















Side view: I love texture!

















Here's how to enter:

Simply leave a comment on this post! :) You may still enter even if you don't have a blog but please be sure to leave me a way to contact you in your comment.

Last chance to enter will be Feb 14th, Midnight, EST.
I will be using the automatic generator number picker thing to select the winner. It'll be announced here on February 15th and you will be contacted either via blog or email.

If you've won and receive an email/comment from me please get back to me asap. If I don't hear anything back within 3 days of the deadline I'll redraw the name thinking you fell off the planet, which I hope is not the case!

Sound fun? Then, great luck! :)

oh! I almost forgot, I also donated another small 2 1/2 inch x 5 1/2 inch wall hanging / ornament type piece for the ADO blog giveaway :) Here's a quick picture of it.
To see it better, click it to enlarge.



Pop over for a chance to win it and meet some amazing artists. There are 17 prizes being offered!














As always, thank you so much for visiting, I hope you will come again soon. Have a super~fantastic and wonderful day!

Big hugs,
Sprite

Random Post Alert! Monday photo & New Stuff :D

Well that didn't take very long.. Monday came & went and now its almost Monday again and where is my photo you ask? Still in my phone camera! The theme was shadows and we've had a pretty gloomy week so there weren't many shadows to snap pictures of.. I got a few in NYC reflecting off the buildings.... but I think this is much more fun.. look (not so great) shadow puppets! :D

Bunny rabbit..













Baby Camel??












Ostrich??











I think tomorrows theme is supposed to be my favorite coffee cup, while I have a few I really like I don't think I have a "favorite", but I do like the one in this picture... which conveniently was in my camera, so it counts! I just recently hung that shelf to get a few Wips off the sculpting table... as you can see there's quite a few still on the table. They keep me company ;)















In other news... I've been playing around with some new stuff....

I finished these two headpieces a couple of weeks ago. They were the result of Jean Bernards newest class on making Headpieces. Click on that sentence if your curious about the class... They were sooo much fun to make & extremely addictive!

The little flowers I added are craft porcelain which I had been experimenting with.... I'm really liking this stuff!








































Hmm?....
Think he might be royalty!? I suppose he'll tell me eventually.... ;)












I'm also trying really hard to finish up a little shadow box type wall hanging for the One world one heart event that starts tomorrow.... so I must go slap on a coat of paint but expect another update tomorrow with the details if you'd like a chance at the giveaway... :)


Have a super~ fantastic day everyone!!! Thanks so much for visiting....

Big hugs,
Sprite

Photo a Week - "Something New" :)

I'm late! I'm late ! for a very important date! Well, it's not Monday but better late that not at all right? :D

This weeks theme is something new. I have quite a bit of "new" going on here but this particular "something new" deserves it's own entry!

The other day I got a wonderful surprise from my friend Linda.
Apparently I won one of her blog giveaways!! :D

The box contained a pretty little vase filled with these beautiful shells that Linda collected herself in Florida. There were also battery operated mini lights and fiber optics to add to the vase. My goodness the woman even thought to put in batteries for both!!

I'm not sure if I was supposed to but I used both types of lights and I LOVE it! Isn't this gorgeous?!


















All lit up in the dark



















Thank you sooo much Linda!!!! And thank you all for visiting :)
Have a super fantastic day!

hugs,
Sprite

A Photo a week!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm participating in "a photo a week challenge". It's really neat, like a glimpse into the participants lives. If you'd like more info head over to Linda's blog :) This weeks is a free choice of whatever we wanted to take a picture of. Most of the weeks to follow will have a theme.

All day I wondered what my first photo would be of... and then I had the challenge of finding some working batteries somewhere in this house to be able to snap it when I figured out what it would be. I managed to "borrow" some for a few minutes and just then as I was putting them in the camera, I walked in the room to find my beautiful lil? black kitty Mira, sitting in an old chair (my grandmas) by the lil electric fireplace in my studio.


She's such a good cat, she gives great hugs and kisses and is a just a sweetie, she's also blind.

She gets along fine though, in fact so well that although it's been confirmed, sometimes it's questionable ;)

Here's some trivia and history for anyone who wants to read it :) I have 5 kitties I adore, all of which are rescues.

I've had her for about 10 years. I used to help out a little at the vet/adoption center where I adopted my two boys from. I walked in one day to find this tiny little black thing facing the back of the cage crying/meowing. When I'd asked what was wrong they told me she'd gotten adopted so they fixed her but she was too little and young and she died. They resuscitated her but she came back without her eyesight and the people who were going to adopt her decided they didn't want her anymore because she was blind. Awww! It broke my heart. They weren't charging any adoption fees since she was disabled, I had no idea what I'd do with three cats (kittens!), let alone a blind one in my very small apt but it didn't matter. I stuck that little tiny thing in the front pocket of the orange hoodie sweater I was wearing, got her medication because her stomach was all shaved and infected, put it in my other pocket and took her home and nursed her to health.

Mira, is short for miracle... shhh cheesy, I know.... ;)

Thanks for visiting!

HUGS,
Sprite