Happy New Year! :D

Hello my lovely friends in blog land :) I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.

This served to be a very interesting and crazy year, I can't wait to see whats in store in 2010! I'm hoping it's a fully recovered, creatively productive, happy, healthy year! For everyone!

I thought I'd start the new year off right, with a blog update! :D

I'm taking Linda's Photo a week challenge which is to upload a picture every Monday. It's been a wonderful glimpse into the lives of those who participated last year and I'm really excited to join them this year. It certainly ought to keep me on my toes! ;) I've added the badge over there on the right. ;) For more details pop over to her blog.

Secondly, though I've been very very busy with the holidays, I managed to straighten up the studio a bit. I have a few new years resolutions but the biggest is attempting to let go of any reservation, create to my hearts content without fear, start some new projects asap & finally finish some of these WIPS! I can use all the motivation I can get, so if you'd like to join the ufo/ wip challenge please let me know! :)

I'll be having a little blog giveaway in the coming months, hopefully some free tutorials as well as a lil new class to share. :D

In closing, here are the ornaments I made for this years Holiday ornament swap.
I love making these snow people! However they are very hard to photograph!

These are sculpted in polymer and coated in many layers of "snow" (powder/ glitter & various grades of glass shards and beads)

Hard to see but he has a smiling mouth :)









This one is Mister Snowflake. Upon closer inspection, you can see the snow formations, swirls and irridescent beads form a "blowing" face. Can you see it?

















How about now? ;)


















I absolutely adore sculpting/ carving, scenes inside little shells. It's probably one of my favorite things to do, possibly because it's a lot like drawing and allows me to bring out a bigger piece of the vision. An ocean sky...

A winter night sky viewed through a trees branches...

After spending the day swimming through the sky, between the clouds and the breeze anxiously awaiting nightfall,
It finally arrives, her friend, the moon and the mesmerizing twinkling little stars...

She follows and catches a shooting star and drifts to the moon with it to rest...
The warmth and glow of the moon embrace her, a blanket from the starry midnight; ocean sky
wraps itself around her as she falls asleep.....

Of the stars, she dreams...

























Here's wishing all of you a super fantastic and safe New Years. ::Raising a toast:: May it be filled with family, friends, love, laughter, warmth, health and peace.






Hugs n love,
Sprite

ADO Elemental Challenge - Earth - Hamadryad (Dryad)

Hi Everyone! :)

It's time for The ADO Blog challenge, or shall we call it a party since this is so fun?! Yeah! Paarteeh'!

As previously mentioned, I'm participating in the ADO Elemental challenge, the challenge was to make a art doll/figure with one, two, three or all four of the Elements as inspiration, everyone was invited to join in the fun, members and non members, all levels and/or no experience necessary. We had a great turn out, 90 participants! Please be sure to visit the ADO blog to check out the fantastic pieces and other artists that were inspired by this challenge! The participants list is on the left. Please show some love by commenting to letting them know you stopped by. :)


I'm so glad I participated, it really motivated me to continually work on the piece and not procrastinate until mildly loosing interest. So far I'm really excited about where shes going and how close it is to what I envisioned.

Although today is the day we post our photos and I've been working on her as much as possible, I haven't quite finished yet. I'll be working on her more over the weekend and as I do hopefully we will get some nice weather so I can take some updated, clear pics. For now, I snapped a few just as the sun was going down. Just this side, the others aren't quite as finished ;) hee hee



In closing, I was asked the other day why I refer to her as a hamadryad. I thought I'd share, in case anyone else was wondering. There are different types of dryads, and wikipedia has provided me with the following definition to offer regarding this type...

Hamadryads (Ἁμαδρυάδες) are Greek mythological beings that live in trees. They are a specific species of dryad, which are a particular type of nymph. Hamadryads are born bonded to a specific tree. Some believe that hamadryads are the actual tree, while normal dryads are simply the entity, or spirit, of the tree. If the tree died, the hamadryad associated with it died as well. For that reason, dryads and the gods punished any mortals who harmed trees. The Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus lists eight Hamadryads, the daughters of Oxylus and Hamadryas:

As always, thank you so much for visiting! I truly appreciate that you took time out of your day to visit little me! :) Have a super fantastic and wonderful weekend!

BIG giant hugs,
Sprite

And so it begins.... UFO/ WIP Challenge!

Hi Everyone :) I hope you have been super!

Two posts in one day! Go me! ha ha ha jk ;)

These past few months have certainly been crazy but I'm hoping now things are getting back on track :) Here's a quick run down or you can scroll to the end to see what's going on creatively.

December 30, I had foot surgery which I have very slowly been recovering from.Wearing those oh so pretty 4 inch heeled boots for the majority of my life to hide the fact that I'm fairly tiny, left me on crutches and unable to walk for far longer than the doctor suggested.

For those of you who may not know me very well... I rarely relax or sit still and when I do I'm usually doing something "productive" while doing it so being down for so long was really getting to me. Talk about frustrating! Thankfully I'm walking again :)

To add to the craziness of things, I lost two uncles just a few months apart. My moms brothers and at the same time, my grandmother, was put in the hospital/ nursing home. Please send some healing energies our way to help mend our hearts and so we can take her home soon :)

On the plus sides, I'm healing. I got a new computer so now hopefully updating the blog will be much easier. I got myself a lil car, a volkswagon golf and its so cute! I should also have up an etsy store pretty soon.

Now, lets get back on the creative track! I'm participating in two challenges. :D

One is for ADO which is Shakespeare themed!

The other came to be through chatting with some friends the other day about unfinished pieces laying around the studio. I am terrible at finishing things especially if I do not have a deadline of some sort so this ought to keep me on my toes :) (Thanks Linda!)

The challenge is to post a photo of your UFO's & WIPS and finish one of them per month and post the finished piece on your blog on the first of the month. If you'd like to join us please let me know, or add it in your comment so we can add you to the blog list :) I think this will be motivating and inspire us to finish some of those poor lil guys who have waited patiently for their turn.

I put together many of my wips last night, these were just the ones I thought I might actually complete someday.

I tried to count them.... I believe there are over 60! Yes, I shamefully admit that you read that sentence correctly. I may have to finish a few per month to keep up with others!

Here is my Table of UFO's/WIPS!

Behind my retreat piece on the left, its hard to see but there
is not one but two large dragons and the start of a tree....


A little closer? Ok!

Right side of the table...
The tall one is for Sherry's Libelle class.


Parts that go with some of those heads :)


Oh my, even inside some of the drawers....


This one is new, she is for my mom :)


How many wips can you spot in this picture? :O
Jk! Stop counting, please! hee hee



For those of you participating in the ADO challenge, Ophelia's is the one with the closed eyes. :)



Heads and dragon babies!
That lil one on the left is only about an inch, he's tiny :)


I usually keep my creative space private, That's probably partly because it's the biggest WIP of them all! Here's one of my tables, this is where I get messy. This is for you Linda!

If you look closely on the shelves, there's a few wips up there, it was easier to show the space then to move that giant dragonfly! Oh, and in case I haven't mentioned it before, I collect toys....you think? ;)



If one were to zoom in on the top shelf they'd find these lil guys hanging out there. The brown thing on the left that's hard to see is the dragonfly WIP (you may have seen his skeleton being built in an earlier entry.)



So close but yet so far from completion...my poor turtle hoonie awww.. soon lil one, soon!


And so it begins... Which should I start with? Any suggestions? :)

Thanks for visiting and please wish me luck, I'll need it!

BIG hugs,
Sprite