It's a Dragonfly Kind of Day

To truly enjoy the beautiful weather we had today, I went for a bike ride.  I've been seeing this for a few weeks now on my way to and from work, and I fnally was able to snap a picture of it at the end of the bike ride. It's painted on a piece of slate, and has a protective gloss coating over it, and has been bolted to this pine tree. 

After eating lunch in the sun on the front porch, I wanted to find a way to continue enjoying the loveliness of the day, so I decided to go ahead and make this, which I had been planning to do for a while.  Note: plywood and Heineken caps are not the easiest to nail through.  The caps have rubber undersides and plywood is a much harder wood than I realized.  

If the weather cooperates, and it did today, I build my metal sculptures on my back patio where I have a little table I work on. 

Let There Be Light!!

 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is the beginning of a new design phase for Cool Beans Art!  Well, okay, it's not that drastic, but this is the first of many lamps that I will be making with a little help from my dad.  Neato liquor bottles and 22 oz - 750 ml beer bottles will be transformed into decorative lighting.  For now, the cord is not inside the bottle, but once my dad and I have more practice at drilling through the glass without shattering it (diamond cutter drill bits, baby), cords will get stashed inside the bottles.  Now to find lamp shades that compliment the bottles....

Creative Juice

Good Morning! My creative juices are flowing this morning! I must've had creative juice with breakfast or something because I'm all pumped up.  I've been browsing Etsy for different things and have so many ideas of things to try. For instance, can marbles be used for anything besides Chinese checkers? And I'm loving the vintage butterfly and vintage Alice in Wonderland images that are put onto thin wood and made into jewelry.  Pandora is playing in the background on the Etta James station (R.I.P.), and I'm ready to get dressed and get crafting...or arting...if that's even a word!

Oh, and yesterday after work, I stopped in Classy Hair, which is a shop in Covington.  That place is the next best thing to the Uptown Costume Shop to me (on Magazine in New Orleans), and of course, Fifi Mahony's on Royal is amazing.  But the first two shops have more than just wigs and make-up.  They also have clothing and costume jewelry as well.  Anywho, I'm all excited because of the fun finds I came home with from Classy Hair (see photo below)....

Heading to Mardi Gras Imports in a little bit to get the remaining beads I need to finish my bustier for Flyday.  See the other photo below to peek at my progress so far. 

Happy Arting, everyone!! Hope this weekend is fresh and fabulous for you all!

Finally Started Beading!

Looking for jobs and beading are my two big projects right now.  Guess which one is more enjoyable?  I've got several links minimized at the bottom of my screen regarding job stuff, so I'm not totally slacking, and since I'm tired of standing to bead, I will most definitely be changing projects after dinner.  Here is my progress so far on the bustier.  The Andromeda Galaxy is still in progress, so I'll wait to show that off later.  The white "pearls" make the constellation of Cancer (my sun sign), and in the middle of the bustier is a strand of DNA.  A dear friend of mine pointed out that it needs more chormosomes, so I'll add those in next beading session.  Oh, and this year's theme is songs, and my song is Katy Perry's "E.T.".

Sunset from my studio window today

Updated my photostream today with the beautiful sunset from my studio window

The Melting Pot I Call Home

If you've ever read my bio on my website, you already know that I'm from New Orleans.  I grew up on Arts Street in the Gentilly Terrace neighborhood near Brother Martin (which won't mean anything unless you are from the city).  As I'm applying for "big girl jobs" as a librarian (my master's is in Library and Info Science), I go back and forth in my head about whether I should stay close to home or go away someplace new.  New Orleans is in my soul.  The rich culture, delicious food, year-round festivals, Dragonflies and Mardi Gras, the Mississippi River, Lake Ponchartrain, the weather, my family, and many of my friends are here.  If I go away, will I find anything that I feel like I can enmesh myself in as much? 

The way I came to make the beer fish was because I moved to Arizona.  Living in the desert surrounded by mountain ranges is pretty, and the sunsets are unlike I've ever seen over the lake, but the lack of water everywhere really affected me, both physically and mentally.  The fish were my call to home and the way of life I knew here.  I don't want to feel the way I felt being that far away from home ever again.  I also hope that if I do move away, wherever I land will be just as inspiring and fascinating as south Louisiana is to me. 

And even though LSU did not win the BCS Championship, (really, the game was a total embarrassement), I  have always been a Tiger fan.  There's always next year!

the magic and splendor of light

The crud is still trying to keep me down, but I can still surf the Web and find out interesting information!  My dad had told me that some of he and Mom's neighbors were shooting fireworks New Year's Eve, but they also saw some lantern-ish things floating up in the sky.  When I was reading Kelle Hampton's blog yesterday afternoon, I noticed that she and her family had also sent a few lanterns up into the night sky.  I Googled sky lantern from her post and found all these amazing photos and suppliers of these magical lights.  There are even festivals in Asia using sky lanterns and sometimes they are bigger than a grown person.  That got me thinking about photography, and about natural lighting in my house (hey, I was in bed with fever most of the day, why not let my mind wander). 

I love natural lighting in any indoor space, and unfortunately, my house is actually very dimly lit by natural and electrical light except for my studio.  When I was just a toddler growing up in New Orleans, my parents had my baby bed set up by the back windows in my bedroom and I would watch the birds go to the feeders (or "bird restaurant" as I called it when I got older).  There were cardinals, bluejays, and sparrows, and maybe other kinds, too.  Even as an adult in my own house, I like to sit in my chair by the window facing the backyard watching birds and squirrels flitting around in my garden.  If the weather's nice and there are no mosquitoes, I prefer to be outside, but I digress. 

Photography is all about lighting.  The original pinhole cameras operate on allowing light in through the tiny opening when the "shutter" is opened.  That's why, when/if any of you have tried to take a picture of the moon or any night photographs, the shutterspeed can and should be slowed down.  I'm still learning about what makes the best composition and hope to achieve the crispness that I've seen so many times from true professionals.  There are also many fun experiements to try using light in photography.  One of the things I'd like to try one night is "air drawing" with a flashlight.  A roommate of mine and his friends would use different colored LED lights and end up with some crazy photos.  Anyway, now I'm just rambling, and probably should take a nap. Hope I feel better soon, please....and Happy Creating - whatever it may be!

sky lanterns II by tenli

Hooray for a sunny winter day!

Blogging is so freeing for some reason.  I'm subscribed to some other blogs, although none are art themed, and just took a moment to scroll through them to see if my interests had changed.  It's almost magical to be allowed into someone else's life that you don't even know or to read about others life experiences.  It's inspiring and heartwarming and refreshing and educational all at once.  Probably my favorite blog to read is Kelle Hampton's.  She's a photographer, but also a mother of two girls.  She's always sharing her family's adventures, and the images she includes cause my imagination to ignite; like, today, I want to completely transform my office/studio into my art pad with no limitations because something about her photos and words made me feel that way.  Suffering from a cold and still needing an office space will prevent that from happening, but for now, just knowing that's a possibility at some point makes me smile.  It's something to look forward to, and anything regarding creativity really gets my blood pumping.  In the meantime, I'm going to email my mom about repurposing some of the vintage costume jewelry we have from grandmothers and great grandmothers, and continue to do small scale rearranging in my studio.  Once I have things where I want them in here, I can buy the sewing machine I keep talking about.  :)  

Feeling Inspired!

Woohoo! Just got home from shopping with my sister-in-law and got lots of ideas for things to make instead of buy!  Target's Dollar Spot and JC Penney's costume jewelry section definitely got the gears turning! I still need a sewing machine and some more work space cleared off in here, but felt things and jewelry or clothes with jewelry pieces and parts incorporated, oh and knitted hats....wee!!!

And I hope this blog inspires you to make art or some kind of craft project that you've been meaning to try or finish. It's theraputic and fun to do all this stuff, and if you're lucky, you may even make a little money while you're at it, too!