Squadron of angels

I've been busy crafting a whole fleet of guardian angels to send out into the world.  :-)

What's new in the studio

Little bitty (2-3/4" x 7") inspiration altars using hand-stamped mosaics and encaustic-covered collage backgrounds.  I *love* mixed media!  :-)

Everyone needs a guardian angel

Tried something new this week - an "art doll" that can be personalized.  It took me some fiddling to figure out how to do the face tile, but now that I've worked out the kinks I've listed it on Etsy as a customize-able art piece.  Not sure if there is a market out there for guardian angel art dolls - guess I'll find out!

The important thing is that I had fun with it, and churned up some ideas for my family for the holidays...  :-)

Punning around

A teeny little commission from a friend - collage on card stock, coated with encaustic medium.  It was fun to play with (and will absolutely crack up the intended recipient, who currently has 4 shelties under her roof).  Sometimes it's hard to get going on big "art with a capital A" projects - often, a little "goofing around" is all it takes to get the creative juices flowing again.  :-)

Look within

This year, my goal with my art is to elevate it in my OWN mind to the level of art.  Sounds stupid, but there you go - in my head, I'm still a "crafter" and a scribbler and a dabbler, not really an artist.  Yes, I'm my own worst enemy - thanks for noticing!

I've been tossing around the idea of doing something a little more intricate with my little altars, and my first attempt at translating what's in my head to an actual thing came out pretty fun.  It's an interactive piece, with little doors that open to reveal mirrors and messages - sort of a punny little play on the "look within" theme.  I wish I had made the backer board larger (or mounted the whole thing on a separate background to give it more presence), but overall I'm fairly pleased with it.

I surprised myself when I listed this in my shop at considerably more than I have historically sold my work for in the past.  Given the amount of time and effort that went into it, I should have charged about double the amount I eventually listed it for - but I'm still on that journey to believing that my unique "artist's voice" has value to anyone but me.  I doubt that I am alone in this struggle between wanting my work to actually be affordable enough to *sell*, and wanting to place a reasonable value on my time and talent.   :-)

So, there we are.  Thinking about trying something else new and different with polymer clay next - stay tuned!