Mary Nasser's Map Stencil Blog Hop!

Today's blogpost is dedicated to Mary Nasser's Blog Hop! Mary Nasser designed some new Map Stencils for Stencil Girl Products aka (Mary Beth Shaw) and she asked me join her blog hop with some other pretty amazing creatives. This blog hop is kind of a group creative party through these here internets where we are celebrating the birth of Mary's awesome Map Stencils that SHE designed. How awesome is that?! The best part is that if you make a comment, you get a chance to win a set of her stencils and one of the paintings I made with her stencil.

For this blog hop, I decided to make a simple abstracted landscape painting using Mary's map stencil, Wood Icing texture paste and Golden Acrylics on 3/4" medium density fiberboard.

Prepping the boards with gesso.

Applying first thing layer of Wood Icing texture paste.

Applying second layer of Wood Icing using Mary's Map Stencil. Isn't her stencil just lovely?

Pulling stencil away.

I added a little thread of texture with the Wood Icing and a small pallet knife. I also added two layers with Mary's Stencil, just to see what would happen.

I added a thread of Wood Icing with a small pallet knife and I added some extra free form texture in the top half of the painting.

Time for color!

And we are finished!

I made two so I could give one to one lucky commenter and so I could give one to Mary. 

Yep, that's what I said. If you make a comment here on my blog, I'll have my own drawing by Mary's same deadline and the lucky winner gets one of these 6"x6" paintings. The other painting is for you dear sweet Mary Nasser. Thank you for asking me to participate in this super awesome blog hop!

Mary Nasser will be giving away a set of her four new map stencils to one lucky winner! ALL of the readers who comment on each blog hop participants' posts will be eligible for the drawing. The only thing you have to do is leave a comment by 11:59PM Central Time on October 4th. The more blogs you comment on in the blog hop, the more chances you have of winning!

Here is the complete list and links of all of the participants. 

Happy clicking for inspiration and prizes!

StencilGirl Talk

Mary C. Nasser
Mary Beth Shaw

Jessica Sporn

Janet Joehlin
Heather Haymart -you are here

Judy Shea

Pam Carriker

Nancy Wethington

Corrine Gilman

Rose Wilde

Nancy Curry

Kristen Powers

Carolyn Dube

Maria McGuire

Flavor for Mixed Media Blog Tour and Give Away

I am so excited to announce that my blog is next on Mary Beth Shaw's blog tour for her new book; Flavor for Mixed Media. It's an honor to be in great company with the other artists that she chose to be a part of her book. She featured my painting titled The Dance Between. In keeping with her correaltion of cooking and creating, she also inlcuded my dash of this, bunch of that recipe for summer pasta! Mary Beth did a great job on this book. It is beautiful to look at, creative to absorb and so informative that you'll want to refer back to it repeatedly. 



The Dance Between 16"x12"
Click HERE for purchase.

 The even more exciting news is that she is giving away an 8oz container of Wood Icing Textura Paste and three of her stencils that she designed herself valued at $42. All you have to do is comment here on my blog or on facebook, we will draw names and you might be the lucky one who gets a special gift in the mail! You have until Saturday, March 26th at midnight and we will announce the winner on Sunday, March 27th.

If you aren't the lucky winner, click here to purchase Mary Beth's signed book, exclusive stencils and Wood Icing Textura Paste 8oz directly from the artist herself.

From Me to We

This blog post has no art in it. I am sad about not painting lately, but I am happy with my current situation that has been taking my time away from painting. Right now I have at least five paintings in progress on my easel waiting impatiently for some much needed attention. For now though, they will remain neglected. I am not happy about this but I am not mad about it either.

What have I been doing? Well I have been working hard to be a good partner to my mom at our Wood Icing Studio and Gallery. We have re-arranged how things work at the gallery and it has increased my workload threefold, but I really love it. I have learned something about myself that I never knew. It is so much easier to promote other artists besides myself. In fact, it is fun. I always felt so self centered before and I probably still am. Aren't most artists anyway? The point is that I really enjoy promoting my artist friends that we invited to be a part of our gallery. It is very eye opening to take a moment and really focus on someone else's art for a change.

This Saturday, December 4th from 5-8pm we are hosting a reception for Liz Franklin an interior designer. I had this idea of how cool it would be to team up an interior designer, a decorative finisher and fine artists to create an amazing space in our special exhibit space in our gallery. When I brought this idea to my mom, we were off and running. We called Liz Franklin (whom we met in our gallery), Gail Strebel (a friend of my mom's), and then let Liz choose work from our gallery to use in her space. My mom and Gail went crazy with this beautiful finish and my dad was kind enough to install the walls. Liz got Dolnick's Furniture to donate furniture for the display and our artists got to be in the running for this amazing display. She chose Sharon Spillar's, Dawson Morgan's  and my art for the vignette. She might even be purchasing one of Mary Beth Shaw's paintings for a client! So my grand scheme is working! We are bringing together three creative business at our gallery which will hopefully result in more art in people's homes!

Time Flies When You Are Opening a New Business!

So I have been MIA again, but for a good reason. I have been working very hard at a new business venture with my mom, Rose Wilde and two of my very good artist friends Mary Beth Shaw and Greg Barth. That is my dad in the picture after he finished hanging the new sign.

Our new store is called Wood Icing named after my mom and dad's business. My mom had been selling Wood Icing (the modeling paste that I use in my paintings) online for years and has decided to take it t the next level. Greg, Mary Beth and I have also decided to take our artistic careers to another level as well by making our fine art available to the public every day. We are offering our original art, framing services, photo services, workshops, and of course, the Wood Icing product in our store/gallery/studio.

Now, I can't lie, this has been stressful, but so exciting. The first day I worked with Mary Beth we both admitted we were excited to be there even though we had been there constantly painting and fixing the place up. Once we get everything into place, it is going to be such a great place to be. We plan to offer Girls night out, and helpful demos. It is the perfect combination of a sophisticated gallery, artsy hang out, and arts/crafts supply destination. We are welcoming crafty do it yourselfers, interior designers, faux finishers, artists, and art lovers. Obviously we hope people will consider us as they do their Christmas shopping. We offer many gifts anywhere from $10 and up.

So I guess I should mention where this super fun place is located. The Chesterfield Mall in Chesterfield, MO. We are located on the upper level next to Sears and across from Houlihan's. We are already open for business, but our Grand Opening is December 11, 12, and 13. We will have demos, cookies, Christmas Ornament painting, Greg is even planning to shoot free facebook photos, and we will be hosting a few special guest artists!

Oh and by the way, have you been to the mall lately? I forgot how fun the mall is. They have an H&M (love it) and GAP and Old Navy, and should I dare mention Aunt Annie's Pretzels. If my butt is bigger now you know why!

Habitat for Humanity's Artful Doors

Last Saturday Mary Beth and I met my mom out in O'Fallon to pick up doors for the Habitat for Humanity Door Project. The project was called to our attention through Evie Shucart and the Women's Caucus for the Arts. The idea is that we artists will paint a door for auction at the St. Charles Home show and the proceeds will benefit the Habitat for Humanity. My door is still sitting in the garage, but I plan to tackle it next week. I am so excited to get started. Here is a link to the video that Susan Weich from STL Today made and an article she wrote. I tried to figure out how to put the video in my post but it wouldn't work for some reason. I am the big dork in the red coat who didn't realize we were being videoed for a newspaper article. Maybe I should have paid better attention.

I can't wait to get started. My ideas keep bouncing from purely decorative, to something for a kids room, to something realistic and pretty. No matter what I know it will be a rewarding experience. I just hope someone bids on it!!!