Marie Antoinette Award

When I checked out Kim's blog, Art Dog's Life this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to find she gave me the "Marie Antoinette Award." As she posted in her blog, Marie represents a special woman who is willing to be heard, stands up for what she believes in, and is strong and outspoken. Not to mention she loved cake! I can totally relate to that!!! I met Kim last August at Valley Ridge Art Studio, where we had taken a workshop from Nina Bagley. We became friends there and shared a lot of laughs together, along with Julie, Kecia, and Amy. Kim has also been a guardian angel to me in the 'art world.' So I would like to thank you for the honor you bestowed upon me Kim, and I changed my blog music in your honor!!!!!

I went Antiquing

"You begin with the

possibilities of the material,

and then you see

what they can do;

so the Artist is almost

a bystander while's he's working."

- Robert Rauschenberg

Friday afternoon I decided to go to several antiques shoppes before visiting my dad at the nursing home. I really scored at one shop in particular. They were having a 30% off sale on everything in the store. The shop isn't overflowing with inventory, nor is it a 'high-end' shop, but each time I go there, I always leave with a bag of goodies.

This round the owner even gave me some wonderful 'freebies.' I couldn't believe it! As I was putting my items at the counter to purchase, I noticed a wonderful old german Bible on a table across from the counter. It was one of those huge, heavy, hinged types that are about 5 inches thick and weigh probably 5 pounds. Anyhow, I went over to the Bible and was leafing through it. It was in remarkably good shape for its age. I just said to the owner..."it's too bad it's written in german." He responded back by saying..."yeah, that's what everyone says who looks at it." He then added, "If you can read me something from that Bible, you can have it!" Well...that's all I needed to hear! I picked up the Bible and proudly placed it on the counter before him, flipped it open to Psalm 23, and recited that Psalm to him. (Needless to say, I really can't read German, but I knew several words enough to know what it was). He then told me he's got another Bible in the back just like the one on the counter, but it was in poor shape. He then went and found it, brought it back to the counter, and told me "you can have them both...I'm glad they're going to a good home." I thought he was just kidding, but he wasn't! He gave them both to me. So for $28.00, I got both bibles, a wonderful little wooden 'stanley calipers' box, a music box filled with interesting-looking chess pieces, a tiny slide ruler, a wisconsin license plate from 1938, and an old celluloid hand mirror, which ended up costing only $1.75.

This is what I did to the old mirror yesterday.

I'm going to put it in my guest bathroom upstairs. Perhaps if I start having some workshops in my studio this year when the weather is nicer, you may see it for yourself.

Fooling Around With Paintshop

I don't have anything in particular to blog about, but I decided to fool around on my Photoshop program this morning. I confess I don't know what I'm doing, and am too lazy to actually read any instructions. I took a page from an old book, added a photograph of my 4 great-aunts, and added some victorian clipart pansies around the edges. Then I turned it all sepia-colored, and voila!

Another Picture of My "Boyz"

I've been in the mood to alter photographs again. I did this picture the other day, but after I had scanned this picture into my computer for the blog, I went ahead and added more embellishing on it. So this one is the 'bare-bones' copy.

I love using my 3 pugs as the characters in my photos. I started working on a few more today, so I'll be posting them in the near future. Little Junior is proving to be quite a naughty little pug. Hmm.....I'm beginning to wonder what the real reason was that his former owner needed to find a new home for him!