Leanne Shawler, Artist

I am enjoying my Suzi Blu class "A Lovely Dream" and green seems to have  become a theme. For growth, perhaps? Anyway, I thought I would share a couple of pages. We were asked to do self portraits in two different ways. I still think this page is too green, but it's okay. What I wrote in watercolor pencil and then washed over was this: God, I need to remember your love. I bow my head and pray for the constant reminder of your presence ...  I will praise and lift up my head to receive your boundless, infinite love, your grace, mercy and forgiveness. I give You thanks. Yeah, there was a bit I wrote that got washed almost completely out and I don't remember the prayer any more although I'm surmising from the bit I can read it has something to do with seeing God in others "for we are all God's..."

The plan was to redesign this blog and reboot it with its new focus. Funny thing is, the pieces started fitting together differently. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning in the week before Christmas with an a-ha. What I was planning wasn't exactly what God was planning. I knew that there was something more, something different, but I couldn't quite figure it out. Honestly, I still don't have it figured out. But I have another part of it... which requires consultation with the usual suspects and some more working out. So in the meantime, I did promise I'd be back this week, so here is a painting I finished recently. It's the last assigned painting assignment from the La Sirena class from  Suzi Blu that I took last year. She extended the critique time to May of this year, and I swore that I would finish this class before the year's end. However, it didn't quite come out as I planned. It was supposed to be head-to-toe figures with a good-sized ...

I think my painting is done. I think. Stay tuned because I may change my mind about this tomorrow. In the meantime, Suzi Blu (whose mixed media painting class I am taking) is having a giveaway. I'm an artist! Suzi says so! Amen and Alleluia!

It's in progress, am happy to say. I drew and colored a face I liked, put it onto big canvas and sketched it in, not in great detail, and put down the first background layers which I think is really spooky cool, although the top half of the painting is a bit flat. The sheen is from where I went mad with Glimmer Mists :) I've since added some stenciling in since the above photo, and I think I'm about ready to start painting the mermaid (you can probably barely make out the sketch through the paint). Am a bit worried I haven't got the proportions right, so it's off to Miss Suzi Blu (as this is part of her class, although I'm not following her painting exactly with this one) to see if its okay or if it needs more tweaking.

I learned one really shouldn't spill glitter onto melted wax. Also used mica flakes in her halo: Also, I need to learn how to take photos of paintings. Only the tail pic turned out good. That, or I need to start using a different camera.

So this is the sampler I made for my Mum for Christmas. Thankfully, I had an extra few weeks before seeing her. So it started out as a review of my year (one thing of each month), and then I found this cute owl on etsy by Michelle Palmer , and bought this cute stitching template of a turtle by Charlotte Lyons (funds raised to help Gulf wildlife), and a cute mini fabric collage by Pam Garrison . I got things back on the rails, though, and then filled the gaps with flowers and stars.... My "suzi blu" La Sirena mermaid. (I took this before I was finished, so her mouth isn't there.) A lace scrap to symbolize my mori girl interest: From my November vacation: Charlotte's turtle: V is for the Young Victoria project from the start of last year.

This is taking much longer than I planned. I posted the background earlier . This is my colored in sketch of my mermaid, using one of Suzi's templates: And this is where she was at as of Saturday morning... I tinkered some more Sunday after church ... hopefully I will be able to show you the finished painting soon....

In Suzi Blu's La Sirena class I'm learning to draw faces (folk art and slightly more realistic) and shade them using color pencils. Eventually I will be in a place to paint. So here's one I'm particularly happy with, although still room for improvement. You might note she's not a mermaid (not that you can tell from this cropped image). I dreamt her, although she had black hair in my dream, and I really like how the color of her hair turned out on this so I guess I'm going to have to draw her again at some point. I was going to anyway, because I dreamed her in a coffin and those colors are too warm for a dead person. (Yes, morbid, but she's a metaphor.) I picked up greys and what not so the next attempt will have that color shift as well. The classes so far have been with eyes open, but she was dead so I had to figure out how that looked. Did I mention I can't wait until I get to paint?

I mentioned a couple of posts ago when I was trying to decide whether or not I should take Suzi Blu's course (which I am, see earlier pos), that I didn't do art in high school. (Well, kinda sorta). The way the system works in Australia, at least where I grew up, high school starts in year 7. When you're about 12. For the first four years, you get a taste of all the different electives the school offered. In the last two years, you had to pick your electives to add up to a certain number of units. I cannot now remember what my electives were (I suspect my taking 3 Unit Math instead of 2 Unit put a crimp on additional electives): but I think one of them was Ancient History, and another was computers, maybe? Anyway, so I didn't choose art or photography. I don't think it was really on my radar. But here's the thing: I had one free period a week, and where would I go? To the senior art class. And I would watch my peers draw and paint, and I would ask questions abou...

I've just gotten started on this ... but as part of La Sirena , we have to gather some things that inspire us on the subject of mermaids... A corkboard/inspiration board was suggested, but I came up with something else. Yep, the birdcage I picked up at Urban Barn. I'm draping ribbons, pearls, shells inside and outside of it. The ribbons are kind of reminding me of floating seaweed...... I might move things around a bit on my inspiration board (aka my shutters) and use it to display the paper pieces once I go digging for them. I stopped by the fabric store a couple of days ago to pick up some fabric for the Madonna hanging ... and even by going through the remnant tables, I still managed to spend a pretty penny. *sigh* Anyway -- also found these two trims, perfect for mermaidedness....

I got in touch yesterday with one of the gals with whom I attended KC Willis ' class at Urban Barn and found out she'd blogged about the day! She took a lot more photos than I did :) And I did it. I signed up for Suzi Blu's new semester of Le Petit Academy . This is going to be a real adventure!