Thank-you tags, Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you all are having a wonderful time with family and friends today. Happy Turkey Day (as we say in my family)!

I am thankful for my family and my new family of in-laws, who are so supportive and wonderful. I'm grateful that I get to pursue this wonderful artist's lifestyle and grow as an artist.

I’ve recently begun the practice of painting warm-ups. If I’m not feeling particularly creative, I’ll take out some ink, tags and stamps and just play. These tags end up in a pile of “I don’t know what to do with this.”

I decided these would be perfect to be tied onto the paper sacks I use during festivals. They are my thank-you tags! So appropriate for today!

New painting: I love being yours

This painting was inspired by my own love story with Ryan. Our first kiss was in the rain, under 2 umbrellas. It was romantic and sweet. It became our theme for our wedding “Always kiss me in the rain.” And when it’s raining, usually one of us will be like “kiss me!” For me it’s a metaphor for loving each other even when things are hard.

Festive paintings for the holiday season

I was feeling inspired to create a couple to cute paintings for the holidays. Ryan actually made the suggestion, and I went with it. 

Pictured is one of the in-progress 6x6 paintings inspired by the feelings of the holidays. I like holiday décor that speaks to the feelings of gathering family and friends, of celebration and joy. I didn’t want to alienate anyone by choosing a specific holiday to paint. 

So there will be greenery, rich metallics and reds, dark teals, ornaments, probably some candles too. And the messages will be ones of hope, love, cheerfulness and celebration. I feel really good about these!

In progress – couple/umbrella

I added some stamping, more red to the umbrella and large raindrops. Just need to add the words, and this one’s done. 

Here’s the previous post of this one. 

In progress – Respond to every call that excites your spirit – Rumi

This one is very close. I love using the gears and compasses as planets in the sunset. This is the second one that I’ve done like this. I feel like this one needs a bit more tinkering, maybe some words. One more detail shot after the jump. 

In-progress – Embark on new Adventures

I added travel-inspired paper to the stencils, letting some of the city names stay and covering others. I then did a bit of distressing with ink. I left “Embark on new adventures” un-distressed so that it really stands out. I may do some stamping or stenciling over some of this with a pop of color, but I think it’s almost done. One more detail pic after the jump.

How-to diy price tags

I’ve begun making price tags for all the paintings that we’ll have hanging at the upcoming festival. That way no one will have to ask, they can simply look at the tag.

Here’s a brief how-to on achieving this look

Festival prep

Ryan is a huge help to me when we are thinking about how to best use the space in the booth. For the previous festival, we had one basket full of prints. I really wanted to do something a bit different this go round. Either have a couple of baskets or maybe a magazine rack. I didn’t really know.

So Ryan got on craigslist.org and started searching. Almost immediately he found a magazine rack. It’s exactly what we need. Perfect!

In the picture, please excuse our horrible kitchen wallpaper. We rent, and it came all country-fied and dark green. I wish we could change it.