Angel Carrie Celebrates Life

note: copyright watermarks do not appear in actual piece.

I have a lot of new work to post, but in the meantime I am posting this older piece because I started to make some smaller prints of her.

She is part of a limited edition of 95.

The big 18" x 24" prints have been popular and make a bigger impact (especially when viewing in person as opposed to on-line), but I thought I'd try some smaller ones too at the end of the run of 95.

The smaller prints are up for sale for the first time at my Etsy on-line store (12/16/11 edit: they are also available at my Artfire on-line store). 

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Card Games Tree I and II

Note: copyright watermarks do not appear in actual art.

You never can plan anything in art. I originally designed this piece as a tag. Yup, that's right, very small with string through it, nothing too consequential. I acually painted the tree and border seperately. The original painting of the tree has red & black to match the border design. However, when I married the 2, I didn't like it. The tree did not differentiate with the border design enough (which made it look like a muddled mess). I fudged around with different experiments to try to resolve these issues. Then I found I liked it much more with the leaves turned a different color (to make it autumn-like while still keeping the playing card symbols). Success! I also decided to make prints from it. I will see if they make good tags, but for now I like them as prints.

Then I decided to try a different version. See below:

 

In this one, the tree has the same colors as the original painting while the border design does not.

The original mediums are: pen & ink, watercolor and a little oil based colored pencils to make the grass.

My relatives from my mother's side of the family are avid card players. Card games include bridge, Oh Hell and hearts with trumps. My grandfather insisted on games every night with all family members participating. Card symbols bring forth memories for me of good times with my family.

Both pieces are available in my Etsy store as small 5 x 7 prints. Perhaps there will be tags and other products with these designs after the date of this post. I still don't know what kinds of products will manifest for the brick and mortar stores that I am in.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Saratoga Faire CD featured on Celtic Radio Station

Saratoga Faire update:

Our CD "Saratoga Romance" to be featured on IRFT Celtic Radio on Monday, April 5, 2010. They will play the CD in its entirety. Start time of the show is 4:00 p.m. PDT: http://www.irftradio.comlu.com/

I think this is the first time since the CD was published that you can hear it in its entirety (i.e. no soundclips or selected cuts).

We also did an interview for 101.7 fm in the northeast for Community Cafe Hour (with John Kribs) with half of this CD aired plus cuts from my solo singer/songwriter project, The Goldenrod, as well as 2 cuts from Wing'd With Hopes (my Renaissance band CD with The Spirites Consort).

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Exotic Birds

note: copyright watermarks do not appear in actual art
I painted the following 5 fanciful birds as a distraction around the time that I had the flu. I continued to make more after completing the initial one. The first one below was #1 in the series and originally used in a composite painting for wedding prints. You can see the wedding prints from my website here. I actually changed the colors and lightened the birds for the wedding prints, but this is how they look in their "true" unadulterated form:

All are painted on roughly 8.5" x 14" acid free bristol board except the kissing birds which were painted on 7" x 14" bristol. Most birds are about 11" in length using pen and ink and watercolors.

I will probably put the originals in a gallery & sell prints of them online. I haven't decided. But if you are interested in purchasing the originals, feel free to e-mail us and we can give you details about cost and shipping (make sure to inquire about specific pieces).

Exotic Bird I:

Exotic Bird III:

Exotic Bird IV:

Exotic Bird V:

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips) 

Celestial Bunnies and Celestial Egg

note: copyright watermarks do not appear on actual art

This is the newest Easter greeting card design. I completed painting it a week and a half ago, rushed it out to some of the galleries and shops I am in, and it's too late to put it in an on-line shop, so perhaps I will put it in next year. It's a sister to the Celestial Egg design I made last year, which I blogged about recently here.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

A Unicorn Escapes (also titled a Pawn Escapes)

Continuing with my love of millefeur (see my last 2 blogs)!

The second title refers to chess: any being that is not a king, queen, rook, castle or bishop is a pawn. I also blogged about a raven pawn here.

This is available at this point in time as a limited edition archival print at Lower Adiroindack Regional Art Center and through my Etsy shop.

This is a piece I did in 2008, but it is the first time I have posted it here. It goes with the general theme I have been working on since 2005 which you can find on my website here (the theme includes pottery, painting and fabric). A lot of it was shown for the first time at a 5 person show called Once Again at the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Center.

All of this is "additional" work and meant to fulfill artistic longings, so I don't have as much of this work completed as I would like. My "real jobs" at the moment are greeting card designer and musician. I try to work on my "show" themes when I can find time.

In this piece, I am just starting to get into millefleur mode. The copper border and unicorn choker is much nicer and richer than the scan depicts. It features playing card suits (hearts, spades, diamond and clubs).

Here is a detail of the unicorn:

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

The Unicorn and the Egg (and other Easter designs)

Continuing with my post from last time...

This is another older card design (from 2009). Have I said before that I like the olde Renaissance style unicorns more than the present-day horse unicorns who are more associated with acid drenched rainbows and mountain vistas than gardens and pretty Renaissance maidens? When I was around 13 years old, my mother pinned up prints of the Unicorn Tapestries (from the MOMA cloisters) in my room. Then my grandmother gave me a book about Renaissance era unicorns at Christmas shortly afterward. Who knows why they wanted to impress me with unicorns and millefleur (it wasn't something I sought out or asked for, in other words). Anyway, the art made an impression even after I grew up, left home and the prints disappeared. I always seemed to be thinking and dreaming about millefleur through the years, even when I was making big statement art in my twenties and thirties (which I don't show on the web at the present time since it is adult & I wouldn't want to confuse my fantasy-artist/ethereal-musician public image, at least not at present). Ornate tapestries from the era are the only pieces of art that can make me cry. I like millefleur even more now than then, as natural paradises are bulldozed and modern, hard edges take up every available visual space in every aspect of our lives. 

Granted, this is a very unpopular niche to be in, especially in the art world. I am not a "serious artist" (and frankly surprised when this art was accepted by the jury at the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Center for a show). Okay, I am not serious. And why should I be? My unicorn designs seem to appeal to 13 year olds and that seems fitting.

More Unicorns are here on my website.

Here is a close-up:

Giant eggs, eggs falling from the sky, celestial eggs & other assorted wacky Easter ideas are in some of the shops in my area as well as newly listed in my Etsy store here.

Celestial Egg:

Easter:

Bunny with Red and Gold Eggs:

How Spirit is Born:

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)