What's On My Work Table: Wednesday

Hey kids, what time is it?! It's time for "What's On My Workdesk Wednesday"! AKA "What's On My Art Table Wednesday"! It's so fabulous it has two names!

Workdesk. Art table. Tomato. Tomahto. 

Actually the posts I started doing (and apparently stopped) were called "What's On My Art Table Wednesday?". Today it's changed because I want to participate in "What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday" (WOYWW) over at the Stamping Ground blog.

I took this photograph yesterday when what was in front of me while art-ing struck me as such a beautiful colorful mess. And I love those kinds of messes! 

The colored bits of paper are all painted by me for use in my mixed media collage. This photo shows quite a lot of the various media I like to use. I use paint, markers, paper, inks, stamps that I make myself, fiber, ribbons, watercolors, stencils - both homemade and purchased, gel mediums, and paper punches to name a few. 

The piece I am currently working on is that tiny oblong rectangle of green next to my yellow striped scissors. That is the size of my original collages for my line of domino pendants. Tiny. 

This photo was taken with my iPhone 4S, with which am I madly in love. The resolution is much better than previous models. Mixed with fun photography and editing apps it's a handy artists' workhorse. This was photographed with Camera+ and then edited in Instagram. You can find me on Instagram by the name of HeyVickie. 

Thanks for dropping by to my studio "virtually". I'd have you over personally but this place is a mess! 

- Vickie


I'm not being paid by anybody for any of this. Just sayin'.  

Hand Art Therapy Doodle

Playing with my watercolor crayons has been helping me regain the use of my right hand after the hemiplegic migraine. Still not quite 100%. I would give my arm an 8 out of 10 and my leg a 6. Traveling short distances around the house without a crutch is getting easier.

Watercolor crayons are so much fun. I like to use a brand called Caran d’Ache. They go down smoothly and provide good coverage. You can also lay down a really light amount and still get a nice color wash. They are a little pricey but totally worth it. I bought one size up from the smallest set to get started and then bought them from the a la carte rack individually to choose the colors I wanted. Bought one or two here and there and soon enough I had a nice collection of colors.

I am painting with a little water filled brush. It holds water and squirts it out of the brush tip. No need for a water container. This thing is brilliant!

The details were added last with my Marvy Le Plume II markers.

- Vickie

Listen To Your Heart: Art Journal Page

This page started as a spot to lay down some leftover paint from another project. I glued down some random paper scraps with gel medium. Some stencils made nice shapes to draw with watercolor crayons. The crayons create a nice opaque color, even doing light drawing over a dark background. Very cool. Then I added the tag in the middle.

I wanted to lay down as much color on this page as I could. It’s a little busy but I think that’s my anxiety coming through from the other day. I really love using up my little paper scraps this way. I don’t like to see paper go to waste.

The watercolor crayons look so good to me that I think I’ll run out today and buy more colors at the art store, which, incidentally, is called "The Art Store". Need to pick up some more gel medium and either heavy body or fluid acrylic paint by Golden, too. They make the best paint. Right now I’m using the cheap craft paint, which is not very heavily pigmented and are a little dry. Oh, my art shopping list keeps getting longer. I want some different colored inks, too, for doing lettering with a brush. Maybe Erik will have to come with me to rein in my spending!

Will You Take A Quarter for That?

Last Friday, my mom called me and was all excited she could hardly speak. I told her to slow down and tell me again. She was driving her boyfriend to the airport and she saw a sign for a garage sale on the side of the road. But this was no ordinary garage sale; it was a craft supply sale! Wheee!! So she raced over to pick me up and we went off to garage sale heaven.

Apparently a woman who had three bedrooms filled with her crafting supplies died and the family was selling her stuff. Most of it was sewing items like fabric and elastic and trims. I bought some lace and trims for making collages. I also bought some really nice gray fabric to maybe use as a background for photographing my jewelry. They had a gorgeous sewing box that I got for just $30. More storage is always needed in my studio.

I was a little disappointed by the sale. I was hoping for more paper, rubber stamps and scrapbooking items. But I still walked out with $50 worth of goodies. My appetite for garage sale season is now all fired up, and I cannot wait until the weather really breaks here and I can go scouting for neat things at sales on the weekends. Yay!!

Etsy Artist Feature: Wildflower Hill

One of my favorite things about Twitter is meeting local people. I find it fun to manage to “bump into” someone from the Rochester, NY area in the big, big online world. To run across a local Etsy seller is quite rare in my own experience. Being a firm believer in shopping local even if the shop is online, I wanted to let more people know about this great shop, run by Cindy Macca, called Wildflower Hill. This shop is chock full of gorgeous and very unique beads.

Cindy chose her shop name by taking inspiration from her Bloomfield, NY surroundings where she lives in a log cabin among a big hill of wildflowers that bloom in spring, summer, and fall. She is a wife and mother and has two dogs, five cats, and a guinea pig to care for. Running Wildflower Hill takes up much of her time and is her full time job. She openly admits that her house “looks like a bead factory exploded in it”. Her father and a brother are gemologists and appraisers of fine gems. One might call her bead store just part of the family business of working with precious and semi-precious stones. Her shop offers “a wide variety of stone, shell, fresh water pearls, coral, and glass beads along with copper, sterling, stone and ceramic pendants”.


What struck me most when I first visited her shop were her absolutely gorgeous photographs of her beads. Honestly, are these great pictures or what?! Plus the beads themselves are quite distinctive. I haven’t seen such a unique variety in many small business bead shops online, and trust me when I say I’ve spent a lot of time in online bead shops. The “Matched Set of Beads” section of her shop is genius. She does all the work for you by selecting great bead combinations and coordinating pendants.

I highly encourage you to stop by Wildflower Hill and to take some time to look around. You won’t want to leave empty handed!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade wildflowerhill.etsy.com

My Queendom for Some Homosote

I have this project I’ve wanted to do for months, since before our move. But I’ve needed a special kind of board to do it on. It’s called homosote, a heat proof pressed fiber board. I need it to do some soldering on for some three inch by three inch panels I want to make.

So employing my “shop local” philosophy I went down to the local stained glass supply shop. They were out of homosote again. The last time I went there for this purchase they were out and did not expect a shipment for a month. So I waited, I guess a bit too long because they were sold out again. So to heck with my ethics. I ordered some online and gritted my teeth all the way through it. I’m trying, people.

It arrived today in about ten times as much packing material as was necessary. The box measures 18” x 24” x 6.5” for a piece of board that measures 16” x 24” x 0.5”. Inside was also twenty feet or so of that brown kraft paper wrapping. At least it’s all recyclable.