Repurposing Furniture

My daughter has outgrown several pieces of her bedroom furniture.  Here's her old dresser:

Too icky to sell in a yard sale, so I painted it...

And turned it into an altar in our courtyard:

This weekend, I'll paint the bunk bed frame and turn it into the "moon bed".  I went to the fabric store last weekend and purchased the fabric and pillow forms for it.  Won't it be lovely on cool autumn evenings?  I can't wait!

Junk Mail Book

Here are pictures of my junk mail book from Carla's last summer camp class.  This was a lot of fun to make and put together.  Tomorrow we add illustrations and I guess Friday we add finishing touches.  I see all kinds of potential for future art projects!

Another project finished...

This is my wool peddler's shawl that I finished knitting quite a while ago, but didn't get around to blocking until yesterday.  I pulled the pins out this morning and am so pleased with how it turned out.  Why didn't I block it ages ago when I finished it?  Because I'm lazy and hate doing nit-picky stuff like weaving in ends, hemming, sewing on buttons and blocking.  Now I have not one, but TWO "new" shawls to wear this autumn.  C'mon North Wind, bring on the chill!

It's Done!

The shawl that took less than a century to finish!  There it is, laid out and pinned while it dries.  I unpinned it last night and it is so light and flowing.  Now for some cold weather, so I can wear it...

Steppin' Out

Isn't she funny?  I'm rather proud of myself -- I actually completed this class!  I have other things from the class that I can work on in all my spare time (what's THAT?), but I did all the assignments and got them all posted.  Whew!  Just in time to begin Faces 101 tomorrow...

Finished Creatures

Remember my little critters from the beginning of the week?  Well, here they are, all finished.  This was such a great class.  I learned a lot about technique and also about allowing intuition to drive your work.  Who would have thought that these guys were wandering around in the corners of my mind?

Another group...

As you can probably tell, I'm having great fun with this class!  It's so amazing how these things just "appear" from blops of paint...

More Creatures...

Here is my first painting assignment for the Imaginary Creatures class.  My daughter has pronounced them "terrifying."  I loved creating them!  They are done in watercolor and pencil.

Imaginary Creatures - day 1

Here are two of my drawings for the Imaginary Creatures class.  I did both with my non-dominant hand.  I discovered something interesting about myself while doing this assignment.  While I felt comfortable and in control drawing with my dominant hand, I really didn't like the end result.  So I switched to my right hand, and although it was really emotionally uncomfortable (i.e. not in control), I like the results much better.  It was as if I had "permission" to just draw without expectations for the outcome, since it was done with the "wrong" hand.  Sometimes not being in control is a good thing.