self medicating (it's a good thing!)

if you've known me a while (in person, or only through the magic of the Internet), you know that I work on a lot of different things at once

a friend of mine told me last week that I was "self medicating with creativity" -- she's right -- making art is one of my chief coping mechanisms when I need to feel like there is still order to things

last week was one of those weeks

and as a result, a lot of work got done

this little necklace for my daughter is all finished -- even the small adjustment to the clasp that I needed to make is complete

this piece, titled Parched Earth I, is finished -- that tiny 1/8 inch wide binding was an interesting challenge, but I really like how it looks

Soma the Red Dog is all done and ready to go to the framer -- through the magic of PhotoShop I can show you what it looks like with a nice clean edge even though I haven't cut it yet

and having finished all of those, I worked on other pieces

this panel is moving along nicely

it has had it's challenges -- like when I decided that I really needed to back the top 2/3 with blue and the bottom 1/3 with brown to represent earth and sky after I had already placed all of the tree trunks and some of the leaves --

yeah, well, that was a challenge to carefully work from one edge to the other, picking up the pieces one at a time and putting down the new background

I like it a lot better now

and this piece which will be Parched Earth II

last night I finished the sky portion and started working on the earth part

since I like doing a bit of machine work during each studio session, I have have returned to finishing the last two of the shed door pieces

even though this is a small piece (about 12 inches by 12 inches) there are still a lot of little details to be stitched

one of the bead groups I belong to does challenges that are designed to be larger and more detailed

we begin with a list of suggestions for a theme, then we vote and the theme with the most votes is what we work on for the next couple of months

for the first time ever, one of my suggestions was the favorite, so we are working on pieces that are to be inspired on an ancient culture

after having done several pieces that were Egyptian inspired, I decided to do something that is based in the Greek culture

moving right along here!

of course we have to have some sort of puppy picture

last week for the first time I noticed that Gypsy has "wings"

you can only see these when she has her front legs spread out and her head down between them -- how cool is that

now as for the claim that she's an angel -- not so much -- still a wild ginger dog!