Work in Progress

This is a work in progress but I think I'm going to be gluing it down tonight. Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks for looking.

Where Have I Been?

I can't believe it's been two years since I posted something.  Since my last post I hate to say it, but I ended up going through a divorce.  I think there are earlier blog posts that refer to my "wonderful" husband, so you can all just scratch that.  LOL!  But, after going through the heartache and pain of being dumped (by the way, he left for someone he went to high school with 40 years ago and hooked up with on Facebook.  I'm not liking Facebook as I hear this has happened to many people.  But of course you can find me on Facebook and lots more pics of art!!).  I'm also a new grandma and probably will not be able to resist posting pictures of the new grandson.  He just turned 1 on Friday and is getting so big so fast.  I'll try not to post too much though since this is my "art" blog.  :)  But I digress. 

I am now back in the studio and creating more art than ever.  I'm really happy with the direction that my art is taking, and so I hope to post more often pictures of my work, and maybe some works in progress, as well as supplies i'm using, problems I run into, etc.  I always enjoy seeing how people create their pieces, so I'm optimistic that people will enjoy mine as well. 

To get started though, I'm going to start with these two small 5x7s on canvas panels.  I had previously painted the backgrounds some ugly shade of green, and then one evening these pieces just came together almost by magic.  I'm really liking these.  Apologies in advance for the crappy picture taken on my phone in a dark basement studio.  Would love some feedback!  Thanks for stopping by.  I'm determined to post more often from now on.  :)  Have a great day!

 

What Am I Up to Now?

Good morning everyone!  It's Tuesday, May 17, 2011 and in Columbus, Ohio the rain is still coming down daily.  The temperature here went from in the mid-80's last week, down into the 40's this week.  Crazy Ohio weather.  Like they say around here, if you don't like the weather just wait 10 minutes.  LOL

Just a quick mention about a show this weekend in Columbus.  It is called Agora 8 and is at the Junctionview Studios.  You can see the website here.  They used to put the artwork on their website but for some reason are not doing that this year.  Anyway, I have one piece on the show and my husband has two.  You can see his work here.  This is the piece I have in the show.  I think I may have posted it before but you can see it again.  :)

The exciting news this week.  I'm taking a day off from my day job and heading down to Springfield, Ohio to the Clarke County Fairgrounds for the Extravaganza!  Yay!!  I love flea markets and this is one of the biggest ones I have ever been to and I think one of the biggest ones in Ohio.  Here is a link to their website.  I'm so looking forward to going.  I think we are going to go on Friday and then again with my daughter and her boyfriend on Saturday.  I can't wait to see what we find and I plan to get some pictures of our junky treasures and write another post to show you what you all missed.  LOL

© 2011 Julia Williams Art

The above five images are more from my 4"x4" collage series.  They are $25 each and come matted to 8"x8". 

Thanks for stopping by and stay dry if you live in the Midwest!  I'll be posting again soon about a fabulous artist who does art journaling and broadcasts live on Ustream.  Have a great day everyone!

The Man and the Eagle

I just received an email about this story.  It was really quite awe provoking to me.  I think it's a great story and the Eagle is so awesome!!


THE MAN AND THE EAGLE. THIS IS BEYOND, AWESOME !

Not many people get a picture of this proud bird snuggled up next to them.


[For some reason I am unable to copy the pictures in here.  Will edit post if I can get the pictures.  In the meantime.....see http://www.sarveywildlife.org/]


Freedom [the Eagle] and I have been together 10 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't open all the way even after surgery, it was broken in 4 places. She's my baby.

When Freedom came in she could not stand and both wings were broken. She was emaciated and covered in lice. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vets office. From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a
huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lay in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay
there looking at me with those big brown eyes. We also had to tube feed her for weeks.

This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn't stand. It got to the point where the decision was made to euthanize her if she couldn't stand in a week. You know you don't want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning. She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to go to the center that Thursday, because I couldn't bear the thought of her being euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good day.

We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got her used to the glove, and we started doing education programs for schools in western Washington. We wound up in the newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV. Miracle Pets even did a show about us.

In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I had stage 3,
which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of chemo. Lost the hair - the whole bit. I missed a lot of work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight the cancer. This happened time and time again.

Fast forward to November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving. I went in for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all the cancer was gone.

So the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her up, and we went out front to the top of the hill. I hadn't said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me
and wrapped both her wings around me to where I could feel them pressing in on my back (I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she touched my nose with her beak and stared into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I don't know how long. That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever since she came in. This is a very special bird.

On a side note: I have had people who were sick come up to us when we are out, and
Freedom has some kind of hold on them. I once had a guy who was terminal come up to us and I let him hold her. His knees just about buckled and he swore he could feel her power coarse through his body. I have so many stories like that.

I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom.

Hope you enjoy this.

Jeff

Website is Live!

I did get my website published over the weekend!!!   Yay!!  Please take a look at http://www.juliawilliamsart.com/.  I'm happy with it and hope to get some tweaking done on it today or tomorrow.  Please let me know if the website looks ok, and works ok.  If there are any issues please please let me know so I can fix them.  I really appreciate it!!

Have a great day!

Two New Paintings......

Just a quick post today.  I had several paintings that were sitting in the studio.  They were at the point where I liked them but knew they were not finished. They were at that point where you are afraid you will mess them up if you do anything else to them, but you know they aren't done!  I finally had looked at them long enough (2 years???)  I just picked one up and started.  Wouldn't you know, in just a few days I had 6, yes 6 finished pieces!  wow!  Here are 2 of them:

© 2011 Julia Williams

They are both 16" x 20" acrylic and collage on canvas.  I'm pretty happy with them and would love some feedback!  Thanks everyone!

Good news!

I'm so happy!  My website is just about up and running.  I have some tinkering to do on it but it is just about ready to hit the publish button.  There will probably be more tweaking needed once I do publish it, but it should be in pretty good shape and I hope it will be live by this weekend.  You can check it out at http://www.juliawilliamsart.com/. 

Otherwise, I'm still busy making my small collages and I'll leave with you a few to look at..  Today's collages are purple!!  :) 

Thanks for reading my blog and have a great weekend!!!

DOORS - New Series

I have no idea why I made this series as I am not especially interested in or fascinated with doors. They just happened and maybe it's weird but I connected with them. Maybe the possibility is that a new "door" will be opening up for me! That's always a nice thought. :)

Again, these are small 4x4 collages.  They can be purchased for $25 each or in this series you can buy 4 and get the 5th one free!

Thanks for looking and commenting!

New 4x4 Series - Butterflies

Here is a series of butterflies that I recently created.  These are all the small 4x4 collages that I have been working on a lot lately.  I have been matting these with a 8x8 mat and have them for sale for the low, low price of $25... :) 

Leave a comment and let me know what you think about the latest series.  Stay tuned, i'm posting a "door" series in just a few.

Thanks much!

New Book Received Yesterday

Hello everyone!  Just wanted to make a quick post about the new book I received yesterday from Amazon.  It is called "Art at the Speed of Life" by Pam Carriker.  You can see Pam's blog here.  I didn't have much time last night but still managed to read a large portion of it, as I couldn't put it down.  It's exactly the sort of book I am always looking for, full of beautiful mixed media artwork, lots of inspiration, and a wide variety of techniques.  There are about 16 artists' work in this book and I love looking at their work, reading about their techniques and their inspirations.  It almost made me feel like I had an entire cheerleading squad behind me encouraging me.  Very inspiring and made me want to get to the studio and create (too bad it was bedtime)!  Create like no one is watching!  Allow yourself to play and see what happens!

If you are a mixed media artist (or any kind of artist!) go get this book! 

Thanks for reading and have a great and artful day everyone!

What a Mess!!

I decided to be brave and show a few pictures of my studio.  When you are a collage/mixed media artist it takes a LOT of supplies and tends to get very very messy.  I try hard to keep it halfway in order, but when the creative juices are flowing things tend to get thrown everywhere and pushed aside and end of all over the place!  Here is picture #1....

This used to be just a box of miscellaneous papers and images and has grown and grown and is now a giant stack of papers and images.  HA!  You can't get rid of them though because you never know when you might need just that scrap or just that tiny image!  Anyone who does collage will totally understand.  :)

Picture #2...

This is the actual working space (I know, not very much room, but I'm only working on 4x4 collages at the moment so it's working out). 

And picture #3....a slightly larger view of the area.

The pictures look very blurry and i'm not sure why, they look great on my facebook page (www.facebook.com/juliawilliamsart).  This is the area I do the work in.  I'm not brave enough to show the areas all around me.  Yes, it does get worse.  I really hope I'm not alone in having to have so much art stuff around me.  It keeps me inspired. 

That's all I have of the studio tour for now.  Take heart fellow artists, if you have  a messy space too, share with me!

Have a great day everyone!





Finally Friday!

Hello fellow bloggers -- here it is Friday afternoon and I always get so excited for the weekend. Unfortunately, this is because I still am working a day job to support my art habit. And boy is it a habit. :) I am going to take some pictures when I get home of the studio so you can see how much I like art. In the meantime, here are a few new small 4x4 collages.

These are 4x4 collages on paper. I do send them matted to 8x8 with a foam backing for $25 each.
I hope you enjoy!!
Stay tuned for scenes from the studio........

Happy New Year! :)

I know, I know, it's already February 24, so why am I saying Happy New Year. Well, I haven't posted anything for a long time and not since the new year so I thought I would start with a belated Happy New Year! I have been busy and have a new body of work that I thought I would share. I have been making small 4x4 collages and I wanted to start posting one a day. I have reconsidered that since some of them are in a small series so I am going to post an entire series when I can, and then post some singles separately. I have to admit I got this idea from an artist I follow named Randel Plowman. Randel has a website called A Collage A Day where he posts one small collage every day. You can see his website here. I have enjoyed his work for a long time and it has inspired me to attempt something similar. I hope you don't mind Randel! :)

Anyway, here is a look at the first series:

Let me know what you think. I would love to get some feedback. And watch out for more coming soon (maybe even another post today!!).

Thanks!! :)

P.S. These are all for sale for $25 each. They come matted to 8x8 with a foam backing. Please feel free to forward on to anyone who may be interested! Thanks again.

New Work and Chit Chat

It's March 1 and Spring is just around the corner. I am so ready to see some sunshine! But on to more important things.......ART! I find I spend almost all my time when not at my day job down in the studio. I have been experimenting with some image transfers these past few days. I have only used one so far in a piece. Let me know what you think.

This is a 24 x 30 x 1 1/2, mixed media on canvas. The transfer image doesn't show up really well but I think you can tell where it is. I think it is pretty cool and will be working with more image transfers. This transfer was done with clear packing tape. I will be experimenting with transfers using a variety of things, including clear gesso, clear caulk, some transparency film, etc. I will post something about how each of these different techniques worked for me and how to do them.

A couple of other pieces have been hanging around the studio for quite a while and they finally told me what they needed to be finished.

This is another 30 x 24 x 1 1/2, mixed media on canvas. And the last one I finished up this weekend.

Also, 30 x 24 x 1 1/2, mixed media on canvas. I'm really happy with the way these turned out. This one is hanging in my entry way to my house right now....:)

On another note, I just realized that all the people I'm following (about 190) cannot see my blog if they click on me on their following page. I guess I have to go through every one i'm following one by one and re-set my profile to my Blogger profile. What a pain that is going to be. I was working on some of them and kept getting an error message. ??? I'll get them done slowly but surely.

Well off for now. Until next time.

My Latest Creations

This isn't the best picture, taken from my phone, but you can get an idea of what my latest endeavor has been. There is a show coming up through Couchfire Collective being held at the Ohio Art League called "Touchy Feely". What better use for these old used glove molds that I had sitting around! My son said they looked like gypsy hands and I think I may go with that for a title for the collection. "Gypsy Hands" -- I like it.


I really enjoyed making these. The only thing left to do is attach a wood base to the bottom to give them some stability and I think they are ready for delivery next Saturday. It's a three day show and hopefully the weather clears up and the roads get cleared so that people can get there!

That's all for today. And be careful out there for those of you in the winter storm areas!

Who Am I?

Well, this is my first blog post and sometimes I feel like I'm way behind the times. I'm not the best writer but I'm doing this because I follow a lot of blogs and enjoy connecting with people and watching as they create their art and I hope you will enjoy following my artistic life as well. I am a visual artist creating contemporary modern abstract acrylic paintings and also some mixed media and collage work.

My plan as I go along is to post some step by step posts of my creative process, some posts about my studio, my dog, Gizmo, some techniques I have learned and some other fun day to day stuff. I really am looking forward to making some new friends with this blogging format. I hope you enjoy following me!

Above are some pictures of some recent work. Please feel free to comment!!!