nature

January Blues (and Reds and Yellows, etc.)

Inspiration, Process / By

(posted 01/23/2022)

January is not one of my favorite times of year as a resident of the Snow Belt in Ohio. Cleaning up the holiday decorations, shoveling snow, and struggling to zip up my pants are just not very uplifting moments in my opinion. Observing nature has always been my respite for when I need a boost. A walk in the park, a drive down a country road, looking out the window at the birds or even just watching the snow drifting and falling as the sun rises brings a sense of wonder and excitement to my hibernating state.

I bought a nice digital camera many years ago. I also bought several books on how to use it but honestly never learned about all of its functions. I do like taking photos with it and manipulating them digitally, though. Photopea is an excellent, free web-based photo editor. Since I discovered it, I’ve used it dozens of times. Try it out if you are ever looking for basically a free version of Photoshop. It even has templates for creating banners for social media sites which is always a help when you need to create the best size image for those platforms.

Here are some examples of the types of changes I make to my photos. These pictures were taken from my kitchen window over the last few days. I keep my camera on the counter in case I see some interesting birds when I’m there. I cropped and slightly edited the photos, adjusting mostly size, hue and color saturation. The picture with the black and white bird had a branch in front of the bird’s head, so I used the clone tool to cover the branch with pieces of the surrounding image.

In the next example, I cropped the bird so it was in a more interesting position on the canvas. I also played with saturation and brightness to make it more appealing to my eye.

I plan to use these in encaustic pieces, so you’ll probably see them again in the future. Thanks for looking at one part of my artistic process!

I hope you enjoy the season in whatever way you can. I’ll continue to take photos from the window until the temperature is above freezing.

Auburn Arts District Holiday Market

Events / By

(posted 11/30/2021)

I just finished up a fantastic holiday market hosted by Auburn Arts District and Cleveland Art in my little town, Auburn Township, Ohio. There was a daily admission fee of $10 that paid for appetizers and beverages. They even served food and beer from our local pizza place, bakery, and brewery. Here are some photos of the building and surrounding scenes – a very old, very artistically renovated space which was able to accommodate a dozen or so vendors and hundreds of patrons this past Friday and Saturday.

I had a space upstairs next to a lovely lady selling handmade soaps and a gentleman selling maple syrup goodies. Of course I bought some natural soap as well as some tasty bourbon maple syrup! And, I purchased a beautiful print from a nature/animal artist who was also among the group upstairs. Here’s a video of my setup.

Wolf Pup Studio LLC

And here is another short video showing some of the beautiful handmade glassware sold by Cleveland Art.

Cleveland Art Glassware

I sold quite a few encaustic pieces, but more jewelry and ornaments than I had ever sold. Some of my favorite pieces incorporated vintage buttons and beads. It was so nice that people liked and appreciated my unique jewelry creations. I began making them many years ago when I was at home full time raising my daughter. I never sold many on Etsy because of all the competition, so it was a great feeling to finally sell most of the pieces that have been in my studio for many years.

My relatives and friends came and bought some art too, so I’m really grateful for their support as well. It was a wonderful feeling to recognize their faces as they arrived.

Before the sale, my goal was to make enough money to buy myself a new printer, and that’s just what I’m doing this week. And, as always, to give back to my community I made a donation to NAMI of Geauga County today. It really is the best part of selling my work!

I have listed all my work on Etsy again for now. If you want to attend their next Holiday Market, it is planned for December 10 & 11, 2021. I will not be there, as I only signed up for one, but I’m looking forward to being among the vendors at an event again next year at this warm and eclectic space.