Music and art go together hand in hand, so why not paint your musical instruments? My brass trumpet might be a difficult surface to paint, but my friend Jen's ukulele was perfect! Zombie's aren't really my thing, but Jen wanted a zombie unicorn on her ukulele and this is what she got! (I have a lot of time in the summers when I am off work...) I painted right on the surface of the wood without using a primer or removing the strings, however with a different design the string removal may be necessary. Later I sprayed it with a clear gloss sealer. I added a fun background for the photo so it's more BAM!

I am having a really hard time not posting pictures of things I am making for Christmas presents, so today I am just uploading a preview of part of a painting I am working on. I am still enjoying painting on wood and trying different ways to create textures. So far in this one I have used the extremely technical skill of fingerpainting along with some fun scraping and stamping using cardboard. I don't think I've used a paintbrush yet on this one! 
    One of my goals for 2013 is to have a new solo art show, since it has been too long, so I am trying to post regularly as a way to make sure I am staying on track and create constantly. That brings me to my overall goal for this year (I like 'goals' better than 'resolutions' because I feel more likely to achieve them if they aren't things I have to do, rather things I can aim for.) Last year my goal was to have more patience in terms of all aspects of my life. I think that is still a work in progress for me:) This year, as I was writing 13 goals for 2013 (which easily became 14 and counting) I realized that an overall theme for me this year is consistency. I mean that in terms of all aspects of my life again, but certainly in terms of my creating art and keeping this website updated. I think 'consistency' is a better goal than say "lose 10 lbs" or "make more money". Right?? Hopefully.
   I recently became addicted to an awesome blog called A Beautiful Mess and Elsie and Emma post more than once per day so its always exciting to check up on and read about all the projects they are doing. I am pretty much interested in everything they post so if you're anything like me you'd like the site. You'll probably see that some of my projects have been inspired from their ideas!

                 What are YOUR personal or artistic goals for 2013? 
                                            Please share!

Finally I got to do some Christmas crafts! An easy project -- stockings made of old Christmas sweaters. I only had to sew a few seams if I used the armpit seam of the sweater to form the angle to the foot. I was able to make two stockings out of one sweater if it was big enough. I used the sleeve as the tall part of the stockings so the size of the stockings depended on the size of the sweaters (I used some adult and some kids sized shirts.) For the 'garland' I just braided three different blue yarns, doubled, and added big red beads here and there. The dog one is for Tlell, the dog!