Unusual Girl Studios

Here's a current pic of the figurine/statue/sculpture I have been working on. They are a bit overexposed- the lighting in the pool room is not wonderful at 8:30 in the a.m. Instead of packing to go to Las Vegas I had to put one more coat of color and a very heavy coat of gesso on her- just to get that last glimpse before I put her up for a week. It's very hard to tear myself away from my projects and it's hard to be "done" even if its just for the day. My kids go hungry (don't fear, the little monkeys just climb the cabinets and raid the lunch snacks, I am sure they make healthy choices...)the house gets messier, my husband hates me. Its all in the name of art, right? I really need to be alone, all alone in my studio. The one in the middle of a field of daisies, filled with beautiful summer sun light and precious quiet except for the occasional twitter of a bird that floats in on a soft, sweet breeze. The breeze that tempts and teases me outside along with ...

So after two weeks of racing home to my computer I have the book formatted. I have always wanted to use Kayla's drawings somehow. Kayla is my niece who has lived with us since she was three. She is very ADHD and very smart and quite artistic. Her drawings have always fascinated me because they are so detailed and go off in strange directions. They became the illustrations for the book. I took them into my Print Shop (by Broderbund - if you are wondering) program and added color, cleaned them up and moved them around a bit. The program allows you to do quite a bit with backgrounds and such but I really tried to leave the spirit of the drawing alone. For the cover I first tried paper mache over top of an inkjet image from my computer. The problem I run into is colorfastness with the ink. I think I may have a solution- there is a paper backed fabric that you can run through your printer. I am looking into it. Other wise I am left with stenciling or stamping or...I don...