"Her Aura" . . .

Stitched painting, 15" X 25". An experiment in adding text to my work. I love the result!

Red Folk Art Cross . . .

The cross measures 18" X 38". Wood, acrylic paints and embellishments of ceramic medallions and glass and mirror tiles.

An Afternoon at Lago Winery . . .

Today Roy and I visited the wonderful Lago Winery in Jamestown PA. The winery itself is located in a very old barn and has all the rustic appeal of a place in Tuscany. The stone silo on the side of the barn houses an authentic pizza oven brought over from Italy and the pizza is so good! Today we had a Margarita Pizza and a bottle of wine for our mid day meal. Also on the site is a stately old stone building that houses a bed and breakfast. You can read about the winery and the B&B here : www.lagowinery.com Here you can see Roy schmoozing at the tasting bar. This is the outside upper level eating area which is right next to the pizza oven. Here you can see chef/owner Doug with his head in the oven, checking baking progress. The mosaic on the silo continues the theme that is on the bars inside the winery. I have some artwork on display here at Lago Winery and today I sold 5 of my folk art crosses. Not a bad day for Friday the 13th! On the weekends the winery showcases local bands so we will make a point of coming back then. There is a huge performance stage at one end of the building where the entertainment happens. What a really fun day!

A Work in Progress . . .

I don't often show a work in progress because, more often than not, it changes so much that by the time the work is finished, it looks like a different piece! In this case, however, I wanted to show you a technique I think will make this one interesting. I was wanting to add text to the painting/collage. I used a Micron Pigma pen (waterproof) and wrote text using sayings about "wisdom" that I found online. It was not my goal to create text that could actually be read, but to give the illusion of words. I think I accomplished that. I wrote on plain white tissue paper and then attached the pieces of text paper to the painting/collage with Mod Podge. I had taped off parts of the painting to leave a lighter area on which to add the text strips. You do need to be careful when you do this (use a very soft bristle brush) as the tissue paper is quite fragile when it gets wet. On the posiivte side, because of it's fragility, the paper itself seems to just disappear into the background. I encourage you to give this a try if the idea of art text excites you. I think you could probably use this technique in art journals too.