marie antoinette and her ship hairdo, part 2

this is one of my sketchbook pages from a few years back.   this is the image that got me dreaming about a print with marie antoinette and the ship in her hair.  that particular sketchbook had a library pocket on each page, and there was an interactive part that you had to pull.  as you can see, the hair grew taller, taller, taller, and was topped off with a sailing ship.  i guess a trend was started in 1778 when the french frigate "la belle poule" was victorious, and it started a hair trend with the ladies of the court.  they wore enormous poufs with scaled down ships as the crowning embellishment.  

anyway, i think the print is close to finished.  it came out very 60's looking for some reason. so now i have decided the next one in the series will be similar, but with a huge beehive instead.  funny how 200 years later the styles kind of repeated themselves.  no ship in the 20th century, but still quite the fashion statement.

here she is:

is it me, or am i the only one who keeps remembering that old herb alpert album?

marie antoinette and her ship hairdo

a few years ago i did an altered book with an image of marie antoinette with her infamous ship hairdo.  the other night, i had a dream that i should make a print with that image.  i'm in the process now.  finished the background (french wallpaper design) and two layers of ms. marie.  two more colors coming soon.  i know it's a bit girly, but i just couldn't ignore my dream.  she is about 11x17 inches.

ms. marie, sans ship

the sketch

french wallpaper

background with 2 layers

more to come

harbinger

the wind has finally let up here in colorado.  this pushed me to go out in the sunshine to get a bit of vitamin D this morning.  what i didn't expect to find was this!  the crocus are in full glory on my south faced garden.  i also spied two lady bugs, but the wouldn't sit still long enough for me to photograph them.  it always makes me smile to see the first glimpse of spring!

i think the warm weather (and the promise of this very snowy winter being over) has my head full of new ideas.  pinterest has also been helpful.  i have seen some incredible art there lately.  it's such a great treasure trove of images!  but i am also slightly standoffish to pinterest.  a friend emailed me an article that made me wonder if the venue is safe.  when you sign on, there is lots of fine print you need to read and ponder.  for the average person pinning some recipes or craft ideas, it seems pretty innocuous.  but when i read the part that said:

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

so that basically means that if i post my art on pinterest, they have a royalty-free license to use my work in any way they would like (even to sell it) for the rest of eternity??

then there is this part:

... you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms.

so now, what i am getting is that they are telling me if i post someone else's work or content, i need to have the consent of the artist?  oh my gosh.  something to really think about, huh?  i don't want to be paranoid, but isn't that kinda scary?  i would love to hear your comments about this.  in the meantime, i took down all of my pins until i can decide what to do.

here is a link to the article that was sent to me.  please check it out!

Read more: http://technorati.com/social-media/article/pinterest-users-need-to-read-the/page-2/#ixzz1nnjy9IKG

i think i'm gonna go back to the garden now.  i need to clear out my head from thinking about the internet.  i'm sure the flowers will get me back in the mood to focus on making art.

underwear

i've been printing away.  three new ones complete, another 2 in the trash.  at least i'm keeping more than i am throwing away!!

anyway, one of the new ones:

taking a break

i haven't really done a lick of work this week.  we left last saturday for taos (see photos above), and were welcomed with some new fallen snow.  it was beautiful.  since john has been out of snowboarding so far this winter due to his back, we hung out at the house for 4 days.  my son ben and his friend scott ended up being the ski area residents without john.

the good news is that john and i can't possibly sit still for 4 days.  so we painted our bedroom, which has been on the "to do" list for years.  so the pink walls are now taupe-y (ben says we traded light beige for dark beige.)  for those of you who are color oriented, that small change from light (and warm) beige to dark (and cool) beige is a game changer.  the room feels cozy now, and the new mexican details in the room now pop instead of blend in like before.  i only took one photo, and it's not too great, but here is a picture of the pink-turned-taupe in action:

hopefully i will get some better photos one day.  i'm not too great in the room documentation department.

if you look closely, you can see that the vigas (beams) on the ceiling used to be almost the same tone as the walls.  so even though they were up there, and beautiful, they were almost lost.  now the contrast allows them to shine.  i love that!! by the way, we learned if you move the ladder without remembering there is a whirring fan on the ceiling, it makes quite a large clatter!

okay, time to get back to art making.  all of this home improvement is taking me away from my "real" job!!

getting better??

here's my print from the last post again today.  it's changed quite a bit, as you can see.  i have added a lot of reflection on the glass.  not sure about this one.  i hate the lid.  i think i gotta put it away for a while and look at it with new eyes in a few days.  then i will decide if it's destined for the cut-up collage bin or not.  

it's making me crazy.
sometimes posting a piece helps me see what i don't like, or what i need to change.  i think you can't see it anymore in the studio as you are working.  you are too close, and too familiar.  putting it out there lets you see it from another perspective.  e gads.  as i keep looking, that lid is turning into a blob monster.

jar full of...

fireflies

newest monoprint.  6 colors, 12x19 inches.

taken on my iphone, so a tiny bit blurry.

i'll repost a better pic when it dries!