Mysterious Amy

My good friend Jennie recently showed me some pictures she'd taken of her friends at a gathering. I like Jennie's work. She's got a great eye and her lighting is thoughtful and accents the work. But one photo in general, really stuck with me. It was a photo of her friend Amy and the pose, the expression and the lighting all reminded me of a classic portrait. I thought it was beautiful, capturing an interesting expression. The image stayed with me and I decided that I would like to try to work a mosaic using it as the inspiration. Jennie gave me the photo to use and this is the result. Thanks Jennie. And thanks Amy. I hope you guys like it.

Here's the original photo.



And here's my mosaic version.

Houses

So, a while ago I found this supply of wooden houses for an unreasonably low price. I bought as many as I could imagine a) justifying the cost and b) justifying the space to store until I figured out what the heck I was going to do with them. I do tend to hoard my favorite supplies, something I'm trying to get over.

So I started out by painting a few of them and then they sat around in my studio for a while, trying to guilt me into working on them by being just cool little houses. But this week, this week I finally found the idea for a couple of them and now I'm sort of kicking myself that I didn't get more of the houses when I could.

Still, these are a great start.

This first one is called Sea House. I painted it, this mottled blue/green, intending all along for it to be a sea theme, but it wasn't until I added the papers at the back of the niches that I started thinking about what I wanted to put on the front panel. I am just so pleased with my saucy little mermaid.


The second I'm calling Tea House. I started out with an idea of using tea bag labels for shingles for the house. The tea pot handle and spout were a splendid accident and I love the miniature tea cup. I was very inspired by some recent research I've been doing into steampunk art and Victorian looking stuff.