New website and blog

The website is live! http://www.nightengailart.com/

The new url for the blog is: http://www.nightengailart.com/blog/

5 years in the making...

I finally completed our collages from our trip to Japan in 2006. It was a fun process, even if it was very start-and-stop.

I used matte medium to decoupage the bits and pieces of the receipts and maps and ticket stubs from our trip, then used colored pencil over the textured acrylic. Once done, I sealed the colored pencil with more matte medium, which caused it to blend together more while remaining transparent enough to see the collage below.

Black Belt!

Us and our awesome instructors!

6 months without art classes but with many super-intense training sessions and the hubby and I have achieved our black belts! (Although we need to wait for the official certificate.) I'm proud of our accomplishments, but I'm also excited to get back to having more art in my life again. I am going to thoroughly enjoy the upcoming holiday season, and then jump back into art classes after the start of the new year.

In between now and then, I have a couple of personal projects that I've been wanting to work on/finish, so look forward to artwork to come!

Happy Birthday Bella

Happy birthday to a most wonderful niece and Goddaughter! You are growing up too quickly!

Christmas project

I'm currently working on a new art project unlike anything I've been working on in the past couple of years. It's for all our Christmas gifts, but I don't want to say what it is just yet because I know some of the recipients read this blog.

I will give one major hint. To help speed this project up, I had to buy a new toy: a Dremmel! Woohoo! I was very excited about this, since I've been wanting one for a while. If I had a Dremmel in October, I probably would have carved a pumpkin based on my Proverb sketch. Maybe I will next year.

My husband was vastly amused by the stereotypical gender role reversal: the female member of the family was more excited about the purchase of power tools than the male member.

More ripples!

#465

#466 (SOLD)

I had so much fun with the ripplesketches that I did two more. I did have a bit of computer trouble, so I got delayed in both scanning and posting them. In fact, I got them on the ripplesketches site before my own blog, so I already have one of them sold, #466, my farewell shrimp. Thanks Ursula!

I am amazed at the turnout in participation over at the ripplesketch blog, both from artists contributing time, creativity, and art, and from the people donating to the foundations. Over 500 pieces of artwork and over $3,000 raised so far! Our online community rocks!

My sketch sold!

Woohoo! My Illustration Friday sketch for ripple sketches was number 202 and it sold! Thanks Laya!

So far the Illustration Friday community has helped raise over $1500, which is a fantastic ripple. Another great big thank you to Kelly Light, who organized this fantastic project and probably didn't anticipate the extent of the response from the community.

My husband is awesome!

Yay! He got my site running again. Huzzah for the husband!