I have been SO bad about posting anything in, what (??) a MONTH?!! Wow, time flies. My family and I spent a week this summer camping in the Adirondacks, got back and kids needed to be taken to the pool, to the park, to the beach, to friends and so on. We had a lovely visit from our nephew for a week, and again to the pool, to the park, to the beach. It seems like it is taking tremendous effort to get back in the swing of things! On the one hand it feels like lazy summer days, and on the other it feels like we have been quite busy. So, since I haven't contacted anyone to feature in awhile, I think I am just going to put up a few photos of portraits I drew up in the last few weeks to fill in.
This is a portrait of a lovely friend in Vermont with her child. I did an "okay" likeness. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but I like the colors. I think they both look better in person. This is oil pencil and oil pastel done on white silk. I stretched it over a piece of heavy watercolor paper and taped it down so it can be framed. It's 11" x 14".
This portrait, I think, is a slightly better likeness, and I like the colors as well. I had a heck of a time with the guitar (which is a constant prop for this particular individual and therefore completely pertinent) for this, so kind of fudged it a bit. I am not that great with objects. But I think it turned out pretty well.
I like this portrait a lot, because of the colors. I think the children are a pretty good likeness, though I don't think the boy on the left is quite that "cheeky" in the British sense of the word, but I like how it came out anyway. I think the mom looks prettier than this in person, but I really struggled with it for some reason. I like how it came out overall. I think the boy on the right looks about that sweet, so is a good likeness.
Hope you are all busy creating lovely things, or at least enjoying the summer weather. I am finishing up a doll for a competition that I hope to post (though at the moment I am having a love/hate relationship with this particular doll) in a week or 2. Hope to be back on schedule by end of month. Enjoy these sunny days!
What every creative person needs is their own fan club. Having a young, hip, decidedly cutting-edge fan club is quite the best, dontcha think? It assures your longevity as an artist and just makes you feel warm all over :)
Meet my next fabulous friend, the Marvelous, Multi-talented Merle Pace, AKA Rowan DeVoe de Le Fresne Chateau. She actually calls it a "castle", but I like rhymes :) Merle has her own fan club. REALLY! I am now a card-holding member.
Okay, perhaps I am not that young, hip or cutting edge. But certainly in my own mind I am all the rage! Merle is a lovely gal, whom her fans love, and she's also quite beautiful (she will fiercely deny it), and nice, too. She's letting me join the club.
I know Merle because my friend Ivy introduced us. It turns out Merle and I have some things in common. We both make dolls, for one. We both love mermaids and fairies and believe in them, too. We both like bright colors and fancy shoes. She believes a fine lady should wear a crown, tiara or other mark of royalty. I believe each one should wear a hat.
Where Merle stands out, though, is in the amazing number of materials and processes she has mastered to evolve her impossible to imitate, singular style.
Merle is a self-portrait artist/photographer. She belongs to a group called The Female Self Portrait Artists Support Group. They put out books featuring self-portraits created by their members. Merle is included in their works: "She Took Her Own Picture" (http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/312943)and "In her Own Image." 
To be honest, before meeting Merle, I didn't even realize there was such a thing as a self-portrait artist.
I had no idea there were so many talented people working in that genre. Apparently I don't get out much!
Merle also paints. In that arena, she is unbelievably prolific. Her paintings, which I ADORE, are a bit hard to describe. You really just have to see them.
Merle's paintings impart the imagery of folklore, fantasy and magic, of cats and ravens. She draws from the Gothic and Greek, Roman and Egyptian, Medieval and Pre-Raphaelite, and even Art Nouveau, mixing them together to create her own very unique style. Her colors are sometimes vivid, sometimes muted, sometimes blackened. She uses an array of materials to create her original paintings. The base is done primarily with watercolors. She may add gouache, metallic inks, pastels, and/or colored pencils to the mix. She tells me she has made paintings using even Crayola!
She also makes monotypes, creating rich, deep colored monotype prints with her own printing press. Apparently this is a very complicated "312-step" process, as she has explained it to me 3 times and I still haven't grasped it!
From either of these processes, she will also make smaller reproductions onto archival paper that she then decoupages onto plaques of found wood, adding bits of
this and that to fancy them up further. They nearly jump out at you, depicting kings and queens and saints and cats.
Merle also creates dolls.
They are art dolls for serious collectors. They are intended to hold their own space and not the type of doll to be placed on a shelf. In some ways they are more sculptures.
She has done a series of birdcage ladies that combine her ability to paint, sculpt, sew and many other things. They were shown last year at the Indianpolis Art Center at her show "Love, Loss, Resurrection." If you are lucky, you can catch her work there from time to time.
As usual I've rambled on for my bit. I really just want you to see Merle's incredible work. I hope it inspires you to do your own. So, I'm going to leave you with some more photos to tantalize and arouse your interest.
Please check out all of Merle's available work at her Etsy site,
(http://www.pascal4aqua.etsy.com)
her blog
(http://www.rowandevoe.blogspot.com)
and her website
http://www.merleart.com/ArtistBio.html).
She's put out an amazing amount of work, some of it for sale. She is also happy to do custom work for those of you who require something in particular. 
Keep on cranking out the good stuff! Thanks, Merle, for making the world so much more interesting! You rock!
This is a portrait of a lovely friend in Vermont with her child. I did an "okay" likeness. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but I like the colors. I think they both look better in person. This is oil pencil and oil pastel done on white silk. I stretched it over a piece of heavy watercolor paper and taped it down so it can be framed. It's 11" x 14".
This portrait, I think, is a slightly better likeness, and I like the colors as well. I had a heck of a time with the guitar (which is a constant prop for this particular individual and therefore completely pertinent) for this, so kind of fudged it a bit. I am not that great with objects. But I think it turned out pretty well.
I like this portrait a lot, because of the colors. I think the children are a pretty good likeness, though I don't think the boy on the left is quite that "cheeky" in the British sense of the word, but I like how it came out anyway. I think the mom looks prettier than this in person, but I really struggled with it for some reason. I like how it came out overall. I think the boy on the right looks about that sweet, so is a good likeness.
